Pentagon holding dozens of mentally ill prisoners  From Granma International

MANY testimonies confirm it: the Pentagon is holding dozens of mentally ill prisoners affected by traumas resulting from maltreatment, abuse and torture suffered at the hands of their interrogators on the Guantánamo base. The Pentagon has already made it public that it is to construct a complementary new prison at a cost of $25 million and “a psychiatric treatment wing,” for $1.7 million, thus confirming the gravity of the situation and its intention to keep the worst affected prisoners in detention.

Many will recall the movie Midnight Express, based on a real incident, which narrated, with a script by Oliver stone, the dramatic story of Billy Hayes, a US tourist kidnapped in Istanbul and held in a sinister maximum-security prison.

Since the first prisoners arrived on Guantánamo chained to the floor of a cargo plane on December 11, 2002, to be locked in cells described by their occupants as cages, the troops in charge of Guantánamo have turned the place into a US version of the fevered world described by the film.

The concentration camp for “suspected terrorists” created on that illegally occupied US base on Cuban territory, has now been in existence for three years and its cages still hold more than 500 prisoners from some 40 countries, many of them with serious mental conditions, the overwhelming majority unidentified, without legal recourse, without any contact with the outside world, with no hope of being released.

The image of shackled prisoners lying in their own excrement for long periods is the latest version received via testimonies of the abuse that is leading to the insanity of a large number of those human beings locked up in totally inhumane conditions on the illegal base.

The exposés filtering out of Guantánamo include those of a mentally affected British prisoner who recounted to lawyer Clive Stafford Smith how he was tortured for reciting verses of the Koran when talking was forbidden, according to the British Observer newspaper. Among other forms of abuse that, according to the lawyer, has had consequences for his mental health, Moazzam Begg was tormented via a technique taught to Latin American torturers over the years by the CIA and known as estrapado, which consists of suspending the victim from a bar until his wrists are cut. In his 30-plus-page report to the British authorities, Smith confirms that Begg also suffered various forms of sexual abuse.

The lawyer, the author on reports on the use of the death penalty, stated on his return that he had never felt so depressed visiting the death rows in US penitentiaries as he did after just four days on the Guantánamo X-Rays camp. He explained how the detainees that he visited are living in tiny cells where half the space is reserved for sessions of those brutal interrogations and described the conditions of detention as terribly shocking.

(Being British citizens, Moazzam Begg, Feroz Abbasi, Martin Mubanga and Richard Belmar were transferred to their country on Tuesday, January 24.)

HOW MUCH LONGER WITH THAT IGNOMINY?

“I don’t know if this will go on four or five years more,” Lieutenant General Jay Hood, who heads the controversial camp, recently informed AP with all the ingenuousness of a satisfied hangman.

Even more disconcertingly, US government officials coldly stated to the Washington Post a little while back that they were drawing up plans for the indefinite imprisonment of detainees.

The daily noted that the Pentagon and the CIA have asked the White House for a permanent solution that includes possible life terms in the new prison being constructed for hundreds of prisoners who have not been charged for lack of evidence and probably will never be brought before a military tribunal. As the peak of cynicism, the authors of the proposal assure that the State Department will supervise respect for the prisoners’ human rights.

With the announcement of the construction of a psychiatric treatment wing, one would suppose that they are prioritizing the permanent detention of prisoners suffering from mental disorders.

In December, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) revealed how FBI agents had exposed how Defense Department interrogators were committing multiple abuses on detainees in Guantánamo with the direct authorization of President George W. Bush, although a long time after those of Abu Ghraib.

The reports confirm cases of strangulation and blows, acts of torture like placing lighted cigarettes in prisoners’ ears, chaining hand and foot in a fetal position on the floor for up to 24 hours – in many cases on their own fecal matter – in  conditions of extreme temperatures, music played at full blast and constant flashing lights.

In August last year, Captain Steve Edmondson, a doctor at the base, admitted that some 10% of the 585 prisoners on the base at that time were suffering from “mental disorders.”

COLLECTIVE SUICIDE ATTEMPT CONFIRMED

For its part, the Pentagon acknowledged a few days ago that 23 detainees on Guantánamo had tried to hang themselves when, according to Jim Marshall, spokesman for the Southern Command, they were trying to change camp operations. Others reports from the US soldiers say that there were more than 30 suicide attempts in 2003.

However, according to the agency cables, the officer described the events between August 18-26, 2003 as simultaneous attempts at hanging or strangulation.

In 1978, Midnight Express described the prison nightmare experienced by prisoner Hayes: the lack of hygiene, the overcrowding, the constant humiliation, the beatings and the cruelty of the guards, while he was thousands of miles from his home in a prison converted into a lunatic asylum. The film horrified millions of spectators worldwide.

Today, the Guantánamo prisoners are living out another diabolical script, the limit of which is doubtless that “indefinite” detention of the mentally ill, this time by hangmen who have received the blessing of the chief of the White House and his advisors.