Guantanamo

Last evening, Tuesday evening, the women in the Pink House were fortunate to have an opportunity to speak with an informed source about the first person witness accounts of the true conditions in Guantanamo that this person has seen during visits to the base.

The horrors continue.

There is a feeling among those who go to Guantanamo to meet with prisoners that due to the military courts that are soon to commence, the rate and severity of torture will intensify again so as to gain testimony.

The open to the elements cages are gone, but that is a mixed improvement, at best, as now many prisoners are in severe solitary confinement without windows, without options to exercise, and without any contact with daylight. These men have no contact with anyone who is not involved with questioning them except for that annual visit that may or may not happen.

Many Guantanamo prisoners are refusing the special treats, favorite foods and such during the once a year re-evaluation sessions. These men have lapsed into total despair and paranoia.

Psychiatrists are being used. Adel Hamad

I guess the good news is that no more children are imprisoned at Guantanamo. There were children there and they were treated just like the adults. The youngest Guantanamo prisoner was a child of 10.The youngest prisoner is now around 20 years of age. He would have been around 15 when detained.

The purported acts that were the reasons for detention no longer make up the argument for continued imprisonment. The annual review of each case (which is sometimes overlooked or forgotten) is an assessment of whether the person is of future danger to the U.S. should he be released. Of course after 5 years of torture those individuals who have not yet gone mad do want vengence.

Many of the remaining 300+ prisoners are from Bosnia as well as Afghanistan. Of course we discussed the sweeps that were made to round up everyone within a certain area that contained farmers as well as Taliban, the $10,000 U.S. plus bounty that was paid to informants for turning someone in to the U.S. forces in a country where the yearly income is one to two hundred dollars.

The word atrocity doesn’t begin to describe the horror of the injustices committed in our name in the past and at the present time in Guantanamo and other secret prisons.

We also spoke of the need to stop the flights that begin in N. Carolina and Georgia that spirit U.S. targets of interest in Europe and elsewhere away to other secret prisons and torture chambers.

The plan to put a face on this horrific injustice was explained by a Pink woman who has and suggests that we all demonstrate with orange jump suits, black torture hoods, and the number 940 that has been given to Adel Hamad, a Guantanamo prisoner who has a particularly poignant story of injustice.