Letter to US Ambassador on Guantanamo

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Monday October 10, 2005 15:49 by Justin Morahan - Peace People

Hunger strikes, forced feeding, torture

This letter was sent to United States Ambassador James Kenny at the US Embassy, Elgin Road, Dublin earlier this afternoon

To: Ambassador James Kenny
United States Embassy
Elgin Road
Dublin

Dear Ambassador

Further to my telephone conversation on Monday last with your secretary, Ms Jean Rylands, I would like to record the substance of our conversation.

I raised a number of issues concerning the prisoners in Guantanamo for transmission to you as a matter of urgency and as there has been no response from you in the intervening time, I would like now to put the issues raised and my concerns about them in writing.

1) the number of hunger-strikers at that date was known to be 128. Most of these had been on strike since 8 August 2005. The Washington Post had reported in September this year that the hunger-strikers were protesting their indefinite imprisonment and "beatings by the prison's Immediate Response Force"

2) In November 2004, the New York Times reported that the International Red Cross (in a report that the New York Times had seen) accused the United States military of using tactics "tantamount to torture" on prisoners in Guantanamo.

3) Captain John Adams of the Guantanamo Base has confirmed in September (BBC news 13 September 2005 ) that 13 inmates were being force fed through tubes in the nose.

4) In July 2003 and again on 19 September 2003 I had written to your Embassy (Ms Jean Benton Fort) expressing my own fears concerning tactics such as these (or torture) being used in Guantanamo. And in a reply of 14 October 2003 by ordinary mail, your then Public Affairs Officer (Morgan Kaulla) wrote that President Bush had said that these detainees were to be treated humanely in line with the Geneva Conventions

5) Even if the prisoners in Guantanamo were not POWs, all prisoners are protected by the United States Constitution's prohibition against the use of cruel and unusual punishment

6) A recently quoted example (given by Jack White, staff writer at the Washington Post, 14 July 2005): A stubborn internee had been forced to wear women's underwear on his head and confronted (terrified) by snarling dogs.

7) I asked the question: Why should an independent monitoring group such as the International Red Cross be obliged to keep its findings CONFIDENTIAL in order to receive permission to continue its monitoring?

I have not received the anticipated reply to these questions or concerns.

On Saturday last, 8 October 2005, the "silenced" International Committee of the Red Cross has again expressed concern while reports to Amnesty International indicate that 200 prisoners are now on hunger strike, 21 of these being force fed while they remain shackled 24 hours a day to stop them from pulling out feeding tubes. We are talking now of innocent people who have been detained without charge or trial for up to three years. The possibility or probability that among them there may be terrorists yet to be charged or found guilty in no way diminishes the crime the United States is perpetrating on all of these prisoners by using these inhuman and barbaric conditions of internment without trial.

The attempt by the United States to diminish the hunger strike by calling it a "voluntary fast" has been condemned by Amnesty International as an effort to minimise the seriousness of what is happening. The International Committee of the Red Cross has also contradicted this euphemistic use of language. "There is a hunger strike, the situation is serious, and we are following it with concern," ICRC spokeswoman Antonella Notari said on Friday last.

I paste here a statement from one of those detainees. It has the stamp of truth. If what this young man has written is even substantially true (and I believe it is wholly true) then the United States Government, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush and US prison controllers in Guantanamo and elsewhere as well as other US citizens who know of these happenings, have serious questions to answer regarding their abuse of human rights.

“I am Binyam Mohammed. I am 27 years old. I was seized by the Americans on April 10, 2002, and I have been held by them since. They took me forcibly to Morocco where I endured 18 months of torture from July 21, 2002, to January 21, 2004. I was then taken by the Americans to Afghanistan and, on September 19, 2004, to Guantánamo Bay.

All this time the conditions of my confinement have been a nightmare. Along with other U.S. prisoners, I have been routinely humiliated and abused and constantly lied to. We were very, very patient here in Guantánamo. But finally enough was enough, and in late June we organized a strike across the prison. People refused food and water, some for over 20 days, and became so weak they were hospitalized. They refused an I.V. drip and the doctor told them that he could not force them to take sustenance even if they were in a coma. He had the people in the hospital confirm twice, before witnesses, that they refused resuscitation if it came to that.

The administration eventually agreed, if we stopped the hunger strike, to negotiate on good faith. I had not eaten for just four days but I had been very weak and fallen down. The administration promised that if we gave them ten days, they would bring the prison into compliance with the Geneva Conventions. They said this had been approved by Donald Rumsfeld himself in Washington, D.C. As a result of these promises, we agreed to end the strike on July 28th, 2005.

It is now August 11th, 2005. They have betrayed our trust (again). Hisham from Tunisia was savagely beaten in his interrogation, and they public[ly] desecrated the Qur’an (again). Saad from Kuwait was ERF’d (Emergency Reaction Force) for refusing to go (again) to interrogation because the female interrogator had sexually humiliated him (again) for 5 1/2 hours. Omar the kid from Canada was ERF’d (again) for refusing to go to another illegal interrogation.

Therefore the strike must begin again. Some have already begun – 150 have begun in Camps I, II & III. 60 people in Camp V begin today. I will begin tomorrow – Friday, August 12th, 2005. I do not plan to stop until I either die or we are respected. People will definitely die. We ask only for justice: treat us, as promised, under the rules of the Geneva Conventions for Civilian Prisoners while we are held, and either try us fairly for a valid criminal charge or set us free.”

There is other extremely disturbing and terrifying evidence of torture after rendition on these and other prisoners of your President's "war on terror".

As a human being I am demanding that your Government stop the torture of human beings, close down Camp 5 where most abuses have happened, open Guantanamo (until it too is closed down) to continual, random, independent and unhindered inspection by recognised human rights organisations who are free to report their findings to the world; also under international inspection give new guarantees to the hunger strikers that their human rights will be respected and allow similar international inspection to guarantee that this time your word is your bond.

In addition, hunger strikers and other ill prisoners must be given proper hospital treatment under similar international watch, compensation must be paid to partially recompense those who have been abused (since full compensation can never be made) and charges must be immediately filed against, and trials expedited for those for whom, if any, you have evidence of criminal activity. All others being immediately released to full freedom or the hospital treatment mentioned above. It goes without saying that rendition, torture, rendition flights and/or torture flights must end absolutely. And Guantanamo/Camp David, now a symbol of opprobrium worldwide, must be permanently closed.

With best personal wishes

Justin Morahan
Dublin Representative of the Peace People
Dublin 16
10 October 2005