Guantanamo, Fortress of the Absurd

Le Figaro

Monday 27 February 2006

The "prison for terrorists" resists international pressure and the efforts of the American legal system. For how long?
A New York judge has just ordered the Pentagon to reveal the names of the Guantanamo detainees before March 3. The Bush administration has decided not to appeal. Thus, for the first time, a corner of the veil of secrecy that surrounds the residents of this prison will be lifted.

A soldier crosses the gravel esplanade, waving to an old man with a white beard. The man, barefoot under a long white tunic, returns the gesture. One would say two old friends separated only by the barbed wire, the ranks of wire fencing and the watchtowers.

Four years after the opening of the Guantanamo "prison for terrorists," some 490 detainees are still held there. They've been transferred into more modern installations, for it's been a long time since the metal cages of "Camp X-Ray" were abandoned to the weeds. An ultra-modern high security center has been built for 16 million dollars, another one, twice as large, for 31 million dollars, is in the process of construction. About 260 "enemy combatants" have been liberated over these many months, with no more explanation than when they were incarcerated. Only ten have been designated for courts martial, trials for "war crimes," only now begun. The other detainees have no defined future.

Anti-Noise Barriers

The soldiers who control Guantanamo, an American enclave on the island of Cuba, exhibit the improvements that have been made to the "detention center." In Camp Number 5, a refrigerated concrete bunker opened in April 2004, automatic doors and closed circuit television have replaced a number of guards. The cells have gained something in terms of comfort and space, even if the incarceration universe has taken over from the country feel of the first installations. The interrogation room shown to journalists sports a comfortable arm chair for the detainee, a low table, and a television. This little sitting room where "interviews" take place also has anti-sound barriers on the walls, because "it echoes a lot."

Compared to a first visit in December 2003, all the changes observed at Guantanamo suggest a process of digging in for the long term. Made of concrete like the two latest prisoner enclosures, a secured General Headquarters houses General Jay Hood, commandant for the base, and intelligence experts. Four wind turbines have been added to the powerhouse to supply a civilian and military population that has quadrupled since 2002 (to 7,800). Communications have also been refined: Lorie, the "security officer" in civilian clothes, attends interviews with soldiers, reducing them to silence with a frown, before censoring certain photos taken of the base. "We've gotten smarter," she says by way of explanation.

Have they really? What hasn't changed at Guantanamo is the whole logic of the absurd that envelops the operation. Absurd, not because there is no reason for this fortress's existence: some detainees are proven jihadists "who would kill you on the spot if they could," says General Hood. Absurd because this little island apart from the world has its own laws that evade all common sense. The concept of a "mistake" has not yet crossed through its bars in spite of the liberations, the low number of indictments, the accusations of abuse, the suicide attempts, the hunger strikes. "All the detainees are here for good reason," the General asserts. But not one is there for a "good reason," a reason that only the justice system could confer.

Today, the third session of "Military Commissions" opens. These are made-to-measure tribunals created by the Pentagon after the US Supreme Court acknowledged the detainees' right to a trial. They feature judges in uniform, jurors with at least the rank of colonel, and military lawyers who denounce an arbitrary procedure. Several of the latter are Reservists, lawyers in civilian life who fear being disbarred if they participate in this exceptional legal system. Detainees incur the death penalty, and most of them refuse to cooperate.

The Commissions are an ineffective obstacle because other breaches crack this fortress initially conceived to remain beyond the reach of any legal process. Close to 200 appeals have been lodged before civilian courts in the name of the fundamental right to contest one's own detention, a right recognized and acknowledged for "enemy combatants" in June 2004. In response, last December, Congress adopted an amendment that deprives prisoners of that option up until a hypothetical condemnation. Appealed to, the Supreme Court has decided to examine the entire system of Military Commissions at the end of March. Will American civilian justice recapture Guantanamo?

"A Temporary Anomaly"

It has, perhaps, a better chance than international pressure, which has so far remained unrequited. After a UN report demanding Guantanamo's closure, two United States allies brought their own chisels to bear on the Pentagon's penal edifice. Guantanamo is "a temporary anomaly," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "It must be closed as soon as possible," deems his Italian counterpart, Silvio Berlusconi, expected tomorrow in Washington and offered the rare honor of a speech before Congress. Their voices will no doubt weigh no more heavily that that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose criticisms were brushed aside by George Bush in January.

Yet this prison with no convicted prisoners poses a problem that is above all political. None of the questions that Guantanamo raises finds a satisfactory response on this island tip abandoned to the Cold War. If "the hardest of al-Qaeda's hard core are here," as General Hood asserts, why were 260 of them liberated with no other form of trial and why are they preparing to do the same for another 119? "They've exhausted their intelligence value and no longer represent a threat to the United States," explains the Guantanamo commandant. Is that tantamount to admitting their innocence? Far from it: "Several ex-prisoners have returned to the battlefield and fourteen were even recaptured in Afghanistan."

Eight Percent al-Qaeda Fighters

In the absence of a trial, the detainees have the right to an annual "administrative review council" to evaluate "their dangerousness and their usefulness as a source of intelligence. Liberating enemies during a conflict is unprecedented," they insist at "Gitmo." But Pentagon statistics indicate that only 45% of prisoners have committed a "hostile act" towards the United States and that barely 8% are "al-Qaeda combatants." "Not true," General Hood storms. "These individuals are launched in a holy war," comments Captain John Adams. "If you want to take them back to Paris with you, that would be an interesting experiment."

The last line of defense for Guantanamo is that precious intelligence is still being gathered there after four years of imprisonment. "After the London attacks in July 2005, we transmitted information that helped prevent terrorist attacks in France and Germany," asserts Major Jeffrey Weir. "However," he emphasizes, "most interrogations have become conversations - rather boring ones, actually." Everything is done "with strictest respect for the military handbook," guarantees General Hood. "No one is tortured in any way." His predecessor, Geoffrey Miller, had exported Guantanamo techniques to Abu Ghraib, in Iraq. He requested early retirement after refusing to testify at the trials of soldiers accused of having used dogs against detainees.

Jay Hood asserts that the "24 stress techniques" authorized in April 2002 by Donald Rumsfeld are no longer used at Guantanamo. "They were only involved in a small number of interrogations at the very beginning," he assures me. One of the guinea pigs, Mohammed al-Kahtani, a Saudi identified by the FBI as "the 20th [September 11] hijacker," was subjected to 160 days of isolation in a cell that was constantly flooded with light and 48 consecutive days of interrogations, threatened by dogs, stripped, or forced to wear women's underwear. These methods would not be unknown to the 22 detainees who have committed 37 suicide attempts, none successful so far. Close to 18% of prisoners are being treated for psychiatric problems.

Hunger Strike

The absence of any light at the end of the tunnel annuls all the soldiers' efforts to project the image of a "model prison." Last August, 75 lodgers began a hunger strike. They were 131 in mid-September and 84 at Christmas, "protesting their indefinite detention," admits Catie Hanft, who commands the prison. Of the five Camp Delta enclosures, only Camp Number 4, reserved for "docile" detainees, has escaped this epidemic. General Hood then ordered 25 "retention chairs" for force-feeding the strikers via 3.2mm diameter tubes inserted into the nose. Six hunger strikers remain under the care of the prison doctor, a Navy Captain who does not reveal his name for fear of reprisals.

The Red Cross opposes these methods, but "I won't let anyone hurt themselves under my watch," spells out General Hood. It's only one of the innumerable paradoxes of the place, where the soldiers are convinced that "they contribute to the security of the United States." "If I had to go to prison, I'd want it to be here," Major Weir goes so far as to say. "My main enemy would be boredom." And his only horizon would be the arrow pointing in the courtyard: "Mecca, 12,793 kilometers."
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Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.

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