June 24, 2005
Quantum Note
An Icon of Lawlessness
What happened to 54-year-old Muhammad Sagheer, who has returned alive from the
concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay with a grand total of one hundred US
dollars as compensation for his ordeal, is horrible enough, but his testimony
merely provides a small window on the real nature of crimes being committed by
the Bush administration in that outpost of tyranny in Cuba and elsewhere in the
world.
Muhammad Sagheer, a member of the non-political Tableeghi Jamat of Pakistan was
picked up in Afghanistan while on a customary round of preaching, transported
from Kunduz to Mazar-e Sharif by truck along with 250 other prisoners, all of
whom were blindfolded, handcuffed and chained, and after six weeks of detention,
they were packed into airtight containers by U.S. Forces and local Afghan
soldiers for transport to the Shabargan Jail, 75 miles west of Mazar-e-Sharif.
During this trip, more than 50 men died in the container from suffocation, and
lack of food and water. The death of several thousand men during such trips and
their subsequent dumping in the desert by Afghan drivers under the direct
supervision and orders of the U.S. military forces had been previously
documented in Massacre in Mazar, a film by Irish director Jamie Doran, which was
screened in June 2002 in Europe.
At Shabargan Jail in Kandahar, where Muhammad Sagheer was detained for two weeks
along with more than 3000 other men, prisoners were thrashed, deprived of water,
made to lie down on the dirt at midnight and not allowed to sleep for long
periods of time. Their hair, mustaches and beards were shaved off, they were not
allowed to pray. But all of this was nothing compared to what happened to him
when he was airlifted by helicopter from Shabargan Jail to U.S.-occupied Bagram
airbase in Kandahar, where a secret CIA interrogation center is located. Here he
was shackled and put on a U.S. military plane for transport to Guantanamo Bay.
During the flight his lips were sealed, eyes covered, hands and feet were
chained. He was given nothing but an apple and a piece of bread during the 24
hour flight.
At Guantanamo Bay, he was identified with an ID bracelet labeled "Delta" for
Guantanamo which he still retains. He was placed in a chain-link cage which had
a cement pad for sleeping. His 6 x 6 x 7 foot cage was out in the open; he was
fully chained and locked inside the cage. Thus began a year of torture and
humiliation during which he was starved, forced to drink urine, and not allowed
to speak, forced by guards to take pills which drugged him and made him
senseless. At times alcohol was added to drinks given to him, he was forced to
eat unlawful meat, not allowed to pray and during an intense period of
interrogation, blood was drawn from his body, sometimes as much as 1000 cc at a
time. After a hunger strike, prisoners were given copies of the Qur’an, but the
next time they came to interrogate they brought dogs which would pick up the
Qur’an; often the US soldiers would and the soldiers dogs would urinate on the
Book of Allah.
He was twice detained in solitary confinement, first for eight and then for
sixteen days, in a special darkened cell where cold air was blown through the
cell, chilling him. He was interrogated more than 19 times about his links to
Taliban or al-Qaeda. After nearly a year, a U.S. General informed him and a few
other prisoners that they had been found to be innocent and would soon be
released. After a few days, Sagheer was taken into a room, fingerprinted,
photographed and informed that he would be compensated for his detention. But he
remained in shackles and chains for 12 more days. Finally, he and three other
men were taken to an airport and loaded on a U.S. military plane for transport
to Pakistan. Again, during the 24 hour flight he was given just a sandwich and
an apple. The day before Ramadan 2002, he arrived at Bagram airport in
Afghanistan and was then flown to Islamabad arriving in Pakistan on October 27,
2002. He was turned over to the CIA and intelligence agencies which then held
him for five days and promised $2000 as compensation. After five days, he was
taken by the CIA and Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) to Peshawar where he
was held for two more days and given $100 as compensation for being illegally
detained by the U.S. Government for nearly one year. On November 4, 2002, he was
released in Peshawar to local authorities who returned him to his family in the
town of Phattan in the mountains of Kohistan.
If Muhammad Sagheer’s account of his experiences in American custody makes the
Soviet Gulags pale in comparison, two reports recently released by Amnesty
International make it abundantly clear that the responsibility for the
continuous violation of international charters and agreements cannot be put on
the shoulders of a few individual American soldiers; it must be borne by the
highest cadre of the Bush administration. The Amnesty Internationals report,
“Guantánamo and beyond: The continuing pursuit of unchecked executive power”,
released on May 13, 2005, together with an earlier report, “Guantanamo Bay: An
icon of lawlessness”, identifies numerous individual cases of gross violation of
international charters and agreements. It states that “over a year after the Abu
Ghraib torture scandal broke, and as evidence of torture and other cruel,
inhuman or degrading treatment by US forces in the ‘war on terror’ continues to
mount, not one US agent has been charged with war crimes or torture under US
law. In over 70 per cent of announced official actions taken in response to
substantiated allegations of abuse, the punishment has been non-judicial or
administrative. While a small number of mainly low-ranking soldiers have been
subjected to courts-martial, members of the administration, who from the outset
have claimed that the USA treats all detainees humanely and that any abuses have
been the actions of a few aberrant soldiers, have remained free of independent
investigation despite possible criminal responsibility in abuses. [US] Congress
has failed to initiate an independent commission of inquiry, as Amnesty
International has sought.”
The real question that comes to mind is: Why is the Bush administration behaving
in such a manner? Why has it institutionalized a policy of torture and terror in
contravention to international treaties and agreements signed by the United
States? The extent of violence and the nature of brutalities being committed by
the Bush administration suggest some deep-seated hatred against Islam and
Muslims to be the real cause of this sub-human behavior, a hatred that has
destroyed the last iota of humanity in men and women who are committing these
horrible crimes in detention centers around the world.
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