In Spanish: Wikileaks Guantanamo

Guantánamo al descubierto

Los abusos de Guantánamo, al descubierto

759 informes secretos destapan las vejaciones de Guantánamo. -Los documentos revelan que el principal propósito de la prisión era "explotar" toda la información de los reclusos a pesar de la reconocida inocencia de muchos de ellos. -El 60% fue conducido a la base militar sin ser una amenaza "probable"

MÓNICA CEBERIO BELAZA / LUIS DONCEL / JOSÉ MARÍA IRUJO / FRANCISCO PEREGIL 25/04/2011 - El Pais - Madrid

Guantánamo creó un sistema policial y penal sin garantías en el que solo importaban dos cuestiones: cuánta información se obtendría de los presos, aunque fueran inocentes, y si podían ser peligrosos en el futuro. Ancianos con demencia senil, adolescentes, enfermos psiquiátricos graves y maestros de escuela o granjeros sin ningún vínculo con la yihad fueron conducidos al presidio y mezclados con verdaderos terroristas como los responsables del 11-S. EL PAÍS ha tenido acceso, junto con otros medios internacionales y a través de Wikileaks, a las fichas militares secretas de 759 de los 779 presos que han pasado por la prisión, de los cuales unos 170 siguen recluidos. Las tripas de la cárcel quedan recogidas en 4.759 folios firmados por los más altos mandos de la Fuerza Conjunta de la base y dirigidas al Comando Sur del Departamento de Defensa en Miami. La radiografía de una prisión creada por George W. Bush en 2002 al margen de las leyes nacionales e internacionales llega en un mal momento para el presidente, Barack Obama. Cerrar el penal fue su primera promesa tras asumir el cargo en enero de 2009. El anuncio, hace un mes, de que reanudaría los juicios en las comisiones militares fue el reconocimiento de su fracaso.


Los informes, fechados entre 2002 y 2009, que en la mayoría de los casos tienen como finalidad recomendar si el preso debe continuar en el penal, ser liberado o trasladado a otro país, documentan por primera vez cómo valoraba EE UU a cada uno de los internos y lo que sabían de ellos. Revelan un sistema basado en delaciones de otros internos, sin normas claras, basado en sospechas y conjeturas, que no necesita pruebas para mantener a una persona encarcelada largo tiempo -143 personas lo han estado más de nueve años- y que establece tres niveles de riesgo que se definen con apenas una frase. El más alto solo implica que la persona "probablemente" supone "una amenaza para EE UU, sus intereses y aliados"; el medio, que "quizá" lo suponga; y el bajo, nivel en el que aparecen catalogados presos que han estado ocho y nueve años en la prisión, que es "improbable" que sea un riesgo para la seguridad del país.


Hay casos, según revelan los informes secretos, en los que ni siquiera el Gobierno de EE UU sabe los motivos por los que alguien fue trasladado a Guantánamo, y otros en los que ha concluido que el detenido no suponía peligro alguno: un anciano de 89 años con demencia senil y depresión que vivía en un complejo residencial en el que apareció un teléfono por satélite; un padre que iba a buscar a su hijo al frente talibán; un mercader que viajaba sin documentación; un hombre que hacía autostop para comprar medicinas....mas

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A novel about kids locked up at Guantanamo

Yes, there are people under age 18 at Guantanamo.  The novel described below is well researched - 

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Guantánamo for kids

Anna Perera's novel for teenagers about the notorious American detention camp is a gruelling imaginative journey.

London Guardian
by Michelle Paul
March 3, 2009

...Guantánamo Boy, [is] a novel that pulls no punches in its depiction of the torture, isolation and injustices suffered by prisoners at the notorious camp. The book focuses on Khalid, an ordinary 15-year-old from Rochdale who spends his time playing computer games, hanging out with his mates in the park and wishing he had the guts to tell his Irish classmate Niamh that he fancies her. However, within days of arriving in Karachi on a family visit to relatives, Khalid's life turns into a Kafkaesque nightmare when he is abducted from his aunt's house and ends up being held for two years, without charge, in the world's most notorious prison.

It sounds unlikely but, according to Perera, it is well-established that juveniles have been held at Guantánamo, although the numbers are disputed. Reprieve, the charity for prisoners from death row to Guantánamo, has recorded that 22 under-16s have been held at the camp. The youngest juvenile still in custody is Mohammed el Gharani, who was 14 when picked up in a random raid on a mosque by Pakistani bounty-hunters and "sold" to the American authorities for $5,000.

It was stories like these that Guantánamo Boy is based on, although the book itself emerged out of just one line delivered by the human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith at a benefit event for Reprieve in 2006.

"At that gig Clive Stafford Smith simply said 'children are also held in Guantánamo Bay' and that one statement inspired this novel," says Perera. "The title came to me immediately. At that point I began reading and researching on a daily basis and formed an opinion and a story." more

Torture is not as important as Blagojevich

Why is Blagojevich more important than the Iraqis who are tortured by the U.S.? A report on how the Bush administration is responsible for the use of torture was made public five days ago and all has been quiet.

What is it about all the atrocities performed by Bush administration officials that the media is so reticent about making notice? Why are they letting Rumsfeld off the hook? There is clear evidence in the report, there are no "assumptions" - these are facts.

No wonder the Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at Bush. While technically this is an inappropriate action (you shouldn`t be throwing shoes at presidents), after over a million Iraqi deaths, people have a right to be angry...

link to Senate Armed Services Committee Report on Torture

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Monday Dec. 15, 2008 09:30 EST
Senate report links Bush to detainee homicides; media yawns
by Glenn Greenwald
Salon.com

...This Report was issued on Thursday.
Not a single mention was made of it on any of the Sunday news talk shows, with
the sole exception being when John McCain told George Stephanopoulos that it was "not his job" to opine on whether criminal prosecutions were warranted for the Bush officials whose policies led to these crimes. What really matters, explained McCain, was not that we get caught up in the past, but instead, that we ensure this never happens again -- yet, like everyone else who makes this argument, he offered no explanation as to how we could possibly ensure that "it never happens again" if we simultaneously announce that our political leaders will be immunized, not prosecuted, when they commit war crimes. Doesn't that mindset, rather obviously, substantially increase the likelihood -- if not render inevitable -- that such behavior will occur again? Other than that brief exchange, this Senate Report was a non-entity on the Sunday shows.

Instead, TV pundits were consumed with righteous anger over the petty, titillating, sleazy Rod Blagojevich scandal, competing with one another over who could spew the most derision and scorn for this pitiful, lowly, broken individual and his brazen though relatively inconsequential crimes. Every exciting detail was vouyeristically and meticulously dissected by political pundits -- many, if not most, of whom have never bothered to acquaint themselves with any of the basic facts surrounding the monumental Bush lawbreaking and war crimes scandals. TV "journalists" who have never even heard of the Taguba report -- the incredible indictment issued by a former U.S. General, who subsequently observed: "there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account" -- spent the weekend opining on the intricacies of Blogojevich's hair and terribly upsetting propensity to use curse words... more

What Cannot be Seen

detail from Ben Shahn's, "This Is Nazi Brutality," 1943

If the records cannot be seen then the government assumes the worst. Think of legal immigrants being detained because ICE officers did not see their residency documents.

The records of Guantanamo interrogations were mysteriously lost - how will the person who is the focus of the investigation get a fair trial?

- With this in mind how much can we rely on the new E-Verify program? What would happen if the gov't lost the social security records of people it wants to target?

"The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.

Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared." - The Guardian

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Torture victim's records lost at Guantánamo, admits camp general

· No evidence of al-Qaida suspect's interrogation
· CCTV automatically recorded over tapes

• Elana Schor in Washington
• The Guardian - London,
• Monday April 21 2008

This article appeared in the Guardian on Monday April 21 2008 on p22 of the International section. It was last updated at 00:04 on April 21 2008.

The former head of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay found that records of an al-Qaida suspect tortured at the prison camp were mysteriously lost by the US military, according to a new book by one of Britain's top human rights lawyers.

Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared.

The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - "were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost", Dunlavey told Philippe Sands QC, who reports the conversation in his book Torture Team, previewed last week by the Guardian. Snafu stands for Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.

Saudi-born al-Qahtani was sexually taunted, forced to perform dog tricks and given enemas at Guantánamo.

The CIA admitted last year that it destroyed videotapes of al-Qaida suspects being interrogated at a secret "black site" in Thailand. No proof has so far emerged that tapes of interrogations at Guantánamo were destroyed, but Sands' report suggests the US may have also buried politically sensitive proof relating to abuse by interrogators at the prison camp.

Other new evidence has also emerged in the last month that raises questions about destroyed tapes at Guantánamo.

Cameras that run 24 hours a day at the prison were set to automatically record over their contents, the US military admitted in court papers. It is unclear how much, if any, prisoner mistreatment was on the taped-over video, but the military admitted that the automatic erasure "likely destroyed" potential evidence in at least one prisoner's case.

The erased tapes may have violated a 2005 court order to preserve "all evidence [of] the torture, mistreatment and abuse of detainees" at Guantánamo. The order was retroactive, so it also applies to the 2003 loss of al-Qahtani's records.

Lawyers representing other Guantánamo detainees are asking whether tapes of their clients' treatment may also be erased. "You can't just destroy relevant evidence," said Jonathan Hafetz, of the Brennan Centre for Justice in New York.

David H Remes, a lawyer for 16 Guantánamo prisoners, said the CIA's destruction of interrogation videos shows the US government is capable of getting rid of potentially incriminating evidence.

"[In Guantánamo] the government had a system that automatically overwrote records," Remes told the Guardian. "That is a passive form of evidence destruction. If a party has destroyed evidence in one place, there's no reason to assume it has preserved evidence in another place."

More than 24,000 interrogations were videotaped at Guantánamo, according to a US army report unearthed by researchers at Seton Hall University in New Jersey.

The US military office at Guantánamo did not return a request for comment from the Guardian about its taping policies.

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