Guantanamo: The Attack of the Hanged Men

[unhappycamper]

Guantanamo: The Attack of the Hanged Men
EDITORIAL
Translated By Paula van de Werken
June 13, 2006


At dawn last Sunday, there was an unusual shadow in one of the most observed cages at the Guantanamo concentration camp. When the guards arrived, they found that the prisoner had hung himself with strips of his bed-sheet. A quick search of the rest of the enormous American prison in the Cuban enclave revealed two more detainees that had met the same fate.

The death of the three supposed terrorists was a setback for Washington, which since January 2002 has held over 460 prisoners in the prison, where national legal guarantees and international human rights treaties have been forgotten. To counteract any indignation over the deaths, U.S. officials made statements sure to go down in history as some of the most cynical ever expressed. Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of the Guantanamo base, said "They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own. … It was an act of asymmetric warfare against us."

The jailer attempted to assume the role of the injured party, due to the suicides of his prisoners. It seems incredible, but his barbarity, which should have cost Admiral Harris his stripes, found an echo in another official spokesperson. According to Coleen Graffy, deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, "(the suicides) were a good a good publicity stunt to attract attention." More moderate than his underlings, President George Bush expressed that he was "seriously concerned."

The triple suicide is not an act of aggression on the part of those that hung themselves, nor is it a public relations stunt. Rather, it is just another atrocity on top of all the others that have occurred in that shameful concentration camp over the past four years, all of which are destroying the image of the United States as a nation under law. The authorities admit that 25 detainees have tried to commit suicide in the prison: some have tried at least ten times. The doctors usually manage to save them, but on Sunday they arrived too late. Others have repeatedly begun hunger strikes, only to be foiled by force-feeding.

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[enough]

1. Harris' and Graffy's words are those of insane people who

count on the rest of the world being insane along with them. And in the US, at least, they appear to be right.


Interesting to see this editorial from El Tiempo in Colombia. Thanks for posting this.