Text 23140, 251 rader
Skriven 2006-09-30 19:55:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Guards
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In case folks missed this one:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/31/ap/world/mainD8J74L1O0.shtml

Gitmo Guards Often Attacked by Detainees 
AP Enterprise: Pentagon report details detainee attacks on guards at 
Guantanamo facility

WASHINGTON, Jul. 31, 2006
By JOHN SOLOMON Associated Press Writer 
------------------------------------------------------------------------

(AP) The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay during the war on terror have 
attacked their military guards hundreds of times, turning broken toilet 
parts, utensils, radios and even a bloody lizard tail into makeshift 
weapons, Pentagon reports say.

Incident reports reviewed by The Associated Press indicate Military 
Police guards are routinely head-butted, spat upon and doused by 
"cocktails" of feces, urine, vomit and sperm collected in meal cups by 
the prisoners.

They've been repeatedly grabbed, punched or assaulted by prisoners who 
reach through the small "bean holes" used to deliver food and blankets 
through cell doors, the reports say. Serious assaults requiring medical 
attention, however, are rare, the reports indicate.

The detainee "reached under the face mask of an IRF (Initial Reaction 
Force) team member's helmet and scratched his face, attempting to gouge 
his eyes," states a May 27, 2005, report on an effort to remove a 
recalcitrant prisoner from his cell.

"The IRF team member received scratches to his face and eye socket 
area," the report said.

Since its creation in early 2002, the U.S. detention camp on Cuba's 
coast has been a controversial symbol of the Bush administration's war 
on terror, bringing allegations of prisoner mistreatment, debates over 
civil rights and a landmark legal battle to win rights for the 
detainees.

At one point, more than 600 foreign men captured in the war on terror 
were kept there. Many have been released to their home countries, 
reducing the current population to about 450. Ten detainees have been 
accused of war crimes, but no one has been tried.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the men are entitled to lawyers and 
access to the courts and that the administration's original plan to give
them justice through military tribunals was illegal.

Guards currently stationed at Guantanamo describe a tense atmosphere in 
which prisoners often orchestrate violence in hopes of unnerving their 
captors, especially with attacks using bodily fluids.

"I mean, seeing a human being act that way, it's terrifying. ... You are
constantly watching before you take your next step to see if something 
is about to happen," Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Mack D. Keen told 
AP in an interview from Guantanamo.

"You see little signs. They kind of show their hand every once in a 
while. They'll take their Quran and they'll cover it up," he said. "When
you see a group of detainees taking their Quran and putting it away, you
know something is about to happen."

Moazamm Begg, 38, a prisoner for more than two years at Guantanamo 
before being released to Great Britain, said he was suspicious of the 
Pentagon's description of incidents, especially allegations that Muslim 
men tore their Qurans or used sperm in attacks. The Pentagon continues 
to publicly question Begg's claim of innocence.

"This just doesn't make sense _ especially since for Muslims this would 
be something that was disgusting, something that just wouldn't be done,"
he said. He added that some detainees told him they had mixed toothpaste
and spit in the cocktails to make it look like semen.

Begg, who has written a book and spoken frequently about his experience,
said most incidents he witnessed were spontaneous reactions "when word 
spread" among prisoners that a guard had done something wrong.

"I rarely saw lone prisoners acting out on their own for no reason 
except if they had some sort of mental illness or if they were on 
medication," he said.

Nonetheless, the incident reports released under the Freedom of 
Information Act and reviewed by AP, provide a rare chronicle of events 
inside the prison from the guards' perspective.

Entire wings of prisoners were reported to become riotous after 
complaints emerged that guards mishandled a Quran or mistreated 
prisoners. On two occasions, however, prisoners themselves were reported
to have destroyed their Muslim holy books, the reports state.

"Detainee residing in cell (redacted) block tore his Quran into small 
pieces," a guard reported in May 2003. A month later, a prisoner "did 
intentionally destroy his Quran and throw (it) out of his cell," another
report stated.

The reports detail more than 440 incidents between guards and prisoners 
from December 2002 through summer 2005 that resulted in recommendations 
of discipline, an average of about three per week. The names of guards 
and prisoners as well as the final discipline were blacked out by the 
Pentagon.

Often, guards went weeks without reporting problems; other times 
incidents were bunched together during times of frustration and tension.

For instance, nearly a quarter of the incidents occurred in July 2005, 
the month dozens of detainees started an extended hunger strike.

Tensions likewise flared during Christmas week 2004, with inmates 
frequently spitting on guards. On Christmas Eve, a prisoner who was 
angry that he couldn't finish his meal was said to have used a plastic 
fork-spoon utensil _ called a spork _ to attack a guard collecting his 
tray.

"Detainee stabbed the MP guard ... in the hand with his spork from chow 
meal," the report said, adding the prisoner later "made a slicing motion
across his neck" and vowed to kill the guard.

With many nearing five years in U.S. captivity, the prisoners "have a 
Ph.D. in being a detainee" and "know our procedures and they try to turn
them against us and try to make us question what we are doing," said 
Army Lt. Col. Michael J. Nicolucci, the prison's executive officer.

"They'll take the smallest things, be it a piece of rust," he said. 
"They told us they are going to take that piece of rust and they are 
going for the jugular, they are going for the eye. They know what our 
vulnerabilities are, anatomically speaking."

Meal plates, shower flip-flops, cleaning brushes and other items deemed 
harmless in civilian life also are commonly turned into weapons, the 
reports said. For instance:

_"Detainee in cell (redacted) grabbed the radio from an MP and then 
threw the radio at the MP. The detainee then threw rocks at the MP," a 
Dec. 23, 2003, incident report stated.

_A detainee "reached out of his bean hole and attacked MP (name 
redacted) with a piece of metal foot pad from toilet striking him on the
left hip area," a July 15, 2005, report said.

_"Detainee broke off the top of his sink, subsequently broke out the 
window then began throwing the sink and pieces of pipes at the Block 
Guard," a March 25, 2005, report said.

One of the most unusual incidents detailed in the four-inch stack of 
incident reports occurred when a detainee in the prison recreation yard 
assaulted a guard with a bloody tail torn from a lizard.

The detainee "caught the iguana by the tail at which time the tail 
detached," the May 2005 report described. When the guard turned to talk 
to a commanding officer, "he felt something strike him in the lower 
right back" and then "saw the tail on the ground at his feet and blood 
was in the same area of his uniform." The detainee said he was "just 
playing."

Nicolucci said one of the most serious incidents occurred this May, too 
recent to be recorded in the Pentagon's released reports. A prisoner 
staged an apparent suicide attempt while his inmates slicked the floors 
with human waste, seeking to overpower guards when they slipped, he 
said.

"We provide fans in order to keep them cool," Nicolucci recalled. "And 
they were using the basket, or the grate of the fan as a shield, the 
blades as machetes, the pole as a battering ram."

That disturbance was turned back in a few minutes with some guards and 
prisoners sustaining minor injuries, he said.

The Landmark Legal Foundation, a conservative legal group that fought to
force the Pentagon to release the reports under the Freedom of 
Information Act, said it hopes the information brings balance to the 
Guantanamo debate.

"Lawyers for the detainees have done a great job painting their clients 
as innocent victims of U.S. abuse when the fact is that these detainees,
as a group, are barbaric and extremely dangerous," Landmark President 
Mark Levin said. "They are using their terrorist training on the 
battlefield to abuse our guards and manipulate our Congress and our 
court system."

Though all detainees are foreigners, many are clearly Americanized when 
it comes to their insults and gestures. Male guards are frequently 
derided as "donkeys" while female guards are routinely called "bitches" 
or harassed by references to their breasts or genitalia, the reports 
said.

In all, nearly a quarter of incidents involved female guards, the 
reports show.

"They absolutely target female guards," Nicolucci said. "They have a lot
of cultural biases about females, and we let them know in our culture 
that females do everything males do in a professional job environment, 
and we just hold firm."

James A. Gondles Jr., executive director of the American Correctional 
Association that sets standards for U.S. prisons, said much behavior 
inside Guantanamo mirrors that of civilian prisons though the attacks 
with bodily fluids seem more numerous.

"It happens from time to time at facilities here, but it seems the 
majority of ... assaults at Gitmo were either spitting, or bodily fluids
being thrown on the guards," said Gondles, who has visited Guantanamo 
twice at the Pentagon's invitation and reviewed the reports at AP's 
request.

The bodily fluid attacks are so numerous that guards now frequently wear
specialized shields to protect their faces.

The incident reports show waves of orchestrated behavior.

For instance, prisoners repeatedly grabbed their guards' whistles over a
five-day period in June 2004. In July 2005, guards reported several 
instances of rock throwing, spitting and flip-flop hitting. Rocks were 
hidden under shower mats, the reports said.

The incident reports also are noteworthy for information that is 
missing. With redacted names, it is impossible to tell whether bad 
behavior is widespread or the work of a few repeat offenders. Likewise, 
the documents don't tell whether certain guards are prone to 
confrontation.

Prisoners' hunger strikes, suicide attempts and threats to injure 
themselves aren't considered disciplinary matters and thus aren't 
recorded in the incident reports. Yet the Pentagon acknowledges there 
have been scores of such incidents.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a prisoner of war during Vietnam, said the 
treatment of the guards has been overshadowed by the legal and political
debates surrounding the detainees, but he has been impressed with the 
guards' professionalism.

"Our personnel there have perhaps the most difficult task you can have 
in the military outside of being in a combat zone. ... These are bad 
guys and some of the most hardened of hardened criminals. And some I 
think will need to be kept permanently," he said.

McCain said the detainees' behavior and the likelihood of permanent 
confinement only hastens the need for the administration and Congress to
finalize detention and trial policies consistent with the Supreme 
Court's direction.

While Washington addresses those questions, the guards look to stay one 
step ahead of the detainees.

"Yes, you do get upset but you get somebody to take your place," Keen 
said in explaining how he survives the tensions of the cell block. "You 
go outside. You walk it off and you come back and (say) I want to be 
back in the fight."

 * Origin:  (1:226/600)