Post by bot on May 19, 2004 2:49:58 GMT -5
May 24, 2004
'The torture usually begins at 12 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 a.m.' ADNAN R. KHAN recounts how he secretly corresponded with an inmate of Abu Ghraib prison.
www.macleans.ca/topstories/world/article.jsp?content=20040524_81255_81255
ADNAN R. KHAN
"I AM A PRISONER at Abu Ghraib." With those words, Mohammed Jassim al-Jabouri and I began our short-lived correspondence. It was a haunting first sentence, in a letter smuggled out of Iraq's most notorious prison by a local worker not long after disturbing images of torture and abuse surfaced in the media. Despite the words' simplicity, they were chilling -- as is the rest of this story. After three short letters, my go-between has disappeared, there has been no more correspondence from Mohammed, and his family lives in fear after American troops searched their home.
I first met my contact, Hassan (not his real name), outside Abu Ghraib prison. The photographs of torture and abuse had become public a day earlier; desperate families were swarming the prison gates, wanting news of loved ones but kept at bay by razor wire, concrete barriers and U.S. Marines. Some carried newspaper clippings of the horrifying images as they demanded information from Abdul Rahman Wahham Arar al-Rawy, the prison's Iraqi liaison officer. Many had not heard of their family members in months.
Hassan was not at Abu Ghraib to visit relatives -- he was an employee who gathered up litter from the prison grounds and ran errands for his American taskmasters. His family lives in abject poverty in a ragged village not far from the prison; to top up his meagre stipend, he also, on occasion, smuggled out letters from prisoners to family members who paid him a few dollars in compensation. "I've only done it a few times," he told me during our first meeting. "It's dangerous. The Americans search me, but I have a good hiding spot." He reached down and showed me, pulling back the sole of his tattered sandal.
The next morning he brought me the initial letter, scrawled on the back of foil from a cigarette package. It reminded me of my first visit to the prison, in April 2003 after Saddam Hussein's regime had fallen. Abu Ghraib was then a symbol of the horrors of Saddam's rule: thousands had died there. Looters and vengeful former inmates were tearing the place apart. On the wall of one of the cells on death row, I saw the last desperate plea from a condemned prisoner: "I am a prisoner at Abu Ghraib. May God have mercy on me."
It seemed inconceivable that the prison would ever be used again. But a year later, the guard towers are again manned, prisoners are packed into its small cells, or corralled into tent compounds on the sprawling grounds. According to one Red Cross assessment, as many as 90 per cent of the detainees are there without justification -- a disturbing estimate considering the escalating evidence of abuse behind those menacing walls. "What was our sin that makes us deserve this punishment?" Mohammed asked in that first letter to me. "We appeal to human conscience to raise a voice."
That note was delivered inconspicuously on the outskirts of the prison, out of sight of the guards, behind mounds of upturned dirt. Hassan, on his way to work, slipped into my car and hurriedly pulled the letter from his pocket. My translator read it to me in English and I then dictated a response that Hassan stuffed into his sandal. It would take a couple of days for a reply to arrive, he said. "And you should give me some paper that Mohammed can write on." I gave him a sheet from my notebook. The meeting lasted all of five minutes.
WHILE I WAITED for Mohammed's response, I decided to visit Abdul, the Iraqi liaison officer at Abu Ghraib. During the course of the day he would appear intermittently, climbing up onto one of the prison's barriers. He promised visitations, admonished people for expecting too much, and, in the wake of the abuse allegations, defended U.S. actions. "These pictures are very old," he yelled at people brandishing newly published images. Those being abused were "Baathists who worked for Saddam."
Abdul refused to talk to me at the prison, but a local told me where he lived. We staked out the house for the afternoon. Abdul didn't show up but a steady stream of families did, looking to talk to their only lifeline to imprisoned loved ones. They soon left in frustration. Abdul's brother, Karim, said Abdul often stayed away if he saw a crowd gathered at the house. "He is under a lot of stress," he told me. "Look at all of these people waiting for him. Every day there is a crowd demanding something of him."
We returned the next afternoon and again waited. This time Abdul arrived. He invited us inside his dingy home, making certain to point out his poor living conditions. "Do you think I do this job for money?" he asked, sitting down to a dinner of flatbread and scrambled eggs. "I want to help my people. That is all." He again defended the American soldiers pictured in the photographs. "We must sometimes give rights to the Americans as well," he argued. "Those are criminals in the photographs."
Abdul is 36, and a martial arts expert. During the Saddam era, he tutored the Iraqi special forces in the art of killing. Every person we spoke to in his neighbourhood and at the prison told us he was a member of Saddam's fedayeen militia, a ruthless division whose members were chosen for their deep loyalty. Abdul himself admitted he was one of the first prisoners housed by the Americans at Abu Ghraib. "I came to the prison on July 23 of last year and was released at the end of August," he said. "The Americans immediately hired me on." He claimed he had not witnessed any torture. "Besides," he argued, "I'm not sure what crimes these people committed, so I can't say whether or not they deserved that kind of treatment."
'The torture usually begins at 12 p.m., 3 p.m. and 4 a.m.' ADNAN R. KHAN recounts how he secretly corresponded with an inmate of Abu Ghraib prison.
www.macleans.ca/topstories/world/article.jsp?content=20040524_81255_81255
ADNAN R. KHAN
"I AM A PRISONER at Abu Ghraib." With those words, Mohammed Jassim al-Jabouri and I began our short-lived correspondence. It was a haunting first sentence, in a letter smuggled out of Iraq's most notorious prison by a local worker not long after disturbing images of torture and abuse surfaced in the media. Despite the words' simplicity, they were chilling -- as is the rest of this story. After three short letters, my go-between has disappeared, there has been no more correspondence from Mohammed, and his family lives in fear after American troops searched their home.
I first met my contact, Hassan (not his real name), outside Abu Ghraib prison. The photographs of torture and abuse had become public a day earlier; desperate families were swarming the prison gates, wanting news of loved ones but kept at bay by razor wire, concrete barriers and U.S. Marines. Some carried newspaper clippings of the horrifying images as they demanded information from Abdul Rahman Wahham Arar al-Rawy, the prison's Iraqi liaison officer. Many had not heard of their family members in months.
Hassan was not at Abu Ghraib to visit relatives -- he was an employee who gathered up litter from the prison grounds and ran errands for his American taskmasters. His family lives in abject poverty in a ragged village not far from the prison; to top up his meagre stipend, he also, on occasion, smuggled out letters from prisoners to family members who paid him a few dollars in compensation. "I've only done it a few times," he told me during our first meeting. "It's dangerous. The Americans search me, but I have a good hiding spot." He reached down and showed me, pulling back the sole of his tattered sandal.
The next morning he brought me the initial letter, scrawled on the back of foil from a cigarette package. It reminded me of my first visit to the prison, in April 2003 after Saddam Hussein's regime had fallen. Abu Ghraib was then a symbol of the horrors of Saddam's rule: thousands had died there. Looters and vengeful former inmates were tearing the place apart. On the wall of one of the cells on death row, I saw the last desperate plea from a condemned prisoner: "I am a prisoner at Abu Ghraib. May God have mercy on me."
It seemed inconceivable that the prison would ever be used again. But a year later, the guard towers are again manned, prisoners are packed into its small cells, or corralled into tent compounds on the sprawling grounds. According to one Red Cross assessment, as many as 90 per cent of the detainees are there without justification -- a disturbing estimate considering the escalating evidence of abuse behind those menacing walls. "What was our sin that makes us deserve this punishment?" Mohammed asked in that first letter to me. "We appeal to human conscience to raise a voice."
That note was delivered inconspicuously on the outskirts of the prison, out of sight of the guards, behind mounds of upturned dirt. Hassan, on his way to work, slipped into my car and hurriedly pulled the letter from his pocket. My translator read it to me in English and I then dictated a response that Hassan stuffed into his sandal. It would take a couple of days for a reply to arrive, he said. "And you should give me some paper that Mohammed can write on." I gave him a sheet from my notebook. The meeting lasted all of five minutes.
WHILE I WAITED for Mohammed's response, I decided to visit Abdul, the Iraqi liaison officer at Abu Ghraib. During the course of the day he would appear intermittently, climbing up onto one of the prison's barriers. He promised visitations, admonished people for expecting too much, and, in the wake of the abuse allegations, defended U.S. actions. "These pictures are very old," he yelled at people brandishing newly published images. Those being abused were "Baathists who worked for Saddam."
Abdul refused to talk to me at the prison, but a local told me where he lived. We staked out the house for the afternoon. Abdul didn't show up but a steady stream of families did, looking to talk to their only lifeline to imprisoned loved ones. They soon left in frustration. Abdul's brother, Karim, said Abdul often stayed away if he saw a crowd gathered at the house. "He is under a lot of stress," he told me. "Look at all of these people waiting for him. Every day there is a crowd demanding something of him."
We returned the next afternoon and again waited. This time Abdul arrived. He invited us inside his dingy home, making certain to point out his poor living conditions. "Do you think I do this job for money?" he asked, sitting down to a dinner of flatbread and scrambled eggs. "I want to help my people. That is all." He again defended the American soldiers pictured in the photographs. "We must sometimes give rights to the Americans as well," he argued. "Those are criminals in the photographs."
Abdul is 36, and a martial arts expert. During the Saddam era, he tutored the Iraqi special forces in the art of killing. Every person we spoke to in his neighbourhood and at the prison told us he was a member of Saddam's fedayeen militia, a ruthless division whose members were chosen for their deep loyalty. Abdul himself admitted he was one of the first prisoners housed by the Americans at Abu Ghraib. "I came to the prison on July 23 of last year and was released at the end of August," he said. "The Americans immediately hired me on." He claimed he had not witnessed any torture. "Besides," he argued, "I'm not sure what crimes these people committed, so I can't say whether or not they deserved that kind of treatment."