Hier spricht Guantánamo

At timely new release from TV moderator Roger Willemsen, who had the simple idea of interviewing released detainees from the US prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  Willemsen reports word for word the testimony of five former prisoners: two Russians, a Jordanian, a Palastinian and an Afghan.  The social status ranges from an average worker, who had been captured by the Taliban and sold to the US military, to the former Afghan ambassador in Pakistan.  They tell stories of torture, psychological abuse, despair and suicide attempts.

The book is not available through Amazon (at least not yet) but can be purchased directly from Zweitausandeins-Versand.

At a press briefing yesterday in Berlin, Willemsen took the mainstream German press to task for failing to pursue this story on their own.

Der Schriftsteller und Journalist Roger Willemsen hat die deutschen Medien für die Berichterstattung über das amerikanische Gefangenenlager in Guantánamo kritisiert. "Warum haben wir in keiner deutschen Zeitung ein Interview mit einem ehemaligen Guantánamo-Häftling lesen können?", fragte Willemsen bei der Vorstellung seines neuen Buches über das Gefangenenlager auf Kuba am Freitag in Berlin. Beschönigende Darstellungen aus den USA seien von den deutschen Medien unkritisch übernommen worden.

The book should be translated into English, but in the meantime English-only speakers should read Corine Hegland’s detailed and well-researched cover story in the National Journal (subscription only) where she exposes what many of us have long suspected: a large percentage of the prisoners are not terrorists, al-Qaeda members, Taliban, or even combatants, as we have been told. 

A high percentage, perhaps the majority, of the 500-odd men now held at Guantanamo were not captured on any battlefield, let alone on "the battlefield in Afghanistan" (as Bush asserted) while "trying to kill American forces" (as McClellan claimed).

Fewer than 20 percent of the Guantanamo detainees, the best available evidence suggests, have ever been Qaeda members.

Many scores, and perhaps hundreds, of the detainees were not even Taliban foot soldiers, let alone Qaeda terrorists. They were innocent, wrongly seized noncombatants with no intention of joining the Qaeda campaign to murder Americans.

Hegland’s damning conclusion: "The administration’s unspoken logic appears to be: Better to ruin the lives of 10 innocent men than to let one who might be a terrorist go free."

One of these unlucky prisoners is Murat Kurnaz from Bremen, who has been languishing in Guantanamo since early 2002.  Evidently Angela Merket was unsuccessful in securing his release when she met with President Bush last month. Perhaps she didn’t even try.

UPDATE: As Joerg mentions in his comment, I was too hasty in my criticisms of Chancellor Merkel.  After I wrote the post it was reported that Murat Kurnaz may be released "by mid-year".  Here is the article from Reuters:

A Turkish man held since 2002 in the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay can expect to be released in the coming months and returned to his home in Germany, the German magazine Focus said on Saturday.

The German embassy in Washington was working to provide the security guarantees that the United States was demanding, such as continued surveillance, as a condition for the release of Murat Kurnaz, Focus said.

The magazine said Kurnaz could be freed by mid-year.

A government spokesman confirmed the German embassy was in talks with U.S. officials in a bid to end Kurnaz’s detention.

Good news; too bad it took four years to correct this travesty of justice.

guantanamo

torture folter menschenrechte