[Ppnews] Spinning Suicide

[Political Prisoner News]

SPINNING SUICIDE
_________________________________________________________________________

Perspective
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061206J.shtml
By Marjorie Cohn

They are smart, they are creative, they are committed. They have no 
regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not 
an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged 
against us. -- Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., Commander, Joint Task 
Force, Guantanamo

Three men being held in the United States military prison camp at 
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, killed themselves by hanging in their cells on 
Saturday. The Team Bush spin machine immediately swept into high gear.

Military officials characterized their deaths as a coordinated 
protest. The commander of the prison, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., 
called it "asymmetrical warfare."

Colleen Graffy, the deputy assistant secretary of state for public 
diplomacy, said taking their lives "certainly is a good PR move."

Meanwhile, George W. Bush expressed "serious concern" about the 
deaths. "He stressed the importance of treating the bodies in a 
humane and culturally sensitive manner," said Christie Parell, a 
White House spokeswoman.

How nice that Bush wants their bodies treated humanely, after 
treating them like animals for four years while they were alive. Bush 
has defied the Geneva Conventions' command that all prisoners be 
treated humanely. He decided that "unlawful combatants" are not 
entitled to humane treatment because they are not prisoners of war.

Article 3 Common to the Geneva Conventions requires that no 
prisoners, even "unlawful combatants," may be subjected to 
humiliating and degrading treatment. Incidentally, the Pentagon has 
decided to omit the mandates of Article 3 Common from its new 
detainee policies.

Bush resisted the McCain anti-torture amendment to a spending bill at 
the end of last year, sending Dick Cheney to prevail upon John McCain 
to exempt the CIA from its prohibition on cruel, inhuman and 
degrading treatment of prisoners. When McCain refused to alter his 
amendment, Bush signed the bill, quietly adding one of his "signing 
statements," saying that he feels free to ignore the prohibition if 
he wants to.

Bush & Co. are fighting in the Supreme Court to deny the Guantanamo 
prisoners access to US courts to challenge their confinement. The 
Court will announce its decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld by the end of 
this month.

This hardly sounds like a man who believes in humane treatment for 
live human beings.

The three men who committed suicide, Mani bin Shaman bin Turki 
al-Habradi, Yasser Talal Abdulah Yahya al-Zahrani, and Ali Abdullah 
Ahmed, were being held indefinitely at Guantanamo. None had been 
charged with any crime. All had participated in hunger strikes and 
been force-fed, a procedure the United Nations Human Rights 
Commission called "torture."

"A stench of despair hangs over Guantanamo. Everyone is shutting down 
and quitting," said Mark Denbeaux, a lawyer for two of the prisoners 
there. His client, Mohammed Abdul Rahman, "is trying to kill himself" 
in a hunger strike. "He told us he would rather die than stay in 
Guantanamo," Denbeaux added.

While the Bush administration is attempting to characterize the three 
suicides as political acts of martyrdom, Shafiq Rasul, a former 
Guantanamo prisoner who himself participated in a hunger strike while 
there, disagrees. "Killing yourself is not something that is looked 
at lightly in Islam, but if you're told day after day by the 
Americans that you're never going to go home or you're put into 
isolation, these acts are committed simply out of desperation and 
loss of hope," he said. "This was not done as an act of martyrdom, 
warfare or anything else."

"The total, intractable unwillingness of the Bush administration to 
provide any meaningful justice for these men is what is at the heart 
of these tragedies," according to Bill Goodman, the legal director of 
the Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents many of the 
Guantanamo prisoners.

Last year, at least 131 Guantanamo inmates engaged in hunger strikes, 
and 89 have participated this year. US military guards, with 
assistance from physicians, are tying them into restraint chairs and 
forcing large plastic tubes down their noses and into their stomachs 
to keep them alive. Lawyers for the prisoners have reported the pain 
is excruciating.

The suicides came three weeks after two other prisoners tried to kill 
themselves by overdosing on antidepressant drugs.

Bush is well aware that more dead US prisoners would be embarrassing 
for his administration, especially in light of the documented torture 
of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the execution of civilians in Haditha.

More than a year ago, the National Lawyers Guild and the American 
Association of Jurists called for the US government to shut down its 
"concentration camp" at Guantanamo. The UN Human Rights Commission, 
the UN Committee against Torture, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, 
and the Council of Europe, have also advocated the closure of 
Guantanamo prison.

Bush says he would like to close the prison, but is awaiting the 
Supreme Court's decision. At the same time, however, his 
administration is spending $30 million to construct permanent cells 
at Guantanamo.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, 
President-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, and the US 
representative to the executive committee of the American Association 
of Jurists. She writes a weekly column for Truthout.

Copyright 2006 Truthout

From:
ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN (AFIB)
To subscribe: afib-subscribe- at igc.topica.com
To unsubscribe: afib-unsubscribe- at igc.topica.com
Inquiries write: afib at sbcglobal.net


The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20060615/f0ff0f08/attachment.htm>