January 18, 2008
Yesterday, the Associated Press reported
on a letter from Guantánamo written by Al-Jazeera cameraman
Sami al-Haj. The letter was dated December 27, 2007, and had
just been declassified by the Pentagon's censors. It was translated
from the Arabic by his lawyers at the London-based legal charity
Reprieve, which represents dozens of the Guantánamo detainees.
Mr. al-Haj was captured by
Pakistani forces, acting on behalf of the United States, in December
2001, as he prepared to resume the Arabic TV station's coverage
of Afghanistan with the rest of his team. As Clive Stafford Smith,
Reprieve's legal director, explained after visiting him at Guantánamo
last September, he was seized "because the US thought he
had filmed Al-Jazeera's famous [Osama] bin Laden interview. As
has so often been the case of late, the US was wrong (though
name me a journalist who would turn down a bin Laden scoop)."
In Guantánamo, Mr. al-Haj
has been subjected to an extraordinary array of vague allegations
for which the administration has failed to provide any evidence.
At his administrative review in September 2006, it was alleged
that he had transported $220,000 to Azerbaijan "for what
he was told was told was a humanitarian mission which instead
was destined for Chechen rebels," and that, when he worked
for a company called the Union Beverage Company, he "interacted
with the individual in charge of distribution of juice in Azerbaijan,"
who "was under investigation for possible ties to terrorism."
Referring to his first assignment
in Afghanistan with Al-Jazeera, the authorities also decided
that interviews allegedly conducted by Mr. al-Haj and a co-worker
with "the Treasury Minister of the Taliban, the Minister
of Electricity, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs," and
with "a man who identified himself as a member of the al-Qaeda
(sic)" constituted a connection or an association with terrorism.
Throughout his detention, other claims -- including an allegation
that he "arranged for the transport of a Stinger anti-aircraft
system from Afghanistan to Chechnya" -- have been dropped
from the "evidence" against him.
Confirming that these allegations
are nothing more than a smokescreen, the authorities in Guantánamo
have focused almost exclusively on Mr. al-Haj's association with
Al-Jazeera. In an interview with Democracy Now on January 15,
his younger brother, Asim, spoke to Amy Goodman from Khartoum,
and explained that his brother is "a victim of a political
operation against Al-Jazeera, which Washington does not approve
of." He added that, in the 130 interrogations to which he
has been subjected in Guantánamo, the questions "were
all about Al-Jazeera and alleged relations between Al-Jazeera
and al-Qaeda. They tried to induce him to work as a spy for American
intelligence in return for US citizenship for him and for his
family and to help him even write a book, on the condition that
he would spy on his colleagues at Al-Jazeera."
In Guantánamo, Mr. al-Haj
has been a tireless campaigner for justice. He has been prominent
in campaigns demanding that the detainees be freed or subjected
to a fair trial, and has provided detailed information (declassified
by the Pentagon) about his fellow detainees, and about the various
hunger strikes that have plagued the administration.
As a result of his principled
stand, Mr. al-Haj is regarded with particular suspicion by the
authorities, and has been subjected to appalling treatment over
the years. In despair at the treatment not only of himself, but
also of all the other detainees, he embarked on a hunger strike
on January 7, 2007, and has now gone without food for 374 days.
The authorities' response to
the hunger strikes has been brutal, as Clive Stafford Smith explained
in October. "Medical ethics tell us that you cannot force-feed
a mentally competent hunger striker, as he has the right to complain
about his mistreatment, even unto death," Stafford Smith
wrote in the Los Angeles Times. "But the Pentagon
knows that a prisoner starving himself to death would be abysmal
PR, so they force-feed Sami. As if that were not enough, when
Gen. Bantz J. Craddock headed up the US Southern Command, he
announced that soldiers had started making hunger strikes less
'convenient.' Rather than leave a feeding tube in place, they
insert and remove it twice a day. Have you ever pushed a 43-inch
tube up your nostril and down into your throat? Tonight, Sami
will suffer that for the 479th time."
Stafford Smith also noted a
serious decline in his client's mental and physical health, and
is worried that he may die in Guantánamo. "Sami looked
very thin," he wrote in October. "His memory is disintegrating,
and I worry that he won't survive if he keeps this up. He already
wrote a message for his 7-year-old son, Mohammed, in case he
dies here." On Democracy Now, his brother added, "If
Sami dies, who will be responsible for this? If we were to file
suit, that would be against whom? The most difficult thing for
a human being is to be subject to injustice against which you
cannot do anything, for yourself or for in support of others."
In the hope of providing a
small gesture to keep the plight of Sami al-Haj in the public
eye, I reproduce the full text of his letter below.
Sami al-Haj's letter from
Guantánamo, December 27, 2007
It is with great pleasure that
I pass on my warmest greetings and gratitude for all your efforts
in regards to the case of the prisoners in Guantánamo
Bay. Also I would like to pass on our wishes for the New Year
and asking God to make it a successful and prosperous one.
As for our news, we remain
here for more than six years, and we still seek to proclaim truth,
freedom and world peace.
All of this takes place in
a world which knows what is happening but remains silent and
does little more than watch this sorry theatre.
By now, surely everyone knows
that truth. The US was the country that prided itself by bringing
peace; now, sadly, instead it rains down violence and discord.
Guantánamo is the most obvious example of this.
We prisoners entered Guantánamo
alive, many have left it alive, and some of us remain in it,
seemingly alive ourselves. However, those who remain die every
second of every day that we are here. Each of us suffers new
physical pain, and our injured hearts suffer from a psychological
pain that can not be described.
All of this happens and the world remains silent. And, as it
has been written, it is true of us:
I am alive and will listen
if you call
But there will soon be no life for us who you call;
And if you blew at the embers now they would light up
But wait and you will find that you blow into ashes
--Sami al-Haj
Andy Worthington (www.andyworthington.co.uk)
is a British historian, and the author of 'The
Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in
America's Illegal Prison' (to be published by Pluto Press
in October 2007).
He can be reached at: andy@andyworthington.co.uk