Guantánamo Diary

by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

  The interrogator also asked me about a bunch of other people, most of whom I didn’t know. The people I did know were not involved in any crimes whatsoever, as far as I knew. Lastly, the Senegalese asked me about my position toward the U.S., and why I had transited through his country. I really didn’t understand why my position toward the U.S. government should matter to anybody. I am not a U.S. citizen, nor did I ever apply to enter the U.S., nor am I working with the U.N. Besides, I could always lie. Or let’s say I love the U.S., or I hate it, it doesn’t really matter as long as I haven’t done any crimes against the U.S. I explained all this to the Senegalese interrogator with a clarity that left no doubt at all about my circumstances.

  “You seem very tired! I suggest you go and have some sleep. I know it’s hard,” he said. Of course I was dead tired, and hungry and thirsty. The guards led me back to the small room where my brothers and the other two guys were lying on the floor, fighting against the most efficient Senegalese Air Force Mosquitoes ■■■■■■. I was no luckier than the rest. Did we sleep? Not really.

  The interrogator and his assistant showed up early in the morning. They released the two guys, and took me and my brothers to the headquarters of the Ministère de L’Intérieur. The interrogator, who turned out to be a very high-level person in the Senegalese government, took me to his office and made a call to the Minister of Internal Affairs.

  “The guy in front of me is not the head of a terrorist organization,” he said. I couldn’t hear what the minister said. “When it comes to me, I have no interest in keeping this guy in jail—nor do I have a reason,” the interrogator continued. The telephone call was short and straightforward. In the meantime, my brothers made themselves comfortable, bought some stuff, and started to make tea. Tea is the only thing that keeps the Mauritanian person alive, with God’s help. It had been a long time since any of us had eaten or drunk anything, but the first thing that came to mind was tea.

  I was happy because the one-ton stack of paper the U.S. government had provided the Senegalese about me didn’t seem to impress them; it didn’t take my interrogator a whole lot of time to understand the situation. My two brothers started a conversation with him in Wolof. I asked my brothers what the conversation was about, and they said that the Senegalese government was not interested in holding me, but the U.S. was the one that was going to call the shots. Nobody was happy with that, because we had an idea of what the U.S. call would be like.

  “We’re waiting on some people from the U.S. embassy to show up,” said the interrogator. Around eleven o’clock a black American ■■■■■■■■ showed up.* ■■■■ took pictures, fingerprints, and the report the recorder had typed earlier that morning. My brothers felt more comfortable around the black ■■■■■■■■ than the white ■■■■■■■■ from last night. People feel comfortable with the looks they are used to, and since about 50 percent of Mauritanians are black, my brothers could relate to them more. But that was a very naïve approach: in either case, black or white, ■■■■■■■■■■■ would just be a messenger.

  After finishing ■■■■ work, ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ made a couple of calls, pulled the interrogator aside and spoke to him briefly, and then ■■■■ was gone. The inspector informed us that my brothers were free to go and that I was going to be held in contempt for some time.

  “Do you think we can wait on him until he gets released?” my brother asked.

  “I would suggest you guys go home. If he gets released, he will find his way.” My brothers left and I felt abandoned and lonely, though I believe my brothers did the right thing.

  For the next couple of days, the Senegalese kept interrogating me about the same things; the U.S. investigators sent them the questions. That was all. The Senegalese didn’t hurt me in any way, nor did they threaten me. Since the food in jail was horrible, my brothers arranged with a family they knew in Dakar to bring me one meal a day, which they consistently did.

  My concern, as I say, was and still is to convince the U.S. government that I am not a corn. My only fellow detainee in the Senegalese jail had a different concern: to smuggle himself to Europe or America. We definitely had different Juliets. The young man from Ivory Coast was determined to leave Africa.

  “I don’t like Africa,” he told me. “Many friends of mine have died. Everybody is very poor. I want to go to Europe or America. I tried twice. The first time I managed to sneak into Brazil when I outsmarted the port officials, but one African guy betrayed us to the Brazilian authorities, who put us in jail until they deported us back to Africa. Brazil is a very beautiful country, with very beautiful women,” he added.

  “How can you say so? You were in jail the whole time!” I interrupted him.

  “Yes, but every once in a while the guards escorted us to look around, then took us back to jail,” he smiled.

  “You know, brother, the second time I almost made it to Ireland,” he went on. “But the ruthless ■■■■■■■■■■■■ kept me in the ship and made customs take me.”

  Sounds Columbus-y, I thought. “How did you get on board in the first place?” I wondered.

  “It’s very easy, brother. I bribed some of the workers at the port. Those people smuggled me onto a ship heading to Europe or America. It didn’t really matter. I hid in the containers section for about a week until my provisions were gone. At that point, I came up and mingled with the crew. At first, they got very mad. The Captain of the ship headed to Ireland was so mad that he wanted to drown me.”

  “What an animal!” I interrupted, but my friend kept going.

  “But after some time the crew accepted me, gave me food, and made me work.”

  “How did they catch you this time?”

  “My smugglers betrayed me. They said the ship was heading nonstop to Europe. But we made a stop in Dakar and customs took me off of the ship, and here I am!”

  “What’s your next plan?”

  “I’m gonna work, save some money, and try again.” My fellow detainee was determined to leave Africa at any cost. Moreover, he was confident that one day he was going to put his feet in the promised land.

  “Man, what you see on TV is not how real life looks like in Europe,” I said.

  “No!” he answered. “My friends have been successfully smuggled into Europe, and they have good lives. Good looking women and a lot of money. Africa is bad.”

  “You might as easily end up in jail in Europe.”

  “I don’t care. Jail in Europe is good. Africa is bad.”

  I figured the guy was completely blinded by the rich world that deliberately shows us poor Africans a “paradise” we cannot enter, though he had a point. In Mauritania, the majority of the young people want to emigrate to Europe or the U.S. If the politics in African countries don’t change radically for the better, we are going to experience a catastrophe that will affect the whole world.

  His cell was catastrophic. Mine was a little better. I had a very thin worn-out mattress, but he had nothing but a piece of carton he slept on. I used to give him my food because when I get anxious I can’t eat. Besides, I got good food from outside, and he got the bad food of the jail. The guards let us be together during the day and locked him up nights. My cell was always open. The day before I was extradited to Mauritania, the ambassador of Ivory Coast came to confirm the identity of my fellow detainee. Of course he had no papers whatsoever.

  “We are releasing you!” the recorder who had been interrogating me for the last several days said happily.

  “Thank you!” I interrupted him, looking in the direction of Mecca, and prostrating myself to thank God for being free.

  “However, we have to turn you over to your country.”

  “No, I know the way, I’ll do it on my own,” I said innocently, thinking I didn’t really want to go back to Mauritania, but maybe to Canada or somewhere else. My heart had been teased enough.

  “I am sorry, we have to turn you over ourselves!” My whole
happiness turned into agony, fear, nervousness, helplessness, confusion and other things I cannot describe. “Gather your stuff!” the guy said. “We’re leaving.”

  I started to gather my few belongings, heartbroken. The inspector grabbed my bigger bag and I carried my small briefcase. During my arrest, the Americans had copied every single piece of paper I had and sent it all to Washington for analysis.

  It was around 5 p.m. when we left the gate of the Commissariat de Police. Out front stood a Mitsubishi SUV. The inspector put my bags in the trunk, and we got into the back seat. On my left sat a guard I had never seen before, older and big boned. He was quiet and rather laid back; he looked straight ahead most of the time, only rarely scanning me quickly with the side of his eye. I hated it when guards would keep staring at me as if they had never seen a mammal before. On my right was the inspector who had been the recorder. In the passenger’s seat sat the lead interrogator.

  The driver was a ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.* From his tan you could tell he had spent some time in a warm place, but not in Senegal because the interrogator kept guiding him to the airport. Or maybe he was looking for best way, I couldn’t tell. He spoke French with a heavy accent, though he was stingy in his conversation; he limited himself exactly within the necessary. He never looked at or addressed me. The other two interrogators tried to talk to me, but I didn’t answer, I kept reading my Koran silently. Out of respect, the Senegalese didn’t confiscate my Koran, unlike the Mauritanians, Jordanians, and Americans.

  It took about 25 minutes to the airport. The traffic was quiet around and inside the terminal. The white driver quickly found a parking place. We got out of the truck, the guards carrying my luggage, and we all passed through the diplomatic way to the waiting room. It was the first time that I shortcut the civilian formalities while leaving one country to another. It was a treat, but I didn’t enjoy it. Everybody seemed to be prepared in the airport. In front of the group the interrogator and the white guy kept flashing their magic badges, taking everybody with them. You could clearly tell that the country had no sovereignty: this was still colonization in its ugliest face. In the so-called free world, the politicians preach things such as sponsoring democracy, freedom, peace, and human rights: What hypocrisy! Still, many people believe this propaganda garbage.

  The waiting room was empty. Everybody took a seat, and one of the Senegalese took my passport and went back and stamped it. I thought I was going to take the regular Air Afrique flight that was scheduled to Nouakchott that afternoon. But it didn’t take very long to realize I had my own plane to myself. As soon as the guy returned with my stamped passport, all five of us stepped toward the runway, where a very small white plane was already running its engines. The American man gestured for us to stay behind and he had a quick talk with the pilot. Maybe the interrogator was with him, too, I can’t remember. I was too scared to memorize everything.

  Soon enough we were told to get in. The plane was as small as it could be. We were four, and barely managed to squeeze ourselves inside the butterfly with heads down and backs bent. The pilot had the most comfortable place. She was a French lady, you could tell from her accent. She was very talkative, and rather on the older side, skinny and blond. She didn’t talk to me, but she exchanged some words with the inspector during the trip. As it turned out, I later learned she told her friends in Nouakchott about the secret package she delivered from Dakar. The bigger guard and I squeezed ourselves, knees-on-faces, in the back seat, facing the inspector, who had a little better seat in front of us. The plane was obviously overloaded.

  The Interrogator and the American man waited until they made sure that the plane took off. I wasn’t paying attention to the conversations between the pilot and the inspector, but I heard her at one point telling him that the trip was only 300 miles, and would take between 45 minutes and an hour, depending on the wind direction. That sounded so medieval. The inspector tried to talk to me, but there was nothing to talk about; to me everything was already said and done. I figured he had nothing to say to help me, so why should I talk to him?

  I hate traveling in small planes because they’re shaky and I always think the wind is going to blow the plane away. But this time was different, I was not afraid. In fact I wanted the plane to crash, and only me to survive. I would know my way: it was my country, I was born here, and anybody would give me food and shelter. I was drowned in my dreams, but the plane didn’t crash; instead it was getting closer and closer to its destination. The wind was in its favor. I was thinking about all my innocent brothers who were and still are being rendered to strange places and countries, and I felt solaced and not alone anymore. I felt the spirits of unjustly mistreated people with me. I had heard so many stories about brothers being passed back and forth like a soccer ball just because they have been once in Afghanistan, or Bosnia, or Chechnya. That’s screwed up! Thousands of miles away, I felt the warm breath of these other unjustly treated individuals comforting me. I stuck all the time to my Koran, ignoring my environment.

  My company seemed to have a good time checking the weather and enjoying the beach we had been flying along the whole time. I don’t think that the plane had any type of navigation technologies because the pilot kept a ridiculously low altitude and oriented us with the beach. Through the window I started to see the sand-covered small villages around Nouakchott, as bleak as their prospects. There definitely had been a sandstorm earlier that day; People were just gradually daring to go outside. The suburbs of Nouakchott appeared more miserable than ever, crowded, poor, dirty, and free of any of life’s crucial infrastructures. It was the Kebba ghetto I knew, only worse. The plane flew so low I could tell who was who among the people who were moving, seemingly disoriented, everywhere.

  It had been long time since I had seen my country last—since August 1993, in fact. I was coming back, but this time as a terrorism suspect who was going to be hidden in some secret hole. I wanted to cry out loud to my people, “Here I am! I am not a criminal! I’m innocent! I am just the guy you knew, I’m no different!” But my voice was oppressed, just like in a nightmare. I couldn’t really recognize anything, the city plan had changed so radically.

  I finally realized the plane was not going to crash, and I was not going to have the chance to talk to my people. It’s amazing how hard it can be for someone to accept his miserable situation. The key to surviving any given situation is to realize that you are in it. Whether I wanted it or not, I was going to be delivered to the very people I didn’t want to see.

  “Can you do me a favor?” I asked the Inspector.

  “Sure!”

  “I’d like you to inform my family that I’m in the country.”

  “OK. Do you have the phone number?”

  “Yes, I do.” The inspector, against my expectation, indeed called my family and told them about my reality. Moreover, the Senegalese made an official press declaration stating that they turned me over to my country. Both the Mauritanians and Americans were pissed off about that.

  “What did you tell the Inspector?” the Mauritanian DSE, the Directeur de la Sûrete de l’État, asked me later.*

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re lying. You told him to call your family.” It didn’t really take David Copperfield to figure out that the telephone call was intercepted.

  The handover was quick. We landed near the back door of the airport, where two men were waiting, the Mauritanian Inspector and another freakin’ big black guy, most likely brought to take care of business—just in case!

  “Where is the Airport Police Chief?” the Inspector wondered, looking at his black colleague. I knew the Airport Police Chief: he had once been in Germany, and I gave him shelter and helped him buy a Mercedes-Benz. I hoped he would show up, so he could see me and put in a good word for me. But he never showed. Nor would h
e have put in a good word for me: Mauritanian Intelligence is by far the highest law enforcement authority. But I felt like I was drowning, and I would have grabbed any straw I encountered.

  “You will be escorted to the hotel to spend the rest of the night,” said the Inspector to his guests.

  “How are you?” he said ungenuinely, looking at me.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Is that all he has?” he asked.

  “Yes that’s it.” I was watching all my belongings on earth being passed around as if I’d already died.

  “Let’s go!” the inspector said to me. The black guy, who never took his eyes off me, carried the luggage and pushed me before him toward a dirty small room at the secret gate of the airport. In the room, the black dude unfolded his dirty black 100 year-old turban.

  “Mask your face thoroughly with this turban,” said the Inspector. Typically Mauritanian: the Bedouin spirit still dominates. The inspector should have foreseen that he would need a Turban to wrap my head, but in Mauritania organization is almost non-existent; everything is left to whim and chance. It was tricky, but I hadn’t forgotten yet how to fold a turban around my head. It is something people from the desert must learn. The turban smelled of piled-up sweat. It was just disgusting to have it around your mouth and nose. But I obediently complied with the orders and held my breath.

  “Don’t look around,” the inspector said when the three of us stepped out of the room toward the parked Secret Police car, a ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. I sat in the passenger’s seat, the inspector drove, and the black guy sat in the back seat, without saying a word. It was about sunset, but you couldn’t tell exactly because the cloud of sand was covering the horizon. The streets were empty. I illegally looked around whenever the chance arose, but I could hardly recognize anything.

  The trip was short, about ten minutes to the Security Police building. We stepped out of the car and entered the building, where another guard was waiting on us, ■■■■■■■■■■■■■. The environment was an ideal place for mosquitoes, human beings are the strangers in that place: filthy toilet, dirty floor and walls, holes connecting all the rooms, ants, spiders, flies.