Guantánamo Diary

by Mohamedou Ould Slahi

  SEVEN

  GTMO

  2004–2005

  The Good News… Goodbye Like Family Members… The TV and the Laptop… The First Unofficial Laughter in the Ocean of Tears… The Present Situation… The Dilemma of the Cuban Detainees

  I am happy and ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ is very pleased,” said ■■■■■■■ when ■■■■■ showed up the day after the ■■■■■■■■■■■, accompanied by a ■■■■■■■■■■ white ■■■■■■ in ■■■■■ late twenties.*

  “What does ‘pleased’ mean?” I asked ■■■■■■■. I had an idea, but I wanted to be clear since the word was a quotation from ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■.

  “Pleased means very happy.”

  “Ah, OK. Didn’t I tell you that I wasn’t lying?”

  “Yes, I’m glad,” said ■■■■■■■ smiling. ■■■■■■■ happiness was obvious and honest. I was hardly happier about my success than ■■■■■■■.* Now I could tell that the resented torture was heading the other direction, slowly but surely. And yet I was extremely skeptical, since I was still surrounded by the same people as I had been since day one.

  “Look at your uniform and ours. You are not one of us. You are our enemy!” ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ used to say.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want you to forget. If I speak to you, I speak to my enemy.”

  “I know!”

  “Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t!” Such talk left no doubt that the animosity of the guards had been driven to its extreme. Most of the time I had the feeling that they were trained to devour me alive.

  ■■■■■■■ introduced ■■■■ company to me. “This is another interrogator you can ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ like me.”

  The new interrogator ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ was quiet and polite. I can’t really say anything negative about ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ was a workaholic, and not really open to other people. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ literally followed the orders of ■■■■ boss ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■, and sometimes even worked like a computer.

  “Do you know about ■■■■■■■■■■■■ travel to Iraq in 2003?” ■■■■ asked me once.

  “Come on, ■■■■■ you know that I turned myself in in 2001. How am I supposed to know what went on in 2003? It doesn’t make sense, does it?” I said.

  ■■■■■■■ smiled. “I have the question in my request.”

  “But you know that I’ve been in detention since 2001!” I said. ■■■■■■■■■ was very careful, too careful: ■■■■■■■■■ used to cover ■■■■ rank and ■■■■ name all the time, and ■■■■ never made any reference to ■■■■ beliefs. I personally was content with that, as long as ■■■■ didn’t give me a hard time.

  “I like the way you make connections,” ■■■■■■■■■ said, smiling at me in that session. Interrogators have a tendency to enter the house through the window and not the door; instead of asking a direct question, they ask all kinds of questions around it. I took it as a challenge, and for the most part I would search out the direct question and answer that. “Your question is whether or not…,” I would say. And ■■■■■■■■■ seemed to like that shortcut.

  But has there ever, in all of recorded human history, been an interrogation that has gone on, day in and day out, for more than six years? There is nothing an interrogator could say to me that would be new; I’ve heard every variation. Each new interrogator would come up with the most ridiculous theories and lies, but you could tell they were all graduates of the same school: before an interrogator’s mouth opened I knew what he ■■■■■■■ was going to say and why he ■■■■■■■ was saying it.*

  “I am your new interrogator. I have very long experience doing this job. I was sent especially from Washington D.C. to assess your case.”

  “You are the most important detainee in this camp. If you cooperate with me, I am personally going to escort you to the airport. If you don’t cooperate, you’re gonna spend the rest of your life on this island.”

  “You’re very smart. We don’t want to keep you in jail. We would rather capture the big fish and release the small fish, such as yourself.”

  “You haven’t driven a plane into a building; your involvement can be forgiven with just a five-minute talk. The U.S. is the greatest country in the world; we would rather forgive than punish.”

  “Many detainees have talked about you being the bad person. I personally don’t believe them; however, I would like to hear your side of the story, so I can defend you appropriately.”

  “I have nothing against Islam, I even have many Muslim friends.”

  “I have helped many detainees to get out of this place; just by writing a positive report stating that you told you the whole truth‥…”

  And so on, in an endless recitation that all the interrogators recited when they met with their detainees. Most detainees couldn’t help laughing when they had to hear this Groundhog Day nonsense; in fact, it was the only entertainment we got in the interrogation booth. When his interrogator told him, “I know you are innocent,” one of my fellow detainees laughed hard and responded, “I’d rather be a criminal and sitting home with my kids.” I believe anything loses its influence the more we repeat it. If you hear an expression like, “You are the worst criminal on the face of the earth” for the first time, you’ll most likely get the hell scared out of you. But the fear diminishes the more times you hear it, and at some point it will have no effect at all. It may even sound like a daily compliment.

  And yet let’s look at it from the interrogator’s perspective. They were literally taught to hate us detainees. “Those people are the most evil creatures on earth… Do not help the enemy… Keep in mind they are enemies… Look out, the Arabs are the worst, especially the Saudis and the Yemenis. They’re hardcore, they’re savages.… Watch out, don’t ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ unless you secure everything…” In GTMO, interrogators are taught more about the potential behavior of detainees than about their actual Intelligence value, and so the U.S. Interrogators consistently succeeded in missing the most trivial information about their own detainees. I’m not speaking about second hand information; I’m speaking about my own experience.

  “■■■■■■■■■■ spoke about you!” ■■■■■■■■■ said to me once.

  “■■■■■■■■■■ doesn’t know me, how could he possibly have spoken about me? Just read my file again.”

  “I am sure that he did. I’m gonna show you!” ■■■■■ said. But ■■■■ never did because ■■■■ was wrong. I had ■■■■■■■ of such and worse examples depicting the ignorance of interrogators about their detainees. The government would hold back basic information from its interrogators for tactical reasons, and then tell them, “The detainee you are assigned to is deeply involved in terrorism and has vital information about coming and already performed attacks. Your job is to get everything he knows.” In fact, I hardly met a detainee who was involved in a crime against the United States.

  So you have interrogators who are prepared, schooled, trained, and pitted to meet their worst enemies. And you have detainees who typically were captured and turned over to U.S. forces without any proper judicial process. After that, they experienced heavy mistreatment and found themselves incarcerated in another hemisphere, in GTMO Bay, by a country that claims to safeguard human rights all over the world—but a country that many Muslims suspect is conspiring with other evil forces to wipe the Islamic religion off the face of the earth. All in all, the environment is not likely to be a place of love and reconciliation. The hatred here is heavily watered.

  But believe it or not, I have seen guards crying because they had to leave the
ir duties in GTMO.

  “I am your friend, I don’t care what anybody says,” said one guard to me before he left.

  “I was taught bad things about you, but my judgment tells me something else. I like you very much, and I like speaking with you. You are a great person,” said another.

  “I hope you get released,” said ■■■■■■■■ genuinely.

  “You guys are my brothers, all of you,” another whispered to me.

  “I love you!” said a ■■■■■■■■■ corpsman once to my neighbor, a funny young guy I personally enjoyed talking to. He was shocked.

  “What… Here no love… I am Mouslim!” I just laughed about that “forbidden” love.

  But I couldn’t help crying myself one day when I saw a German-descendent ■■■■■■■■■ guard crying because ■■■■■■■ got just a little bit hurt. The funny thing was I hid my feelings because I didn’t want them to be misinterpreted by my brethren, or understood as a weakness or a betrayal. At one point I hated myself and confused the hell out of myself. I started to ask myself questions about the humane emotions I was having toward my enemies. How could you cry for somebody who caused you so much pain and destroyed your life? How could you possibly like somebody who ignorantly hates your religion? How could you put up with these evil people who keep hurting your brothers? How could you like somebody who works day and night to pull shit on you? I was in a worse situation than a slave: at least a slave is not always shackled in chains, has some limited freedom, and doesn’t have to listen to some interrogator’s bullshit every day.

  I often compared myself with a slave. Slaves were taken forcibly from Africa, and so was I. Slaves were sold a couple of times on their way to their final destination, and so was I. Slaves suddenly were assigned to somebody they didn’t choose, and so was I. And when I looked at the history of slaves, I noticed that slaves sometimes ended up an integral part of the master’s house.

  I have been through several phases during my captivity. The first phase was the worst: I almost lost my mind fighting to get back to my family and the life I was used to. My torture was in my rest; as soon as I closed my eyes, I found myself complaining to them about what has happened to me.

  “Am I with you for real, or is it a mere dream?”

  “No, you’re really at home!”

  “Please hold me, don’t let me go back!” But the reality always hit me as soon as I woke up to the dark bleak cell, looking around just long enough to fall asleep and experience it all again. It was several weeks before I realized that I’m in jail and not going home anytime soon. As harsh as it was, this step was necessary to make me realize my situation and work objectively to avoid the worst, instead of wasting my time with my mind playing games on me. Many people don’t pass this step; they lose their minds. I saw many detainees who ended up going crazy.

  Phase two is when you realize for real that you’re in jail and you possess nothing but all the time in the world to think about your life—although in GTMO detainees also have to worry about daily interrogations. You realize you have control over nothing, you don’t decide when you eat, when you sleep, when you take a shower, when you wake up, when you see the doctor, when you see the interrogator. You have no privacy; you cannot even squeeze a drop of urine without being watched. In the beginning it is a horrible thing to lose all those privileges in the blink of an eye, but believe me, people get used to it. I personally did.

  Phase three is discovering your new home and family.

  Your family comprises the guards and your interrogators. True, you didn’t choose this family, nor did you grow up with it, but it’s a family all the same, whether you like it or not, with all the advantages and disadvantages. I personally love my family and wouldn’t trade it for the world, but I have developed a family in jail that I also care about. Every time a good member of my present family leaves it feels as if a piece of my heart is being chopped off. But I am so happy if a bad member has to leave.*

  “I’m going to leave soon,” ■■■■■■■ said a couple of days before ■■■■ left.

  “Really? Why?”

  “It’s about time. But the other ■■■■■■■■■■■■■ is going to stay with you.” That was not exactly comforting, but it would have been futile to argue: the transfer of MI agents is not a subject of discussion. “We’re gonna watch a movie together before I leave,” ■■■■■■■ added.

  “Oh, good!” I said. I hadn’t digested the news yet.

  ■■■■■■■■ most likely studied psychology, and came from the west coast, maybe California ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ early twenties ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■. I think that ■■■■■■■■■ comes from a rather poor family. The ■■■■■■■■■■■■ provides a great deal of opportunity for people from the lower classes, and most of the ■■■■■■■■■■■■ people I’ve seen are from the lower class. ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ and has a rather shaky relation ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ has a very strong personality, ■■■■ looks at ■■■■■■■■■■■■ and ■■■■■ ideas very highly. At the same time ■■■■■■■■ likes ■■■■ job, and might have been forced to step over the red line of ■■■■ principles sometimes. “I know what we are doing is not healthy for our country,” ■■■■ used to tell me.