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Detainees sought suicides en masse { January 25 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
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Detainees sought suicides en masse
Guantanamo jail attempts revealed
From Tribune news services
Published January 25, 2005
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- Nearly two dozen detainees at the interrogation prison here tried to hang or strangle themselves during an eight-day period in 2003, including 10 simultaneous attempts on a single day, the U.S. military disclosed Monday.
The extraordinary protest of Aug. 18-26, 2003, adds to stories about the prison contained in FBI memos describing abusive interrogations that were recently made public through a lawsuit.
The mass-hanging event began as several prisoners tried to hang themselves in their 6-by-8-foot cells, and widened as word of the hangings was shouted among open cellblocks. Officials hadn't previously reported the incidents.
Lt. Col. Jim Marshall, a spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command said Monday that the attempts were "a coordinated effort to disrupt camp operations and challenge a new group of security guards" who had taken over duties at the base.
None of the 23 attempts was successful, although two detainees sustained "minor injuries" that were treated at the detention hospital, he said. The medical staff at the base classified those two as suicide attempts but categorized the other 21 as "manipulative, self-injurious behavior."
The military has reported 34 suicide attempts since the camp opened in January 2002, including one prisoner who went into a coma and sustained memory loss from brain damage.
Officials said they differentiated between a suicide attempt in which a detainee could have died without intervention, and a "gesture" aimed at getting attention.
The coordinated attempts were among 350 "self-harm" incidents in 2003, including 120 "hanging gestures," at the prison, according to Lt. Col. Leon Sumpter, a spokesman for the detention mission. The Guantanamo Bay prison opened after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Last year, there were 110 self-harm incidents, Sumpter said.
The 2003 protests came after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took command with a mandate to get more information from prisoners accused of links to Al Qaeda or Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, which had sheltered Osama bin Laden.
Critics linked the two and criticized the delay in reporting the incidents.
"When you have suicide attempts or so-called self-harm incidents, it shows the type of impact indefinite detention can have, but it also points to the extreme measures the Pentagon is taking to cover up things that have happened in Guantanamo," said Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for Amnesty International in Washington.
Army Gen. Jay Hood, who succeeded Miller last year, has said the number of incidents has decreased since 2003, when the military set up a psychiatric ward.
Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, who was a spokeswoman for the detention mission in August of 2003, said she knew nothing of the mass protest. She is now a Pentagon spokeswoman for the Army.
Southern Command said the detainees' moods and ability to communicate with one another were constantly being assessed at Guantanamo. The assessment, the command said in a statement, "has enabled the leadership to take numerous measures to reduce the opportunity for detainees to communicate a coordinated self-harm incident, or strike out at another detainee or the guard force."
The mass protest was mentioned casually during a visit to Guantanamo in January by three journalists, but officials denied there had been a mass suicide attempt.
The latest report comes after recently revealed allegations of abuse and mistreatment at the base, much of which allegedly occurred under Miller.
The recent disclosures are shadowing attempts by a new team of managers to make the operation a more professional, long-term holding place for alleged enemy combatants.
"I can't, frankly, really speak to the period before I arrived here with any authority," said Hood, who took command 10 months ago, when asked about the memos. "But the allegations of abuse were taken seriously and are being investigated."
Steve Rodriguez, the civilian who has run the interrogation operation since June 2003, said he has never used any of the techniques described in the FBI memos, such as shackling a detainee to the floor and leaving him there amid his excrement, and he condemns them.
"'Most everything that is referred to in these memos occurred around 2002 and some in early 2003, maybe," Rodriguez said. " I can tell you unequivocably that none of the things I saw in the memos ... have happened since I have been here."
There are 558 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, many held for more than three years without charge or access to attorneys.
Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees could challenge their detentions in civilian courts, opening a floodgate of litigation. Meanwhile, a federal judge has halted the Bush administration's attempt to put several detainees on trial before a military commission here. The administration is appealing that ruling.
Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune
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