Speak Out
Behind the Hood

By Humna Bhojani

"My lawyer was being driven by a military personnel to the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. As they passed an iguana, the driver swerved to avoid it, explaining his actions by saying '…because if I hit that iguana I would have to pay a fine of $10,000 because the iguana are protected,'" disclosed Moazzam Baig, an ex-Guantanamo detainee. Hmmm… he has to pay $10,000 if he hurts an iguana, but for abusing, torturing or humiliating the detainees nothing would happen to him at all. There is only one place in the world where lizards are given more rights than innocent men. Located at the Southeastern end of Cuba, the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp has been the cause of many debates, outcries and protests since 2002.

Moazzam Baig was kidnapped by US agents in Pakistan and sent to Guantanamo. He could not be charged with anything and was among the few lucky ones who were released. In his speech, he described a conversation he had with an African guard there:

Moazzam Baig: Where are you from?

Guard: Africa

Moazzam Baig: Do you know the last time in history that most of the people who were taken from West Africa to America by the Americans to serve there as slaves were Muslims; the second time they have been taken to Guantanomo Bay.

Guard: "I can actually relate to that completely. September 11 was the first day in ther history of black people that we got a break because now it's your turn, the Muslim community around the world!"

Guantanamo was set up directly as a result of September 11 and not one person to date has actually been convicted of any crime, let alone convicted of anything to do with September 11. Not one person.

Many prisoners who have been released from Guantanamo describe it as hell on earth, where even the most basic human rights are denied.  According to their accounts, they are photographed in the most humiliating positions. The pictures of their children are waved in front of them, and they are forced to hear screams they are led to believe are of their wives. Their clothes are ripped from their bodies on the whims of the guards.

March 13, 2008 was indeed a shameful day in the history of Pakistan. It was the day when General Hood, who supervised brutal torture of inmates at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons, was appointed as US defence attaché in Pakistan.

Though Muslims have always been treated like dirt at Guantanamo, according to various media reports during General Hood's tenure there this was taken to a whole new level.

The Pentagon admitted that an American guard at Guantanamo Bay desecrated the Koran. Yet Hood chose to describe these incidents as "largely inadvertent." We would really appreciate if Mr. Hood would kindly explain to us how is kicking a Book, which Muslims value more than their lives, inadvertent? 

These reports went on further to talk about female interrogators at Guantanamo who tried to break Muslim detainees by sexual innuendos. Some of these accounts resemble the sexual aspects of the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the U.S. prison at Abu Ghraib. Photographs that became public last year showed a servicewoman there holding naked prisoners on a leash and posing next to a pile of naked prisoners.

Pakistan has the choice of refusing diplomatic nominees, and many western countries have refused nominees of the Pakistan Government. Yet we have tacitly accepted once again what the US military has asked us to do. Have we become this shameless?

If we stay silent at this point, the signal we are sending to the US is that we, the Pakistani Muslims, no longer have any self-respect left, that we no longer have the will to stand up for ourselves.

I request Prime Minister Gilani not to let this man, whose military uniform has been stained with the blood of countless innocent Muslims, to remain on our soil.

Note: Elizabeth Colton, Press attaché of USA embassy, Islamabad, has categorically denied the presence of General Hood in Pakistan, and has said that he has not been in Pakistan to date and has not even been posted here.

(Wouldn't the Al-Qaeeda people love to have him here, folks? After the assassination of Benazir, no one is safe here - except the assassins!).