16 Years too Long: A Brief History of Guantanamo Bay

THERE'S A MAN UNDER THAT HOOD IN SOLIDARITY WITHÂ PRISONERS AT GUANTANAMO BAY: PAST AND PRESENT ARTWORK BY MUHAMMAD ANSI, A FORMER GUANTANAMO BAY PRSIONER

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January 11th, 2018 marks the 16th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay. The prison, designed as a place to hold people outside of the law, is a continued symbol of state sanctioned violence and human rights abuses at the hands of the United States government. There are 41 men who are still housed in the prison: five of whom have been cleared for release yet are still suffering behind bars. 26 of the detainees are being indefinitely detained without charge or trial.

This is an egregious violation of human rights and international law.

While former presidents Bush and Obama decided the prison should be closed, it still remained open at the end of their respective presidencies.

President Trump has vowed to send more prisoners to be held without trial there.

It is our duty to fight against this symbol of U.S. imperialism, and stand in solidarity with all those who have been unfairly detained in Guantanamo Bay, and all victims of the imperialist War on Terror.

From Rikers Island, to Eloy Detention Center where undocumented immigrants are housed, to prisons across the world where the United States has exported its legacy of violence and terrorism, we recognize that the prison industrial complex is a brutal symptom of the capitalist system that sees the masses of people as disposable.

It is essential that we organize and agitate against a rising tide of Islamophobia. We must stand in solidarity with each other and stand firmly against the forces that would deprive us of our freedom and dignity. We must never lose hope. We have no time for despair.

The road is dark, but hope is a torch we carry from one generation to the next.

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"Altogether, a total of 779 men have been held in Guantanamo, all of them Muslim. Rather than being captured on the battlefield, most of them — 86 percent, according to the Center on Constitutional Rights — were seized "during a time when the U.S. military was offering large bounties" that unscrupulous Pakistanis and Afghans may have exploited to settle scores or make money by selling unsuspecting detainees to the United States. Furthermore, only 8 of these prisoners have been convicted in Guantanamo’s military commissions in over 15 years — a figure exceeded by the 9 who've died there."

- Dr. Maha Hilal

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Current Detainees: Abd al Sattar, Muieen A Deen Jamal A Deen Abd al Fusal Abdelrahman, Abdelrazak Ali Abu Rahman, Abdul Rabbani Abd al Rahim al Afghani, Haroon al Afghani, Muhammad Rahim al Alwi, Moath Hamza Ahmed Ali, Abd al Aziz al Bahlul, Ali Hamza Ahmad Suliman al Bakush, Ismael Ali Farag Barhoumi, Sufyian al Bihani, Tolfiq Nassar Ahmed Bin al Shibh, Ramzi Bin Attash, Hassan Mohammed Ali Bin Attash, Walid al Darbi, Ahmed Muhammed Haza Dourad, Gouled Hassan Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin) al Hawsawi, Mustafa Ahmed al Hilal, Abdul al Salam al Iraqi, Abd al Hadi

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al Kazimi, Sanad Yislam Khan, Majid al Libi, Abu Faraj Lillie (Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep) Malik, Abdul Mohammed, Khalid Shaikh Nashir, Said Salih Said al Nashiri, Abd al Rahim Nasir, Abdul Latif Paracha, Saifullah al Qahtani, Mohammed Qasim, Khaled Rabbani, Mohammed Ahmad Ghulam al Rammah, Omar Mohammed Ali al Sharabi, Zuhail Abdo Anam Said al Sharbi, Ghassan Abdullah Sharqawi, Abdu Ali al Haji Uthman, Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed al Yazidi, Ridah Bin Saleh Zubair (Mohd Farik Bin Amin) Zubaydah, Abu

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“... poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we help give name to the nameless so it can be thought. The farthest horizons of our hopes and fears are cobbled by our poems, carved from the rock experiences of our daily lives.�

Audre Lorde

The following poems by past and present detainees were all taken from the book Poems from Guantanamo : The Detainees Speak, edited by Marc Falkoff, University of Iowa Press, 2007.

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They Fight for Peace

by Shaker Abdurraheem Aamer

Peace, they say.

Peace of mind?

Peace on earth?

Peace of what kind?

I see them talking, arguing, fighting— What kind of peace are they looking for?

Why do they kill? What are they planning?

Is it just talk? Why do they argue?

Is it so simple to kill? Is this their plan?

Yes, of course!

They talk, they argue, they kill— They fight for peace.

Shaker Abdurraheem Aamer is a Saudi Arabian citizen and British resident who has been detained at Guantánamo Bay since early 2002. A leader among the Guantánamo detainees, Aamer helped broker an end to one of the hunger strikes. He elicited a concession from the military that it would allow the detainees to form a grievance committee and treat them in a manner consistent with the Geneva Conventions. In September 2005, just days after the grievance committee was formed, the military disbanded it and sent Aamer to solitary confinement, where he remains today.

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O Prison Darkness

by Abdulaziz

O prison darkness, pitch your tent.

We love the darkness.

For after the dark hours of the night, Pride’s dawn will rise.

Let the world, with all its bliss, fade away— So long as we find favor with God. A boy may despair in the face of a problem, But we know God has a design.

Even though the bands tighten and seem unbreakable, They will shatter.

Those who persist will attain their goal; Those who keep knocking shall gain entry.

O crisis, intensify!

The morning is about to break forth.

Abdulaziz, who wishes not to reveal his last name, had just graduated from university in his native Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, when U.S. forces launched their attack on Afghanistan. He traveled to the region to find his brother and bring him home safely. Soon after Abdulaziz found him, both men were picked up by Northern Alliance forces. After being tortured in an Afghan prison, he was turned over to the U.S. military in early 2002 and eventually sent to GuantĂĄnamo along with his brother. Both were classified as enemy combatants. His brother was subsequently released, but Abdulaziz remains in detention.

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To My Father

by Abdullah Thani Faris Al AnaziI Two years have passed in far-away prisons, Two years my eyes untouched by kohl.

Two years my heart sending out messages To the homes where my family dwells, Where lavender cotton sprouts For grazing herds that leave well fed.

O Flaij, explain to those who visit our home How I used to live.

I know your thoughts are swirled as in a whirlwind, When you hear the voice of my anguished soul.

Send sweet peace and greetings to Bu’mair; Kiss him on his forehead, for he is my father.

Fate has divided us, like the parting of a parent from a newborn.

O Father, this is a prison of injustice.

Its iniquity makes the mountains weep.

I have committed no crime and am guilty of no offense.

Curved claws have I, But I have been sold like a fattened sheep.

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I have no fellows but the Truth.

They told me to confess, but I am guiltless; My deeds are all honorable and need no apology.

They tempted me to turn away from the lofty summit of integrity, To exchange this cage for a pleasant life.

By God, if they were to bind my body in chains, If all Arabs were to sell their faith, I would not sell mine.

I have composed these lines For the day when your children have grown old.

O God— who governs creation with providence, Who is one, singular and self-subsisting, Who brings comfort and happy tidings, Whom we worship— Grant serenity to a heart that beats with oppression, And release this prisoner from the tight bonds of confinement.

Abdullah Thani Faris al Anazi is a double amputee, having lost both of his legs in a U.S. bombing campaign in Afghanistan while he was employed as a humanitarian aid worker. After his first leg was amputated, he was arrested on his recovery bed by bounty hunters and turned over to U.S. forces. While in U.S. custody, his second leg was amputated. He has been held at GuantĂĄnamo since 2002, where he has received inadequate medical care. At times, he has been forced to walk on prosthetic limbs held together with duct tape.

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Lions in the Cage

by Ustad Badruzzaman Badr In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Most Merciful, We are the heroes of the time.

We are the proud youth.

We are the hairy lions.

We live in the stories now.

We live in the epics.

We live in the public’s heart.

We are the shield before the oppressor.

Our courage is like a mountain.

The Pharaoh of our time is restless because of us.

The Chief of the White Palace, Like other sinful chiefs, Cannot see our patience.

The whirlpool of our tears Is moving fast towards him.

No one can endure the power of this flood.

It mostly happens, in these cages, That the stars at midnight Bring good news— That we will surely succeed, And the world will wait for us, The Caravan of Badr.

Ustad Badruzzaman Badr is a Pakistani essayist. Him and his brother Shaikh Abdurraheem Muslim Dost spent much of the 1980s publishing magazines that supported rebel fighters against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. In November 2001 the brothers were arrested by Pakistani intelligence officers, who subsequently turned them over to the U.S. military. Badr was returned to Peshawar in 2004 after the military determined that he represented no threat to the United States.

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Censorship at Guantanamo Bay

Since the prison's opening in 2002, many of the detainees have used art as a means of dealing with their confinement.

These art pieces have offered us a glimpse of life behind bars at Guantanamo Bay. For many of the prisoners, art has been a kind of refuge from the senselessness of indefinite detention.

In an exhibit called "Ode to the Sea," curated by faculty at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NYC, the artwork of eight prisoners has been displayed. The exhibit says the artists are haunted by the sea: "They paint the sea again and again although they cannot reach it."

Recently, the state department, in a reversal of policy, has decided that art created by the prisoners is now property of the U.S. government. It can no longer leave the prison, and can be destroyed. According to some of the attorneys of current inmates, the military intends to burn the art. This begs the question: What is the government afraid will happen if we begin to see the detainees at Guantanamo Bay as human?

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A GLIMPSE INTO THE LIVES

DJAMEL AMEZIANE - SHIP SAILING IN A STORMY SEA (2010) “I overcame the conditions of imprisonment during all these past years by always maintaining hope that one day I would be freed, because I am innocent…The past years were all the worst moments. I would describe them as a boat out at sea, battered by successive storms during its trip towards an unknown destination, benefiting only from very short periods of respite between two storms. These respites were the best moments.”

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OF SOME GTMO DETAINEES

AMMAR AL-BALUCHI - VERTIGO AT GUANTANAMO This was drawn to depict and reference the lingering physical effects of his time spent in Guantanamo Bay.

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MUHAMMAD ANSI - HANDS HOLDING RED FLOWERS (2015) AND CRYING EYE (2015)

His artwork very often portrays his family. The flowers represent his sisters and the crying eye represents his mother mourning over him.

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There's a Man Under That Hood

by Luke Nephew We are not here to make angels out of prisoners.

We don’t know them, but we know they still are men.

And so we defend those that disappear under hoods into jumpsuits, bringing back into the light every CIA black site because right now there is a man under that hood.

A brother breathing prayers of desperation, striking hunger so hard that his ribs are about to crack.

In Afghanistan, in Guantanamo, in Iraq there is a man under that hood who is being treated as less than human.

His rights have been dismissed with the label terrorist and just for saying this you probably put my name on a list, but it is too serious to us to not resist.

Mr. President, I need you to know, if it were you hooded and chained, we would be here demanding the same human rights for you.

Mr. Senator, we would walk through these streets with your name on our back.

We would fast in solidarity with your hunger strike.

Mrs. Congresswoman, even after months under black cloth making you cough, we would speak for you.

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Mr. Newsman, Mrs. Citizen, we would be right here for you, because human rights are universal.

This is life, not a rehearsal.

We, we are here because we cannot decide who is human and who is not.

We cannot steal years of men’s lives based on lies extracted from torture and bribes without becoming the greatest threat to ourselves.

We have sat inside a cell and it has taught us how wrong it is to cage men because they fell like corpses into the category of enemy combatants.

I will not act like nothing happened when it’s happening now.

I will not bow to injustice. I will speak for the change that was promised.

I’m not ashamed to be honest, Mr. President.

We have tried, Mr. President.

Clouds of consciousness overflowing out these eyes, Mr. President, for the moments when we have the courage to realize that there is a man under that hood.

No matter how beaten and bruised, there is a man under that hood that is exactly as human as you.

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There is a man under that hood regardless of his religion. There is a man who doesn’t understand why it’s so hard for us to see him, why it’s so hard for us to imagine what is would be like to be him there, where they sit in our prisons hidden from our justice system, locked away.

Are we going to pretend they’re less than men and just walk away?

Or or will we raise our eyes above the walls?

Will we raise our voices to call out our government and say, “We see you”; “We are watching what you’re doing”?

And no matter how many times they call you terrorist, we will recognize that you are human.

And to the detainees, no matter how broken and shattered and tortured you feel, there are people in these United States who hear you and see you, who know that you are real.

And to the people in my country, please, do not pretend to be seeking freedom or justice, or any common good until we are ready to recognize the human rights of every single man under that hood.

Luke Nephew is a poet journalist, emcee, and organizer. He performs at rallies and in streets, in hospitals and on stages, inside prisons and in front of precincts. He works with communities for collective healing and liberation in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

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Shut Down

Guantanamo Bay