GUANTANAMO BAY CHILD SOLDIERS - TORTURE and the Canadian Complicity.
...OH, Canada...!!!
Full article can be read at:
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2009/01/22/the-shame-of-a-guantanamo-prosecutor/
"I Was Slow to Recognize the Stain of Guantanamo"
By Darrel J. Vandeveld
Washington Post -
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Prosecutor Vandeveld was the prosecutor for one of the two "child-soldiers" being tortured in Guantanamo - a young Afghan named Mohammed Jawad, who was 16 when sent to that prison.
The other is Omar Khadr. Khadr was 15 when he was taken into American custody. As Jawad, he was also at Bagram, and BEFORE THE ABOVE "INTERVIEW" he was put in the "frequent flier" torture program, (sleep deprivation) being prepared for the visit of CSIS OFFICIALS...He is the only Western left in Guantanamo...
"From June 2007 through September 2008, I worked as a prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. .....The chief military prosecutor, Col. Morris Davis...eventually resigned..."
"My experience with the Jawad case led me to file a declaration in federal court this week stating that it is impossible to prepare a fair prosecution against detainees at Guantanamo Bay. I had concluded that the system of handling evidence is a haphazard farce."
"Evidence from U.S. Army criminal investigators — taken in the course of investigating homicide charges at Bagram air base — showed that while in U.S. custody in Afghanistan, Jawad had been hooded, slapped repeatedly across the face and then thrown down at least one flight of stairs. Detainee records show that once at Guantanamo, he was subjected to a sleep deprivation regime during which he was moved to different cells 112 times over a 14-day period — an average of every 2 1/2 hours. It was called the frequent flier program."
"Eventually I learned of evidence from field reports suggesting that he was innocent. The reports indicated that he had been recruited by terrorists who drugged him and lied to him."
" I tried to negotiate an agreement to have Jawad rehabilitated and sent back to Afghanistan, where he could be reunited with his family."
"Later that month, I made my final appearance before the military commissions at Guantanamo, not as a gung-ho prosecutor, but as a reluctant but determined witness for the defense."
"I am ashamed that it took me so long to recognize the stain of Guantanamo, not simply on America’s standing in the world, but as part, now, of a history we cannot undo. We have kept human beings in solitary confinement for as long as seven years, even though they have never been charged with any crime. In other places, we have beaten hooded, shackled prisoners, at least two of whom died as a result."
PS: This is the very SAME torture method of sleep deprivation dubbed "frequent flyer program" that was used to "prepare" Omar Khadr for the visit of the Canadian Officials"...This is the same Guantanamo "JUSTICE" to which a Canadian child was "delivered to"...
Omar Khadr will probably "be returned" to Canada...Will his torture in Guantanamo be denied? Will Canada take responsibility for the complicity in torture of a child?
Or will Canada call him "just another terrorist"? Still to be seen since Canada is still in the BUSH ERA
...OH, Canada...!!!
The Canadian Complicty in Torture is even worse - it is denied, covered-up and the "terrorist label" justifies it...
Americans are getting ashamed ...
