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Detainee: They blinded me
by LETTA TAYLER
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wobeat024453131oct03,0,7889717.story?coll=ny-worldnews-headlinesThe allegations read like a deranged horror novel.First, prisoner Omar Deghayes said, he was torturedwith electric shocks and placed in a room with cagedsnakes in Pakistan. He likens his next stop, a US militarybase in Afghanistan, to a "Nazi camp." And at the USmilitary base at Guantanamo, he says, troops marchedinto his cellblock "singing and laughing" before sprayinghis face with mace and digging their fingers into hiseyes as an officer shouted "More! More."He says his right eye, already weak from a childhoodaccident, has been blind ever since.That assault "was the saddest," Deghayes wrote inrecently declassified notes. "My eye has gone a milkywhite color ... After all I have been through in my life tosave it."Deghayes' staggering allegations are virtually impossibleto verify because the Pentagon bars independent observersfrom prisons holding terror suspects. Though abuse hasbeen unearthed at U.S.-run prisons for terror suspects atAbu Ghraib and Baghram Air Force base in Afghanistan,Pentagon officials insist mistreatment is extremely rareand vigorously prosecuted."The United States operates a safe, humane and professional detention operation atGuantanamo," said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Flex Plexico, a Pentagon spokesman. Plexico alsonoted that al-Qaida manuals instruct prisoners to make up stories of abuse to createworld outrage.Nevertheless, human rights groups, the International Committee of the Red Cross, theFederal Bureau of Investigation and other detainees also say prisoners have beenabused at the base.Deghayes' attorney, the British human rights activist Clive Stafford Smith, says hisclient isn't asking anyone to take his word. "He only asks for an independentinvestigation," Stafford Smith said, "which will establish what he says is true."The Pentagon declined specific comment on Deghayes. One Guantanamo official said noinmate had been blinded at the base but that one entered with one blind eye from achildhood accident. Deghayes and his family insist he still had sight in his righteye before he was seized in 2002.Even Stafford Smith acknowledges Deghayes is "stubborn" and was made to wear anorange uniform that designated him "non-compliant" - Guantanamo's word fortrouble-makers.However, in his prison notes, Deghayes insists he never picked a fight and wasinstead punished for refusing to submit to humiliation. Thus, he says, troops pushedtheir fingers in his eyes in 2003 because he refused a rectal search - acontroversial procedure that Guantanamo has discontinued.Dehayes' mindboggling allegations about Guantanamo include having his head flushed ina toilet, feces smeared on his face and water forced up his nose with a pressurehose.At the "Nazi camp" in Baghram, he says he was kept naked, threatened with sodomy,chained to a wall with his hands high above his head, and denied food for a week.Deghayes claimed the abuse was also psychological. In Pakistan, in addition to beingsubjected to electric shocks and repeatedly dunked into a tub of water until henearly drowned, he said he was placed in a "snake room."The room "had very large snakes in glass boxes ... with dim lights," he wrote. "Theythreatened to leave me there, and let the snakes out."--_____________________________________________________I intend to last long enough to put out of business all *****-suckersand other beneficiaries of the institutionalized slavery and genocide.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The army that will defeat terrorism doesn't wear uniforms, or driveHumvees, or calls in air-strikes. It doesn't have a high command, orhigh security, or a high budget. The army that can defeat terrorismdoes battle quietly, clearing minefields and vaccinating children. Itundermines military dictatorships and military lobbyists. It subvertssweatshops and special interests.Where people feel powerless, ithelps them organize for change, and where people are powerful, itreminds them of their responsibility." ~~~~ Author Unknown ~~~~___________________________________________________--
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