Gitmo Guards Endure Attacks From Inmates
The Washington Times ^ | August 1, 2006 | John Solomon
washtimes.com
The prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay during the war on terror have attacked their military guards hundreds of times, turning broken toilet parts, utensils and radios into makeshift weapons, Pentagon reports say.
Incident reports reviewed by the Associated Press indicate Military Police guards are routinely head-butted, spat upon and doused by "cocktails" of feces, urine, vomit and semen collected in meal cups by the prisoners.
The guards have been repeatedly grabbed, punched or assaulted by prisoners who reach through the small "bean holes" used to deliver food and blankets through cell doors, the reports say. Serious assaults requiring medical attention, however, are rare, the reports indicate.
Guards stationed at Guantanamo describe a tense atmosphere in which prisoners often orchestrate violence in hopes of unnerving their captors, especially with attacks using bodily fluids.
"I mean, seeing a human being act that way, it's terrifying. ... You are constantly watching before you take your next step to see if something is about to happen," Navy Senior Chief Petty Officer Mack D. Keen told AP.
"You see little signs. They kind of show their hand every once in a while. They'll take their Koran, and they'll cover it up," he said. "When you see a group of detainees taking their Koran and putting it away, you know something is about to happen."
Since its creation in early 2002, the U.S. detention camp on Cuba's coast has been a controversial symbol of the Bush administration's war on terror, bringing accusations of prisoner mistreatment, debates on civil rights and a landmark legal battle to win rights for the detainees. |
