FORGIVENESS
Guantanamo Bay was built quickly in response to the airplanes crashing into the Twin Towers in New York City.
By Ruthie DiTucci
Mohamedou Ould Slahi lived in Mauritania. In 1988 he won a scholarship to a university in Germany where he earned his engineering degree. He continued a routine life and one day he answered a cell phone call from a phone number he didn’t recognize and answered the usual “Hello?” and the voice was that of his cousin’s. The call seemed innocent enough except that his cousin was using Osama Bin Ladin’s actual cell phone. Answering that call changed Mohamedou’s life for decades.
Three months after the September 11th attack on New York City’s Twin Towers, Mohamedou was arrested at his mother’s home in Mauritania. He was then interrogated and tortured in prisons in Mauritania, Jordan and Afghanistan before they finally brought him to Guantanamo Bay Military Prison where he was held illegally for almost 15 years. He was never charged with a crime because evidence against him was never produced by anyone.
According to a top United Nations human rights investigator, the use of torture has persisted at the U.S. military-run Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba (a property sitting on Cuban land rented by the U.S. military from the Cuban government for a term of 100 years) despite torture being banned by both U.S. and international law 1.
The Red Cross, the United Nations, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and a member of the military commissions’ council set up by the Bush administration have all concluded that the men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay were tortured by the U.S. military 3.
The most important reason the United States Military had to release Mohamedou was because while his experience there was to be that of a prisoner – the violations of the Geneva Convention being detailed in his book which was already published, converted him into a witness.
His book, had been smuggled out of Guantanamo in sections. Many respected members of the United States military agreed that the torture was cruel and unusual and Mohamedou would confess to make them stop torturing him. The book published in 25 languages to date is a compilation of the direct violation of the Geneva Convention which prohibits torture.
Most of the public does not realize that several prisons were established in multiple countries around the world with the precise purpose of committing torture against prisoners of war.
Below: Jodie Foster Image Source Shutterstock licensed to SyndicatedNews. Mohamedou Ould Slahi (right) Image Source Wikipedia.
To describe this horror as briefly as possible, I would have to say that the United States was unable to commit atrocities against men and women on U.S. land. Solution? They established using leased land known as the Military Guantanamo Bay and quickly built a prison there so that torture could be implemented without the usual reaction from American citizens whom hate torture of any kind.
Guantanamo Prison is not the only prison of its kind in the world. The torture was referred to as “Advanced Interrogation Techniques.”
The Mauritanian is a MUST SEE movie about the United States violations of the Geneva Convention by the U.S. Military torture facilities outside the physical mainland of the United States.
It is highly moving and touching that a man subjected to that much injustice in exchange offers forgiveness. Also notable is that the United States never offered him any manner of compensation… not even an apology.
