Sat, May 08, 2004 page6

• Guantanamo abuses highlight Abu Ghraib failures

  • AP
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  One prisoner was pepper-sprayed. Another was hit repeatedly with a clock radio. A third was hosed down by a guard.

  Swiftly and quietly, investigators dealt with three formal complaints of prisoner abuse at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some 600 men are being held for alleged ties to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime or to the al-Qaeda terror network, military officials told reporters on Thursday.

  Two of the guards were demoted in rank and a third was acquitted in a court martial, according to Raoul Duany, a civilian spokesman for the US Southern Command in Miami. Action was taken quickly to prevent the type of scandal plaguing US officials in Iraq, he said.

  The first complaint surfaced in September of 2002 when an Army reserve specialist was accused of spraying a detainee with a fire hose. The detainee allegedly threw food and water at the passing guard who worked in the sprawling Camp Delta prison camp in eastern Cuba.

  The guard was demoted in rank and reassigned, Duany said.

  In April last year, a detainee reportedly assaulted a guard, who then struck the detainee two times on the head with a clock radio, Duany said.

  The guard was also demoted in rank and was given 45 days of extra duty and reassigned. It was not clear if either guard was still in Guantanamo.

  In the third incident, an Air Force reserve staff sergeant was accused of using pepper spray on a detainee. The airman said he felt threatened and was acquitted of the charges.

  "The cases were dealt with expeditiously so the message got across," said Duany. "When people get to Guantanamo you get briefed on military justice, the Geneva Conventions, right use of force, and you get these briefings with continuous repetition. We feel confident of the procedures that we have in place at Guantanamo."

  Still, the Pentagon sent an assessment team to investigate prisoner treatment and other conditions at Guantanamo. The team is expected to issue the findings of their report in the upcoming months.

  In one of its harshest rebukes the International Committee of the Red Cross said in October it found the mental conditions of detainees at Guantanamo "worrying." The Geneva-based group is the only independent organization with access to the detainees.

  After interviews with detainees, the group -- which maintains an office in Guantanamo -- offers recommendations to the US military but the recommendations are rarely made public.

  None of the detainees have been charged with any crime and many of them have been held for more than two years. No dates have been set for tribunals.

  Officials say Guantanamo has been run professionally -- not like the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where an American guard informed commanders in January of abuses inflicted by colleagues. The probe has since widened into a look at whether there was systematic abuse at detention facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

  Pictures, which became public last week, show smiling American guards stripping Iraqi prisoners and sexually humiliating them.

  Army Major General Geoffrey Miller, who was the commander of the detention mission in Guantanamo Bay from November 2002 to March this year, has been named to be the new commander of Abu Ghraib. He has promised sweeping reforms.
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