After the long hiatus, I think it’s more than time for another post, so here’s something to think about.
Peruse through some of the recent news stories about detainees in U.S. Custody, and you may be disheartened by what you find: In October, a torture lawsuit was filed against Donald Rumsfeld1; in April, it was revealed that Cheney, Rice, and others had approved some of the harsh interrogation techniques used on detainees2; and just last week the CIA was ordered to surrender a memo citing waterboarding as an interrogation method to use on prisoners,3 and Cheney's chief of staff was subpoenaed to testify in an investigation into the possible torture of detainees.4 It seems the accusations of detainee abuse and cruel interrogation techniques continue to mount against the U.S. So, let’s take a closer look at the treatment of detainees in U.S. custody and find out why I believe we haven’t learned our lesson from the past. (Just as a heads up, there are a few somewhat disturbing or graphic accounts in this post, so be warned if you do not take such things well.)
Several allegations of abuse of prisoners at detention centers in the U.S., in Afghanistan, and in Iraq, have surfaced during the course of this current “war,” and at this point in the blog, you’ve probably guessed what our argument will be: there's nothing new about the tactics used on prisoners by U.S. intelligence officers, interrogators, and army personnel; in fact, many of these tactics have been tried in the past but did not have positive results. One case that we are going to examine here because of its similarities to the Iraq situation is the Mau Mau war of Kenya.
In the early 1950s, a group of “insurgents” known as the Mau Mau fought to oppose the British occupation and colonization of Kenya, much the way “insurgents” in Iraq are fighting against U.S. occupation of their country. The Mau Mau wanted independence, and instead they got war from the British who refused to grant independence. The Royal Air Force was sent to fight Mau Mau rebels in the mountain areas, and during the 8 years of the Mau Mau war—from 1952 to 1960—a state of emergency was declared. British colonial officials placed thousands of Mau Mau in detention camps where many men were abused, beaten, tortured, and forced to work. Women and children were relocated to enclosed villages where countless were raped and mistreated. Kikuyu were rounded up, much like in the FBI’s PENTTBOM operation after September 11th, but on a much larger and more extreme scale. Virtually all of the Kikuyu population—about 1.5 million people—was detained. The Mau Mau were portrayed by the British as ruthless terrorists who were out to kill, who were against Christianity, and who wanted to botch Britain’s attempts to ‘civilize’ the area.5 Replace ‘Britain’ with ‘the U.S.’ and ‘civilize’ with ‘democratize,’ and this characterization of the Mau Mau is nearly the same as that we have given to the ‘insurgency’ in U.S.-occupied Iraq today.
But, for now, let’s focus our attention on the detention camps used to house Kikuyu during the Mau Mau war. What happened in these detention camps and following the war’s end was something that should never be repeated, but unfortunately, it appears as if we are on the road to repeating similar actions in our “War on Terror.” Regrettably, the types of abusive interrogation methods used back then can be compared to those that some U.S. officials have been using today in their attempts to get information out of suspected terrorists. In this post, we are going to look at some of these interrogation techniques and other injustices that were and sadly are still being committed against detainees both then and now.
From the early days of the Mau Mau emergency, the colonial government began “screening” or interrogating Kikuyu captures to find out who was involved in the Mau Mau insurgency; but the screenings often took a devilish turn in order to force confessions out of Kikuyu. Screenings of Kikuyu sometimes lasted hours or days with the aim of gaining information about planned Mau Mau activities, names of Mau Mau oath takers, and unorganized or unofficial Mau Mau support among the population. Although government-sanctioned screening centers were monitored, harsh interrogation techniques were still used. The screening centers were typically run by European settlers, but Kikuyu loyalists working for the colonial government also perpetrated violence against the detainees. One detainee interviewed by Harvard Professor Caroline Elkins recalls suffering burns on his back. He and other male and female Kikuyu detainees were stripped and beaten during interrogations, and others were electrocuted.6
But that’s not all. More extreme tactics were also used in the screenings. Kikuyu detainees often had objects such as broken bottles, knives, snakes, guns, and hot eggs forced up their anuses or vaginas; pliers were used to pinch detainees’ breasts or testicles; men were castrated or beaten on the genitals until their scrota burst; according to some accounts, some men were made to eat their testicles. And of course many detainees were killed.6 In 1959, 10 Kikuyu detainees were beaten to death at Hola detention camp, causing public outcry, and by the end of Kenya’s Mau Mau war in 1960, 11,000 Kikuyu were reported dead, though investigations by Elkins reveal that the number was more than likely over 50,000.
Although the stated purpose of such indecent treatment of Kikuyu detainees was to get crucial information about Mau Mau activities, the underlying motivations were much less admirable, and that’s assuming that there was something to be admired in Britain’s repression of the Mau Mau to begin with. The crimes (and that’s exactly what they were) committed against Kikuyu detainees reveal the way many British viewed their colonial subjects at the time. I mean, really, was it that necessary to strip people or force objects into their anuses to potentially get information out of them? Let’s be honest. We all know that such treatment had nothing to do with “information;” rather it was designed to humiliate, belittle, degrade, and dehumanize the Kikuyu—to deny them membership in the community of worthy human beings. It reflects the fact that many British imperialists and apologists of empire thought of their colonial subjects as less than human, and it was a way to make sure their subjects felt as if they did not belong to humanity. It was also a way to scare those they had colonized into subjugation. There was nothing remotely laudable or even excusable in the treatment of detainees during the Mau Mau Emergency. The acts committed against Kikuyu detainees were done for all the wrong reasons.
So how do such stories compare to the abuses being committed against detainees in U.S. custody today? Well, the incidents at Abu Ghraib have perhaps been the most condemned acts of prisoner abuse throughout the course of this “War on Terror.” In April of 2004, pictures showing U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners were released to the public. One of the accused soldiers, Staff Sergeant Ivan Frederick, admitted to forcing detainees to masturbate and attaching wires to the hands of prisoners and threatening to electrocute them.7 Private First Class Lynndie England became one of the most infamous people charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal. She was shown in photos pointing to the genitals of a naked prisoner and leading a nude, hooded prisoner on a dog leash.8 FBI agents also reported that prisoners at Abu Ghraib were deprived of sleep,9 and in one report, an Iraqi prisoner was punched in the face by a task force officer until he needed medical care. Other detainees in Baghdad had burns on their backs, bruises, and kidney pain,10 similar to the injuries sustained by Kikuyu detainees as mentioned above.
Likewise, prisoner abuse in Guantanamo Bay has received a lot of attention. One story which was highly publicized was that of Mohammad al-Qahtani who was suspected of being one of the intended hijackers for the September 11th, 2001, attacks. Interrogators strip-searched al-Qahtani in the presence of women, forced him to wear a brassiere, put him on a leash, made him do dog tricks, kept him from saying his prayers, squatted on top of his Koran, and drenched him with water, among other things.11 In other incidents, reports have revealed that a Guantanamo prisoner’s genitals were grabbed by a female interrogator. Another had his head covered with duct tape and yet another was terrorized with a dog and then placed in isolation, suffering “extreme psychological trauma.”12 At the end of November 2004, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) gave the Bush administration a confidential report which criticized the way the U.S. was handling suspects at Guantanamo Bay. The report called the treatment, “‘tantamount to torture,’” though the Bush administration denied that prisoners at Guantanamo were abused. Even a recent visit to Guantanamo by a U.N. human rights investigator, in light of the CIA’s destruction of interrogation tapes, led the investigator to conclude that torture was occurring at the prison.13
But abuse is not just something that is perpetrated by stressed soldiers or interrogators miles from home; Ali Partovi, the detainee mentioned earlier who was captured following September 11th, 2001, also claimed to have been abused in the prison where he was being held here in Arizona: handcuffed, kicked and punched in the abdomen and kidneys, doused with ice water and hot coffee.14
As during the Mau Mau Emergency, lengthy interrogations are also being conducted on detainees in U.S. possession today, and extreme abuse has likewise been perpetrated against some of these detainees though little attention has been received for these cases of torture. A Time Magazine article from June 2004 reports of a man who charges the U.S. with wrongfully arresting him and keeping him in detention in Abu Ghraib. Like the brutal accounts from the Mau Mau war described above, this Abu Ghraib detainee claims he was electrocuted on his penis to the point that a blood vessel ruptured but was denied medical attention.15 And just as Kikuyu men and women were sodomized while in detention during the Mau Mau Emergency, a detainee held by the U.S. at Abu Ghraib, Iraq, had a chemical light and broom stick inserted into his anus, and there have been other similar accounts.16 And lest you begin to think that the situation in Iraq, unlike that in colonial Kenya, has avoided the abuse and detention of women and children, think again. The Taguba Report lists abuse of female detainees by military police personnel. CBS has also reported that nearly 200 women and their children are being imprisoned in Khadimiya jail in Iraq. Many are being held because they or their husbands are terrorism suspects, and others do not know what exactly they have been arrested for. There too, as during the Mau Mau war, allegations of rape and abuse have been made. Though the report failed to give details on who arrested the women, who charged them, who committed the rapes and assaults against them, or whose intelligence is being used to hold them, one of the women in the prison stated, “I was detained in the Green Zone by the Americans two years ago. I have no idea what’s happened to my family.” It seems the U.S. is in some way involved in the holding of these women and their children.17
To make matters worse, we too have had our share of detainees dying in our custody. For example, in Afghanistan, twenty-eight U.S. soldiers were implicated in the deaths of two prisoners who were held in an American-operated prison. The investigation into the deaths spanned two years.18
So it’s evident that there are similarities between our treatment of detainees of our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the treatment of Kikuyu detainees in colonial Kenya half a century ago. But what is important is not just that we are repeating the misdeeds of others from times past; it is what underlies our treatment of detainees. Although our government maintains that it is working in the interest of Iraqis and Afghanis, the all too frequent cases of abuse of detainees by U.S. military personnel and others demonstrate the disregard many Americans have for the lives of others. A number of these detainees have not even been charged with any crimes, yet rather than just extracting information from them—as we claim to be doing—establishing their guilt or innocence, and then releasing those who have no business being imprisoned, we have to make it a point to humiliate those we have captured and scare them into submission, just as colonizers did in the last century and preceding ones. We have to make a point of showing the world that some of us think of those under our occupation as inhuman—inhuman enough to be led around on dog leashes and have pictures taken as if they were in a circus show. It is unfortunate that some of the Americans in Iraq, Afghanistan, and here in the U.S. think of those they claim to be protecting as animals; that is a dangerous situation for any country to put itself in if it wants to avoid the ‘mistakes’ of other empires. The truth is that if the world really wants to leave behind its days of injustice, oppression, genocide, conquest, war, et cetera, it also has to leave behind the mindsets that it uses to excuse such things—namely the view that those who are not us are not equal and do not deserve to be treated as human beings. I don’t think that anyone has ever truly believed that other human beings are inferior; people just pretend to believe so in order to exploit others without feeling guilty about it. As has often happened in the past, it is probable that the future will look back on the U.S’s treatment of detainees with disdain, comparing them to the war crimes of other conflicts and lamenting the fact that the world allowed such abuses to happen. Then, we will avow, as we have often done in the past, not to let such atrocities be repeated in the future. But is it not far better to correct ourselves before we allow more human beings to suffer than to wait until our only option is to make (empty) promises for the future?
1Associated Press, “Torture Suit Against Rumsfeld Filed in France” October 31, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21570133/
2Associated Press, “ Top Officials OK'd Harsh Interrogation Tactics,” April 10, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24055778
3Associated Press, “Judge May Make CIA Torture Memo Public,” CBS News, 8 May 2008.http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/05/08/national/main4081847.shtml
4Ferraro, Thomas, “Cheney Aide Subpoenaed to Testify to Congress,” 7 May 2008, http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080507/pl_nm/usa_congress_cheney_dc_2
5 Elkins, Caroline. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, New York : Henry Holt and Company, 2005. (5? This part was probably from the cover though)
6 Elkins, 65-68, 302.
7 Associated Press, “Soldier Gets 8 Years For Prison Abuse,” published in The Harvard Crimson, October 22, 2004
8 Associated Press, “England Pleads Guilty to Abuse” published in The Harvard Crimson May 3, 2005.
9 Associated Press, “Memos Say Special Forces Threatened Iraq Torture Witnesses.” Published in The Harvard Crimson. December 8, 2004.
10 Associated Press, “Memos Say Special Forces Threatened Iraq Torture Witnesses.” Published in The Harvard Crimson. December 8, 2004.
11 Dedman, Bill. “Can ‘20th hijacker’ ever stand trial?” October 26, 2006. MSNBC Interactive 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15361462/?GT1=8618.
12 Associated Press, “Memos Say Special Forces Threatened Iraq Torture Witnesses.” Published in The Harvard Crimson. December 8, 2004.
13 “UN Expert: Tapes Point to CIA Torture.” Yahoo News. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071213/ap_on_re_eu/un_cia_torture_1;_ylt=AvxEEWlbjmfBdDAO0e.4O7yMwfIE.
December 13, 2007
14 Associated Press, “1 Man Still Locked Up From 9/11 Sweeps,” published on MSNBC.com October 14, 2006 http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15264274/page/2/
15Novak, Viveca and Douglas Waller, “New Abuse Charges,” Time Magazine , 20 June 2004. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,655389,00.html
16 Taguba Report, Findings and Recommendations, Part One (Detainee Abuse), “Regarding Part One of the Investigation, I Make the Following Specific Findings of Fact,” 6; Myers, Steven Lee, “The Reach of War: Detainees; Testimony from Abu Ghraib Prisoners Describes a Center of Violence and Fear,” New York Times 22 May 2004. See also Unbossed.com.
17 “Inside Iraq’s Only Women’s Prison.” CBS News. December 22, 2007, http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/22/eveningnews/main3642350.shtml.
18 “U.S. Soldiers Charged with Abuse in Afghanistan” The Real World News in Brief. The Harvard Crimson, October 15, 2004.
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