Shadow of Guantanamo follows freed inmates back to their homes

After years in detention, Afghan returnees have bitter memories as they face new hardships. Jason Burke reports from Kabul

Jason Burke
The Observer,
September 14 2008

Abdul Nasir, right, and his brother in Kabul. Photograph: Jason Burke

They call them the Bandi Guantánamo, the Guantánamo returnees, and their welcome home is far from warm. All across Afghanistan in recent months, scores of men have been coming back from a long journey halfway around the world. About 100 have been released from Guantánamo Bay by United States authorities in the last 12 months as Washington, under mounting pressure from governments around the world, attempts to moderate the damage done to America's image by the Cuba-based detention centre. A third are Afghan and more are due to return in the coming weeks.

After more than five years in detention thousands of miles away, often traumatised, often angry, or just broken and poor, the Bandi Guantánamo try to build new lives, with limited success. Most claim innocence. Others are unashamed of their acts of violence. Interviewed in Kabul last month, Mohammed Umr described how he had trained in terrorist techniques, met Osama bin Laden and fought at the battle of Tora Bora in 2001. Released 10 weeks ago, he spoke of how angry the presence of his former jailers in his homeland made him. 'If they have come here to help us, why do they kill civilians and why can't they even provide electricity to Kabul seven years after invading?', asked the 30-year-old former footballer, arrested in Pakistan during the closing days of the war of 2001.

Almost all the former detainees describe mistreatment - ranging from waterboarding - the repeated half-drowning of prisoners to get them to talk - through to beatings, sleep deprivation, being kept in 'stress positions' and exposure to extreme temperatures for long periods. Most say that the worst abuse occurred in US bases in Afghanistan, notably in the eastern and southern cities of Jalalabad and Kandahar, or at the logistics centre of Bagram airfield, where a 500-capacity makeshift prison was built. American military spokesmen in Afghanistan deny any mistreatment.

By comparison, the former prisoners say, Guantánamo was relatively bearable. 'It was better there,' said Abdul Nasir, who added that he had been deprived of sleep in the Bagram prison. 'The food was OK. There was more exercise. When I arrived [in 2003] we had just 20 minutes twice a week. By the end it was two hours a day.' Like others interviewed by The Observer, Nasir, 26, claimed that rows frequently broke out in Guantánamo over religious practice. 'The guards made noise when we were praying. They shouted bad things,' he alleged. 'There was nearly a riot because they were handling the Koran that we were allowed in our cells.'

Many former detainees say they have been told by the Afghan government or their former jailers not to talk to journalists. Several senior former Taliban figures, such as Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, their former ambassador to Pakistan, are under house arrest in Kabul, supposedly as part of the largely moribund 'reconciliation process'. The head of the reconciliation commission was in Canada and unable to comment, his office said.

Mirwais Yasini, Deputy Speaker of the Afghan parliament, played down the danger of returnees joining Taliban insurgents in control of large parts of the south and east of the country. 'We should try to reintegrate them, but [the returnees] should not get any special treatment,' he said from his office in the new Afghan parliament building. 'Their story is that of Afghanistan: a tragic tale.'

Many former detainees return to hardship, chaos and violence. In the six years he has been gone, Abdul Nasir's village on Kabul's outskirts has barely changed but for a new road and new insecurity. 'We are worried to go into the fields at night because the coalition think we are Taliban and shoot at us,' said Nasir's elder brother. 'Every week, the Taliban are firing at the police in the village. Our school was burnt down and there have been bomb attacks.'

Nasir was arrested by Afghan troops in 2002, accused of attacking a border post with a group of Pakistani Taliban. Though he now denies the allegation, legal sources close to his case said he had confessed, claiming he had been press-ganged by fellow students at the religious school where he had been studying in the anarchic Pakistani tribal zones.

Saeed Jan was freed two years ago. He says he does not know why he was arrested in 2002 and says he was repeatedly beaten after his arrest in the eastern Kunar province and again at Bagram by American personnel. He returned to his village to find his sick wife and mother had died and his 12-year-old son had been killed in a fall while collecting wood. 'When I got home I said to myself it would have been better to have stayed in detention,' he said. 'At least my village is peaceful, but I have four other children and no money. We are hungry and I cannot afford food.'

The detainees are being released into Afghan custody after their cases are reviewed by US authorities. They are usually held in the new wing, built with American funds, at Pul-e-Sharqi prison near Kabul, where they are tried under Afghan law by local terrorist courts. Most are released and given about £5 and some clothes. Many claim to have been the victims of denunciations by tribal enemies or rivals in complex local power struggles. It is difficult to confirm their stories, although many details appear convincing. In the aftermath of the invasion of 2001, with large bounties on offer for information leading to the arrest of al-Qaeda or Taliban supporters, coalition authorities with little knowledge of Afghanistan were often manipulated by factions and individuals to eliminate long-standing enemies.

Haji Ghalib, a tribal elder from eastern Nangahar province released late last year, claimed he was falsely denounced after closing down a drugs bazaar when he was police chief in a rough district near Jalalabad. 'It was a ridiculous accusation, but the Americans believed it. They beat me, gave me no food and interrogated me by strapping me to a wooden plank and pushing my head into water. I kept telling them they had got the wrong person,' he said.

Independent sources confirm that Ghalib, a former fighter against the Russians, had fought against the Taliban in previous years and was allied with an anti-Taliban warlord.

'I spent four years in Guantánamo without any evidence of any guilt at all because I am innocent,' he said in Kabul. 'But I am not angry at the Americans because they were the victims of bad information. But I would like the money and vehicles they took from me. I am in a very difficult situation now, and I am worried about the people who accused me, because they could do it again.'

More than 500 detainees have been released from Guantánamo and American authorities have indicated that only about 70 of the 263 still in their custody will be tried. They include at least a dozen senior al-Qaeda figures. A few hundred prisoners are still held in Bagram, where two have died of injuries sustained during interrogations.

The detainees often return to tragedy and destitution. Saeed Ameer, from the eastern Nangahar province, was arrested in 2002 after explosives were found in his home. He denies all knowledge of the cache and blames a relative. 'I told the US that I had fought against the Taliban and spent five years in their jails,' he said last week. 'But they took me to their base, beat me until I was unconscious and kept me awake for days and days. Then they took me to Guantánamo and I stayed there for four years.' Ameer now scrapes a living trading livestock, though he cannot afford meat himself. 'There are 30 people in my family and a kilo of mutton is £2. How can I afford that?', he said.

Tora Bora veteran Mohammed Umr said he just wanted to join his family in Saudi Arabia, where he grew up. It was from Medina that he travelled in 2001 for 'jihad'. He said that he had now forsworn violence and hoped to get married, settle down and have children.

Yet Umr was still angry. 'Osama bin Laden is the only person who is concerned about the plight of the Muslim world. This Afghan government are un-Islamic collaborators with the West,' he said. 'No one here likes the Americans. In the provinces there are civilians being killed for nothing. There is chaos, violence, tyranny. This is enough to make even an ordinary person furious. Imagine how someone who has suffered for years in prison feels.'