[A-List] Robert Fisk on Occupation

["James Daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Men Disappearing--  Just as in Saddams Day
 Robert Fisk
 Independent

BAGHDAD, 23 July 2003  Now heres a story to shame us all. Its about
Americas shameful prison camps in Iraq. Its about the beating of
prisoners during interrogation.

Sources may be a dubious word in journalism right now, but the sources
for the beatings in Iraq are impeccable and any US military
intelligence officers who want to call me a liar can explain how three
of their prisoners in the Bagram camp in Afghanistan were murdered
during interrogation. This story is also about the gunning down of
three prisoners in Baghdad, two of them while trying to escape.

But most of all, its about Qais Mohamed Al-Salman.

Qais Al-Salman is just the sort of guy that US Ambassador Paul Bremer
and his dead-end assistants in the Anglo-American occupation
authorities need right now. He hated Saddam, fled Iraq in 1976, then
returned after the liberation with a briefcase literally full of plans
to help in the restoration of his countrys infrastructure and water
purification system. Hes an engineer whos worked in Africa, Asia and
Europe. He is a Danish citizen. He speaks good English. He even likes
America. Or did until June
6 this year.

That day he was traveling in Abu Nawas Street when his car came under
fire from American troops. He says he never saw a checkpoint. Bullets
hit the tires and his driver and another passenger ran for their
lives. Salman was carrying his files on water systems and agricultural
projects for the new Iraq and stood meekly beside the vehicle. He was
carrying his Danish passport, Danish driving license and medical
records.

But let him tell his own story. 'A civilian car came up with American
soldiers in it. Then more soldiers in military vehicles. I told them I
didnt understand what had happened, that I was a scientific
researcher. But they made me lie down in the street, my face on the
tarmac, tied my arms behind me with plastic-and-steel cuffs and tied
up my feet and put me in one of their vehicles.'

The next bit of his story carries implications for our own
journalistic profession. 'After 10 minutes in the vehicle, I was taken
out again. There were journalists with cameras. The Americans untied
me, then made me lie on the road again. Then, in front of the cameras,
they tied my hands and feet all over again and put me back in the
vehicle. I told them my elderly mother was expecting me, that she must
know what was happening. They ignored me.'

If this wasnt a common story in Baghdad today  if the gross injustices
meted out to ordinary Iraqis and the equally gross mistreatment in
Americas prison camps here was not so common  then Salmans story would
not be so important.

Amnesty International turned up in Baghdad Monday to investigate
along with Saddams monstrous crimes  the mass detention center run by
the Americans at Baghdad International Airport in which up to 2,000
prisoners live, with neither their own lawyers nor any trial, and in
hot, airless tents.

The makeshift jail is called Camp Cropper and there have already been
two attempted breakouts. Both would-be escapees, needless to say, were
swiftly shot dead by their American captors. Yesterday, Amnesty
equally needless to say  was forbidden permission to visit Camp
Cropper.

Nor am I surprised. Because this is where the Americans took Salman on
June 6. He was put in Tent B, a vast canvas room containing up to 130
prisoners.

There were different classes of people there, Salman recalls. 'There
were people of high culture, doctors and university people, and there
were the most dirty animal people, thieves and criminals the like of
which I never saw before. In the morning, I was taken for
interrogation before an American military intelligence officer. He was
wearing a military T-short and trousers. I explained everything to
him, my Danish citizenship, my job. I showed him letters involving me
in USAID projects and investment schemes with a UK company. He kept
asking me why I had these documents. Then he pinned a label on my
shirt. It read: 'Suspected Assassin.'"

Now there probably are some assassins in Camp Cropper. The good, the
bad and the ugly have been incarcerated there: Old Baathists, possible
Iraqi torturers, looters and just about anyone who has got in the way
of the American military. Only selected prisoners are beaten during
interrogation. Again, I repeat, the source is impeccable  and Western.

Fortunately, Salman was not one of the selected. But he was given no
water to wash in  most of the prisoners at that time caught skin
infections  and after trying to explain his innocence to a second
interrogator, he went on hunger strike. No formal charges were ever
made against him. There were no rules for the American jailers. Nor
investigations into the shooting of the escaping prisoners. It was
Salman who led hundreds of men in a miniature intifada at the prison,
screaming Freedom, Freedom, Freedom at their jailors and hurling their
wooden tent supports over the razor wire at the prison guards.

Its a sign of Salmans integrity that he praises several of his
captors: The American major who prevented his men and women guards
from overreacting to the riot, and his third and fourth interrogators
who dutifully wrote down his long explanation of what the United
States should do to be successful in its dealings with Iraqis. Relieve
Iraq of its $360 billion debt, he told them, learn about Iraqi culture
and society, give the country back its share in OPEC.

'They wrote all this down. They agreed with me'. But it was another 12
days before an American lawyer read through his documents and decided
that Salman was an innocent man. 'Some soldiers drove me back to
Baghdad after
33 days in that camp. They dropped me in Rashid Street and gave me
back my documents and Danish passport and they said Sorry.' Yes, they
were sorry.

Salman went home to his grief-stricken mother who long believed her
son was dead. No American had contacted her despite her desperate
requests to the US authorities for help. Not one American had bothered
to tell the Danish government they had imprisoned one of its citizens.

Just as in Saddam Husseins day, a man had simply disappeared off the
streets of Baghdad.

Amnesty is taking up his case with the Americans. As for Salman, he
reflects upon the meaning of occupation. 'Its easy to say Sorry, isnt
it?'



http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7&section=0&article=29234&d=23&m=7&y=2003&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion
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