Six hurt in violent clashes as Guantánamo Bay uprising is put down by US guards
The prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have staged their largest protest ever.
Clashes broke out on Thursday night with prisoners wielding weapons made of pieces of lights, fans and metal bars. Six detainees were treated for their injuries and some guards are reported to suffer from bruising.
The incident is the second in a year at the base following the mass hunger strike of last August.
Guantanamo remains the best example yet of the ill thought out nature of the neo-cons war on terror.According to Guantánamo Bay naval base commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the unrest began when guards were set upon as they came to the aid of a detainee pretending to hang himself in Camp 4, a medium security section of the base where prisoners live in groups of 10.
Earlier on Thursday, two other prisoners made suicide attempts by swallowing prescription medicine they had been hoarding. Military officers yesterday described them as stable but unconscious.
The US is under increasing international pressure to close the prison, where 460 people are held. The UN Committee Against Torture yesterday called for the prison to be closed and said the US should refrain from using secret detention facilities elsewhere in the world or from sending detainees to countries where they might face torture. "The state party should cease to detain any person at Guantánamo Bay and close the detention facility," the committee said in a report.
The incident raised concerns among human rights activists and lawyers for detainees about the increasing despondency of the people held at Guantánamo, who have been detained without trial for more than four years.
There have been 41 suicide attempts at the facility since it was opened in January 2002 to house prisoners seized on the battlefields of Afghanistan, and suspected members of al-Qaida.
In 2003, according to the US military, 23 detainees carried out a co-ordinated attempt to kill themselves during a week-long protest. The attempts were classified as "self-injurious behaviour" rather than suicide attempts.
Despite Donald Rumsfeld's insistence that Guantanamo held "the worst of the worst", it is becoming clear that the US is holding many men who are guilty of no more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Although hundreds of people have been released without facing charges, despite being held for up to three years, the US still seems hesitant to admit the sheer scale of it's folly and simply close the place down.
The idea of holding people in a place where they remained outwith the reach of US courts may have seemed appealing to right wing nut cases smarting from the effects of 9-11, but as time goes on the idea of holding people indefinitely, without charge, becomes more difficult to justify.
Indeed, the question of what you do next appears to be one that the Bushites haven't even thought worth considering, as if they could hold people for ever and no-one would object.
However, the more time that passes, and the fewer detainees they charge, the weaker the position of the administration becomes.
There will come a day when even ideologues like Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney will have to bow to the inevitable, and close Guantanamo down.
However, even if they were to close it down today, the damage done to the reputation of the US will take decades to mend.
In the minds of the general public, the land of the free appears synonymous with orange suits and chains.
That is the real legacy of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
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