Peace and Justice Post

Afghan-US relations hit by ‘climate of distrust’

KABUL – A US military spokeswoman has dismissed suggestions that a new prison planned for Afghanistan is intended to receive prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, the detention centre in Cuba that is facing increasing criticism in America.

“This is not going to be Guantanamo Two,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Rumi Nielson-Green, spokeswoman for Combined Joint Task Force 101 based at Bagram Airfield, north of the Afghan capital Kabul. “That is absolutely false.”

Nielsen-Green also rejected reports by Afghan and US human rights groups that children as young as nine were being held at the existing detention facility. “That is absolutely false. We have no children at Bagram,” she said.

According to Nielson-Green, the new prison will receive only “unlawful enemy combatants, approximately 16 or older, apprehended by OEF Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan”.

Last month, the Pentagon announced plans for a 40-acre, $60 million detention centre to replace the ageing facility at Bagram airfield, a base originally built and used by the Soviet Union during its war in Afghanistan in 1979-89.

The new centre will be a big improvement on the present one, according to Nielson-Green, with more room for communal activities, educational and recreational facilities and areas where detainees can meet their families.

The present facility, which houses around 625 prisoners in wire mesh cages, was always intended to be temporary, she explained.

The capacity of the new prison will be roughly equivalent to that of the old one. According to a New York Times report, however, it will be able to accommodate up to 1100 prisoners “in a surge”.

News of the proposed new facility has made Afghans uneasy. For many, Bagram conjures up images of arrest, torture and humiliation.

In 2002, two men died in US custody at Bagram. One of them, called Dilawar, became the subject of an acclaimed documentary titled Taxi To The Dark Side. Arrested on a tip-off from a man later proved to be a Taliban supporter, he was repeatedly beaten and died after two days in detention. Since then, dozens, if not hundreds, of prisoners have passed through Bagram on their way to Guantanamo Bay. Many say Bagram is worse than the prison in Cuba.

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