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Officer expects
more suicide tries MICHAEL GORDON / Charlotte Observer | June 12 2006 GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba - The day after three Middle Eastern detainees took their lives under his watch, the commander of the military prison here said he expects other prisoner suicide attempts "any time now." Speaking inside the heavily guarded camp, Col. Mike Bumgarner told the Observer that military authorities have seized some homemade nooses from cells since the suicides early Saturday. "We have indications of more attempts any time now," said Bumgarner, a Kings Mountain native who has commanded the camp for the past year and a half. He said he expects the next attempt toward the end of the week, as inmates "wait to see how the world reacts." Two Saudis and a Yemeni were found hanging in their cells just after midnight Saturday. They all used pieces of cloth from clothes or bedding to piece together ropes. They all left suicide notes in Arabic. U.S. officials said one of the men had direct ties to al-Qaida, another fought for the Taliban and a third had been involved with a group that recruits for al-Qaida. And Bumgarner said each man had a large wad of cloth in his mouth. He said he did not know if the material was for choking or to muffle their voices while they took their lives. Bumgarner and his boss, Guantanamo Bay's commanding officer, Rear Adm. Harry Harris Jr., have described the incidents as "acts of warfare" aimed at manipulating world reaction against the prison. "The war is won in the media, and it takes a little more each time," Bumgarner said Sunday. "The hunger strikes are dying out. They've used that silver bullet. They needed something else, something more dramatic." The 4-year-old prison holds 465 detainees. The government describes them as enemy combatants or suspected terrorists who pose grave security threats to the United States and its allies. Yet several of those allies have joined the cacophony of critics who say the prison violates international law, tortures inmates and damages the U.S. reputation around the world. A U.N. panel has called for its closure. The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon whether the Bush Administration can continue to keep the detainees out of the U.S. courts and instead try them before military tribunals. Attorneys for the detainees described the suicides as the act of desperate men losing hope of ever receiving freedom. In a news conference inside the prison wire, Gen. John Craddock, head of the Army's Southern Command, said an investigation into the deaths and camp procedures is continuing. He said he hoped it would shed light into the rash of recent detainee suicide attempts and camp efforts to control them. As part of that process, Bumgarner ordered guards to remove all sheets and blankets from cells starting at 5 a.m. Sunday. He said some detainees, particularly the high-security prisoners in Camp 5, had resisted and some still had their bedding by mid-afternoon. The bedding was to be returned at the end of the day so the men could sleep. Some 25 detainees have committed 41 attempted suicides -- 13 by one man, Bumgarner said. The recent efforts may be fueled by a so-called "vision of three." According to Bumgarner, several detainee leaders say they have dreamed that if three prisoners commit suicide, the rest will go free. On May 18, three detainees gulped overdoses of medication they'd been hoarding. That led to a brief riot as prisoners with makeshift weapons battled guards in Camp 4, reserved for compliant detainees. Bumgarner said the Yemeni, Ali Abdullah Ahmed, the first to be found Saturday morning, was a longtime hunger-striker. The two Saudis also took part in the strikes. One of them was among the first to undergo the camp's new and controversial force feeding of prisoners believed to be health risks. Harris said Saturday that none of the three was considered a suicide threat. When he took over the prison, Bumgarner said he was told to bring conditions to the standards of the Geneva Convention without endangering security. That meant extra clothing, fans, underwear for detainees he said. That also meant enough cloth for the three detainees to take their lives, he said. "One of the things I've learned in this job is that everything affects security, particularly dealing with the people we have here." Bumgarner gives up his command June 30. He said he is bitterly disappointed the camp's first successful suicides fell in the last days of his watch. "I didn't think it would happen. I thought we'd be able to stop them," he said. "And I really didn't they were committed to go all the way. I always thought they'd go up to the line and stop." Except for the Yemeni, he said. "I always knew he wanted to be a martyr." Observer Staffers Staff writer Michael Gordon and staff photographer Todd Sumlin are in Guantanamo Bay on assignment for the Observer. Identities Released The U.S. Defense Department released the identities of three Guantanamo detainees who committed suicide. Saudi Arabians Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi Al-Utaybi and Yassar Talal Al-Zahrani -- identified earlier by Saudi officials -- and Ali Abdullah Ahmed, were the prisoners who hung themselves Ahmed's nationality was not provided, but U.S. military officials earlier said that two Saudis and one Yemeni had taken their lives: • Ali Abdullah Ahmed of Yemen was identified by officials as a mid-to-high level al-Qaida operative who has been non-compliant and hostile to the guard force; was a long term hunger striker from late 2005 to this May. • Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi al-Utaybi of Saudi Arabia was a member of a militant missionary/recruitment group for al-Qaida and other jihadist terrorist groups and had been recommended for transfer to another country. • Yassar Talal Al-Zahrani of Saudi Arabia was a front line fighter for the Taliban and traveled to Afghanistan to take up arms against anti-Taliban forces. ---------------------------------------------------
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