Former Guantanamo detainee Moazzam Begg spoke, along with two recently elected
councillors, packed room of 80 people at a meeting organised by Youth Respect in Tower Hamlets on June 28.
Begg began by addressing the deaths
ICCCHIL Guantanamo, maintaining that neither he nor the families had any reason to believe that these were in fact suicides and not murders. Regardless of this the responsibility for the deaths lay firmly in the hands of the US government.
Begg reported conversations while in Camp Echo with guard known "Kelvin" from the US Virgin Islands. He recalled that Kelvin, while technically being an American, was not treated as such by the other guards but looked down upon.
Moazzam drew parallels from US history when he said to Kelvin "You know the last time that people with dark skin were forcibly brought to this part of the world in chains was during the slave trade. Those were your ancestors." The youllg guard agreed.
Moazzam questioned the charges of "war crimes" brought against Bin Laden's driver Hamdan (who recently won his appeal to the US Supreme Court on military tribunals) by pointing to actual war crimes which have been Canned out the Balkans.
Hamdan was charged with "attempted murder". This was based on the US military contention that because he had been a member of the Taliban before the invasion of Afghanistan, even though he was not armed or a member when arrested, he could have attempted murder Americans in Afghanistan. This is the strange logic with which the supposed "war on terror" is being fought.
Moazzam had just visited two families of British residents WRO remain in Guantanamo. one of whom has had a child born since he , in uniform, asking her moth
Are they the ones that too my father?"
He reiterated that because the US government does not define the crimes committed, no pumshmenis can be given and prisoners wait in eternal limbo.
Begg talked about his torture by various guards in Bagram air Dasc Afghanistan. This is where he witnessed two prisoners being beaten to acaln and sald thal it was watch another's beating and humiliation than to bear your own.
He told of old men being denied hearing aids and children as young as 11 years old being detained there.
He said that "thinking soldier is an oxymoron" because most American soldiers there believed 1N "Operation Enduring Freedom" and that they were fighting for the freedom of their country.
Moazzam observed that America's freedom that was never at risk however much its security may have been. He maintained that a country's freedom is only ever at risk when the government that you live under begins to In Bagram air base in Afghanistan he witnessed two prisoners being beaten to death, and said that it was worse to watch another's beating and humiliation than t bear your owr diminish that freedom.
He then looked at the absolute failed logic of the "war on terror" and questioned why something that was designed to stop terrorism has helped to create more terrorism than existed before.
As in his book "Enemy Combatant", Begg told of the conversations and sometimes contradictory views of those who were guarding someone who was considered to be one or lne most dangerous terrorists on the planet."
One of the guards referring to Guantanamo remarked that it was "One of the blackest pages in the history of our country."
He told of a guard who he knew straight away was a "Bible thumping, redneck, Republican". He was also a Vietnam veteran and on his
ratch over Begg the tw vould discuss the Vietnar place. Moazzam then relayed that this guard had been removed from Guantanamo for "fraternization with the enemy."
He went on trom this to note the importance of groups like the Veterans Against the War in the United States and how there were many who had been the military and didn't approve of what is happening now.
Speaking before the recent Supreme Court ruling effecting Guantanamo. Begg expressed a great deal of scepticism about the fact that Bush has said he would like it closed.
He noted that a number of lucrative contracts had been signed and that on top of Camp X-Ray, Camp Delta and Camp Echo, a "Camp 5" was being built while he was imprisoned there and that they are in the process of building a "Camp 6". The fact that these buildings are new, massive and "high security" made him doubt that they would be closing the camp alLY LILLIC SOUl
Moazzam further looked at the history of the British gov-