The Mauritanian (Guantánamo Diary)

Content Warning: This section references torture, graphic violence, sexual assault, racism, and Islamophobia.

After the polygraph test, SSG Mary introduced Slahi to a new female interrogator. By then, the author and the other detainees knew that all interrogators used the same methods: “[Y]ou can tell they were all graduates of the same school” (305). Slahi repeatedly heard all the same lines, such as, “I have nothing against Islam, I even have many Muslim friends” (306). The interrogators “were literally taught to hate us” (307) as if the detainees were “their worst enemies” (308). At the same time, some guards developed amicable relationships with detainees. Slahi himself questioned the empathy he felt toward his captors: “How could you cry for somebody who caused you so much pain and destroyed your life?” (308).

Slahi divided his detention at Guantanamo into four phases. The first phase involved questioning whether his experiences were real or a nightmare. The second phase “is when you realize for real that you’re in jail and you possess nothing but all the time in the world to think about your life” (309). The third phase brings the realization that the guards and interrogators comprise “your new home and family” (310). The fourth phase—mentioned in the manuscript’s margins—is “getting used to the prison, and being afraid of the outside world” (412). Empathy develops in phase three, when the detainee starts thinking of his captors as a family. One person that the author liked was SSG Mary, the first US woman soldier he met. They had honest conversations. For instance, once SSG Mary stated, “I would hate the US if I were you” (313) because of how the author was treated. When Mary left for the last time, Slahi began crying “as if [he]’d lost a family member” (315).

During this time, Slahi was given books and movies. The books included Life in the Forest by Edward Rutherfurd and Star Wars. Slahi was happy to “settle for any books they gave” (313) him even if in the outside world he wouldn’t have liked them. He learned to play chess with the guards. In addition, he watched films like Black Hawk Down with them. The Joint Task Force (JTF) gave Slahi a TV with a VCR on March 15, 2004. He watched films like The Gladiator as a distraction; although when he was free, he preferred documentaries. He was also given access to a laptop to make him type his own answers during interrogations, “kind of like forced labor” (332).

The guards continued using Star Wars character names such as Master Yoda and Master Jedi. They also nicknamed Slahi “Pillow” (317). Some of the guards liked Slahi, especially his sense of humor: “We slowly but surely became a society and started to gossip about the interrogators and call them names” (322). Yoda showed Slahi military song videos: “I was amazed at how beautifully directed and filmed those propaganda videos could be” (323). However, not all the guards were amicable. Some “performed regular assaults” on the author in Echo Special’s Building Three (326). The one named Big Boss was especially violent—and proud of it. Another guard demanded that Slahi call him “Master” (331). An interrogator pointed out that they didn’t like it when the detainees learned English too fast because they could “understand the guards” (340). However, Colonel Forest organized several meetings between Slahi and a detainee named Tariq al-Sawah “mainly to eat together and play chess” (345). Army Specialist Amy helped Slahi with gardening like growing sunflowers, cilantro, and sage: “Amy treated me as if I were her brother, and I as if she were my sister” (348). The author continued to learn English and considered it an irregular language. In addition, he had religious debates with Amy, who was a Christian. He and Amy exchanged poetry they wrote themselves. For example, Slahi wrote a poem based on Kurt Schwitters’ “An Anna Blume” (1919). Marine, Big G, and Stretch gave him a book with a dedication and wished him luck. For instance, on April 19, 2005, Big G wrote, “It is almost impossible not to like a character like yourself” (363).

In February 2004, Slahi received the first letter from his family released by the US Army. By then, he’d been detained for 815 days: “I couldn’t believe that after all I had been through I was holding a letter from my mom” (337). In July 2004, the author found a copy of the Koran in his laundry even though he was technically not allowed to have religious literature. In September of that year, a representative of the Red Cross—Beatrice, a high-level delegate from Switzerland—was allowed to meet with him “after a long fight with the government” (341). The Red Cross had been very worried about his fate, but he refused to provide details about his torture at that time because he feared retaliation. His fears were founded because some detainees were later “confronted with the statements they made to the ICRC” (344), which indicated that their Red Cross meetings were surveilled. Doctors gained access to the author in March 2004, and he “was able to get psychological assistance for the first time that April” (362). He received a prescription for Paxil (an antidepressant) and sleep medication. In the summer of 2004, his physical rehabilitation began: “The government realized that I was deeply injured and needed some real rehab” (362).