Guantánamo is the name of a bay in Cuba and the American naval base that has operated there since 1898. But since 2001, when the United States government built a detention center on the base to incarcerate the enemy as defined by the Bush administration's "war on terror," the name has become synonymous with that detention center and the "aggressive interrogation techniques" practiced there. Like "Abu Ghraib," "Guantánamo" is a name that conjures a mix of shame, dread, and uneasiness. Most of us would rather not think about it or about the men behind the razor wire. All told, some 770 detainees have been held at Guantánamo, most of them from Afghanistan. More than 500 have been released, without ever having been charged or tried. Many have returned home in an effort to resume lives that were interrupted by a long nightmare of isolation, deprivation, and—let us speak the word—torture.

Berkeley's Human Rights Center and International Human Rights Law Clinic, in partnership with the Center for Human Rights, released a 136-page report in November entitled "Guantánamo and Its Aftermath." As stated in the introduction by Judge Patricia Wald, the report details the "dismal descent into the netherworld of prisoner abuse since the tragic events of September 11, 2001" and "traces the missteps that disfigured an internationally admired nation and tainted its self-proclaimed ideals of humane treatment and justice for all."

As part of the Center's research effort, Professor Emeritus Andrew Moss, Ph.D. '79, traveled to Afghanistan to interview men who had returned to their country after being released from Guantánamo. He filed this report.

Friday

We are in a dusty suburb of Kabul, at the office of the Afghanistan Human Rights Organization [AHRO]. The sun is going down and a few kites are flying from the rooftops. Laurel Fletcher, from the Berkeley School of Law (Boalt), her former student Zulaikha Aziz, and myself have come to interview former Guantánamo detainees for the Berkeley Human Rights Center. We will ask them about their time in detention and their lives since they returned.

Two-thirds of all the prisoners held in Guantánamo have been released, either because of home country pressure or because the U.S. Combatant Status Review Panel found no evidence of "enemy combatant" status. About half the Afghans who have been sent home—some 40 individuals—have agreed to be interviewed by us. The Afghanistan Human Rights Organization will bring them into Kabul from the neighboring provinces.

Lal Gul, the AHRO director, thinks we should stay inside the office, which is also his house. We shouldn't walk around the neighborhood, he says. It's not safe to go downtown. He has given me his bedroom, Laurel and Zulaikha have the visiting consultants' room, and he will bunk in a spare kitchen.

"We will make a schedule for the bathroom," he says. Ali Shah, a retainer who sleeps on the floor downstairs, will bring up hot water in a kettle. I volunteer for the 6:30 a.m. bathroom slot. Night falls and the generator comes on with a clunk. In this high-desert town it gets cold as soon as the sun disappears.

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