Guantánamo Diary (20 page)

The DSE sent all the guards home, and so I was left with him, his recorder, and his assistant. The guards gestured to me happily as they left the building, as if to say, “Congratulations!” They and I both thought that I was going to be released, though I was skeptical: I didn’t like all the movements and telephone conversations that were going on around me.

The DSE sent his assistant away, and he came back with a couple of cheap things, clothes and a bag. Meanwhile the Recorder collapsed asleep in front of the door. The DSE pulled me into a room with nobody but us.

“We’re going to send you to Jordan,” he announced.

“Jordan! What are you talking about?”

“Their King was subject to a failed assassination attempt.”

“So what? I have nothing to do with Jordan; my problem is with Americans. If you want to send me to any country, send me to the U.S.”

“No, they want you to be sent to Jordan. They say you are the accomplice of
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, though I
know you have nothing to do with
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or with September 11.”

“So why don’t you protect me from this injustice as a Mauritanian citizen?” I asked.

“America is a country that is based on and living with injustice,” was his answer.

“OK, I would like to see the President!” I said.

“No, you can’t. Everything is already irreversibly decided.”

“Well, I want to say good-bye to my mom,” I said.

“You can’t. This operation is secret.”

“For how long?”

“Two days, or maximum three. And if you choose, you don’t need to talk to them,” he added. “I really have no problem with that.” I knew that he was speaking out of his rear end, because I was destined to Jordan for a reason.

“Can you assure me of when I’ll be coming back?”

“I’ll try. But I hope this trip to Jordan will add another positive testimony in your favor. The Senegalese, the Canadians, the Germans, and I myself believe that you’re innocent. I don’t know how many witnesses the Americans need to acquit you.”

The DSE took me back to his office and tried several times to call his boss, the DG. When he finally reached him, the DG could not give a precise date for my return but assured him that it would be a couple of days. I don’t know for sure, but I believe that the Americans outsmarted everybody. They just asked to get me to Jordan, and then there would be another negotiation.

“I don’t know exactly,” the DSE told me honestly when he got off the phone. “But look: today is Wednesday. Two days for interrogation, and one day for the trip. So you will be back here Saturday or Sunday.”

He opened the bag that his assistant brought and asked me to try on the new cheap clothes. I put on the complete suit: a
t-shirt, a pair of pants, jacket and plastic shoes. What a sight! Nothing fit; I looked like a skeleton dressed in a new suit. But who cared? At least I didn’t.

Between the time when I got the decision and the time the U.S. turned me over to the Jordanian Special Forces, I was treated like a UPS package. I cannot describe my feelings: anger, fear, powerlessness, humiliation, injustice, betrayal.… I had never really contemplated escaping from jail, although I had been jailed unjustly four times already. But today I was thinking about it because I never, even in my dreams, considered I would be sent to a third country that is known throughout the world as a torture-practicing regime. But that was my only bullet, and if I used it and missed I would look very bad in the eyes of my government. Not that that mattered; they obviously would still comply with the U.S. even if I was an angel in their eyes. After all, I had turned myself in.

I looked around for ways to escape. Let’s say I managed to get out of the building: I would need a taxicab as soon as I reached the main road. But I had no money on me to pay a cab, and I couldn’t take one to a place where somebody knew me because those are the first places they’re going to look. When I checked the doors, there was only one door that I would not have any reason to approach, so I asked to use the bathroom. In the bathroom I trimmed my beard and meditated about the other door. It was glass, so I could break it, but I knew the plan of the building; that door would lead to an armed guard who might shoot me dead right away. And even if I managed to sneak past the guard, I had to go around the Ministry for Internal Affairs that neighbors the main street, where there are always guards watching people coming and going. It would be impossible to go through the gate. Maybe, just maybe there’s a possibility of jumping the wall, but was I strong enough to do
that? No, I wasn’t. But I was ready to pull all my strength together and make the impossible possible.

All these plans and thoughts were going through my head when I was using the bathroom. I looked at the roof, but there was no way to escape there; the roof was concrete. I finished cleaning and shaving and left. Outside of the bathroom there was a hall without roof; I thought I could maybe climb the wall and leave the compound by going from one roof to another. But there were two constraints: one, the wall was about 20 feet tall and there was nothing to grab onto in order to climb; and two, the whole compound could be encircled in a matter of minutes by the police, so that no matter where I landed I would be secure in police hands. I realized escape would remain an unrealized dream for somebody who suddenly found all doors before him closed except the door to heaven.

The DSE kept making calls to the incoming flight that carried the special mission team. “They should be here in about three hours. They’re in Cyprus now!” he said. Normally he was not supposed to tell me where the plane was, or who was on the plane, or where I was going to be taken; the Americans wanted to maintain the terrorizing factors as harshly as possible. I should know nothing about what was happening to me. Being taken to an airport blindfolded, put in a plane, and taken to country that is an eleven hour flight away together make enough horrible factors that only people with nerves of steel would survive. But the DSE didn’t care about telling me everything he knew. Not because he was worried about me, but because he knew for a fact that agreeing to such a horrible operation was at the same time agreeing to give up power. The turmoil against the Mauritanian President was already there, but the DSE knew this would certainly break the camel’s back. I knew
the same, and so I kept praying, “Oh, Lord please don’t let people spill blood in my name!”

The DSE learned from the tower that the plane was expected around 7:00 or 7:30 p.m. The Recorder had been sleeping the whole time, so the DSE sent him home. It was around 6:00 p.m. when the DSE, his assistant, and I took off in the Director’s luxurious Mercedes. He called the airport watch one more time to make the necessary arrangements to smuggle me securely without anybody noticing. I hoped his plan would fail and somebody would rat the government out.

The DSE headed in the opposite direction of the airport: he wanted to waste time and arrive at the airport about the same time as the Jordanian delegation. I was hoping that their plane would crash. Even though I knew it was replaceable, I wanted the plan to be postponed, like if you got news of your death and you wanted to postpone it. The DSE stopped at a grocery store and went in to buy some snacks for us to break the fast; sunset was going to catch us at the airport about the time of the unwelcome arrival. In front of the store stood a white U.N. truck. The driver had entered the store and left the engine running. I thought, with some luck I could possibly hijack it, and with some more luck I could get away, because the Benz would have little chance against the stronger body of the Toyota 4-wheel drive truck.

But I saw some drawbacks that discouraged me from the attempt. The hijacking would involve innocent parties: in the cab sat the family of the truck driver, and I was not ready to hurt innocent people. A hijacking would also involve neutralizing the Benz, which could cost the lives of two police officers. Although I wouldn’t feel guilty about them getting themselves killed while trying to unjustly and illegally arrest me, I didn’t
want to kill anybody. And was I really physically able to execute the operation? I wasn’t sure. Thinking of the operation was sort of daydreaming to distract myself from the horrible unknown that was awaiting me.

I should mention that in Mauritania the police don’t have the Americans’ extremely paranoid and vigilant technique of blindfolding, ear-muffing, and shackling people from head to toe; in that regard Mauritanians are very laid back. As a matter of fact, I don’t think anybody is as vigilant as the Americans. I was even walking free when we arrived at the Airport, and I could have easily have run away and reached the public terminal before anybody could catch me. I could at least have forcibly passed the message to the public, and hence to my family, that I was kidnapped. But I didn’t do it, and I have no explanation for why not. Maybe, had I known what I know today, I would have attempted anything that would have defeated the injustice. I would not even have turned myself in to begin with.

After the grocery stop, we took off straight to the airport. There was hardly any traffic due to the holiday; people had retreated peacefully, as usual on this day, to their homes. It had been eight days since I last saw the outside world. It looked bleak: there must have been a dust storm during the day that was just starting to give way in favor of the ocean breeze. It was a situation I had seen a thousand and one times, and I still liked it. It’s like whenever the dust storm kills the city, the ocean breeze comes at the end of the day and blows the life back into it, and slowly but surely people start to come out.

The twilight was as amazing and beautiful as it had always been. I pictured my family already having prepared the Iftar fast-breaking food, my mom mumbling her prayers while duly working the modest delicacies, everybody looking for the sun
to take its last steps and hide beneath the horizon. As soon as the Muezzin declares, “God is Great” everyone would hungrily grab something to drink. My brothers prefer a quick smoke and a cup of tea before anything; my sisters would drink first. None of my sisters smoke, smoking for a lady in my culture is not appropriate. The only absent person is me, but everybody’s heart is with me, everybody’s prayers are for me. My family thought it would be only a matter of several days before the government released me; after all, the Mauritanian authorities told my family that I have done nothing, they were just waiting until the Americans would see the truth and let me be. How wrong was my family! How wrong was I to put my faith in a bunch of criminals and put my fate in their country! I didn’t seem to have learned anything. But regret didn’t seem to help either: the ship had sailed.

The Mercedes was heading soundlessly to the airport, and I was drowned in my daydreams. At the secret gate, the Airport police chief was waiting on us as planned. I hated that dark gate! How many innocent souls have been led through that secret gate? I had been through it once, when the U.S. government brought me from Dakar and delivered me to my government twenty months earlier. Arriving at the gate put an end to my dreams about a savior or a miraculous sort of a superman who would stop the car, neutralize the police officers, and carry me home on his wings so I could catch my Iftar in the warmth of my mom’s hut. There was no stopping God’s plan, and I was complying and subduing completely to his will.

The Airport Police Chief looked rather like a camel herder. He was wearing a worn-out Boubou, the national dress, and an unbuttoned T-shirt.

“I told you I didn’t want anybody to be around,” said the DSE.

“Everything’s alright,” the chief said reluctantly. He was lazy, careless, naïve, and too traditional. I don’t even think he had a clue about what was going on. He seemed to be a religious, traditional guy, but religion didn’t seem to have any influence of his life, considering the wrong conspiracy he was carrying out with the government.

The Muezzin started to sing the amazing Azan declaring the end of the day, and hence the fast. “ALLAH is Great, Allah is great.” “I testify there is no God but God,” once, twice, and then twice, “I testify Mohamed is the messenger of God.” “Come to pray, Come to pray, Come to flourish, Come to flourish,” and then, twice, “God is Great” and “There is no God but God.” What an amazing message! But guess what, dear Muezzin, I cannot comply with your call, nor can I break my fast. I wondered, Does this Muezzin know what injustice is taking place in this country?

There was no clean place around. All the miserable budget the government had approved for the restoration of the airport had literally been devoured by the agents the government put its trust in. Without saying anything, I went to the least dirty spot and started to perform my prayer. The DSE, his assistant, and the chief joined in. After I was done praying, the DSE offered me water and some sweet buns to break my fast; at that same moment the small business jet hit the runway. I had no appetite anyway, but the arriving plane sealed any need to eat. I knew I was not going to survive without eating, though, so I reached for the water and drank a little bit. I took a piece of the sweet bread and forced it inside my mouth, but the piece apparently landed in a cul-de-sac; my throat conspired against me and closed. I was losing my mind from terror, though I tried to act normally and regain my composure. I was shaking, and kept mumbling my prayers.

The ground crew directed the small airplane toward the Benz. It came to a stop inches away, the door opened, and a man
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stepped down the accommodation ladder with steady steps. He was rather
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. He had one of those
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that keeps drowning in anything they drink. Oh Lord, I wouldn’t share a drink with one of those people, not even for a million dollars. As soon as I saw the guy, I gave him the name
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.
^*

When he hit the ground he scanned us standing before him with his fox’s eyes. He had a
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, and the habit of tweaking his
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, and he kept moving his eyes, one wide-opened and the other squinted. I could easily see the shock on his face because he didn’t seem to find the person he was looking for, namely me. But you could tell it was not the first time he led an abduction operation: he completely maintained his composure, as if nothing big was happening.