Five Years of My Life / Murat Kurnaz

Quite a number of former prisoners the U.S. held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba have been released. I have not read any of their accounts of their time spent in prison. The only account of that prison that I’ve read was from the former chaplain there, James Yee. I refuse to use the word detainees as it feels like doublespeak to me. I’d rather use words like prisoner and victim, because those words appropriately impart greater emotional weight.

Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who lived his entire life in Germany, was kidnapped in Pakistan and sold to the U.S. military as a possible terrorist. He was held in Kandahar, Afghanistan and in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. He alleges he was tortured during his captivity, particularly during the period at Kandahar. In 2006, the U.S. repatriated him to Germany where he currently lives without restriction on his freedom. He was never charged with any crime and independent judicial review of his status as an enemy combatant judged that allegation as ludicrous.

Reading his account was vicariously painful. I have no independent way to assess whether Kurnaz is telling the truth. I suspect he largely is, the exceptions being due to faulty memory. His treatment includes no methods worse than what we’ve learned happened in Abu Ghraib. The summation of his treatment is much worse though. Five years worth of frequent minor torture makes for a major case. Isolated incidents of unnecessary force we can live with as a country. Weekly beatings, stress positions, contempt of cop control by guards, extreme temperatures, undernourishment, and isolation should prompt collective outrage. That the outrage has come from only a part (though significant) of the U.S. populace is a shame.

His homecoming at the end moved me the most. Mistreatment makes me angry, but I am not an angry person by nature. I don’t feel anger in a visceral way. But loss is a whole ‘nother story. Kurnaz married a Turkish girl (who he only names by pseudonym) shortly before traveling to Pakistan. He had no contact with her while imprisoned, and on his return finds out, second-hand, she’s divorced him. Reading his account of meeting his parents and brother brings home the loss. Kurnat also had several close relatives due while he was illegally imprisoned. None of this changes even if he wasn’t tortured.

Kurnaz never got even an oops, we goofed from the U.S. government.

His account is pretty much what I expected. That he’s a likable kid is apparent in this account, and I don’t see a hardened militant faking it his attitude. There are no great revelations, nor will anyone find it much different than other accounts of people held incommunicado. But I believe it’s important to read something from a victim of our national shame, and Kurnaz account does well enough for that purpose.

Title: Five Years of My Life: An Innocen Man in Guantanamo (originally Fünf Jahre Meines Lebens in German)
Author: Murat Kurnaz; Helmut Kuhn
Translator: Jefferson Chase
Cover creator: David Baldeosingh Rotstein
Imprint / publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Format: Hardcover
Length: 255 p.
Publication date: February 2008
ISBN-10: 0-230-60374-2
ISBN-13: 978-0-230-60374-5
Subject: Kurnaz,Murat, 1982-
Subject: Prisoners of war — Legal status, laws, etc. — Cuba — Guantánamo Bay Naval Base — Biography
Subject: Human rights — Government policy — United States
Subject: Combatants and noncombatants (International law) — Biography
Subject: Military bases, American — Law and legislation — Cuba
Subject: Detention of persons — Cuba — Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
Subject: War and emergency powers — Unites States
LC classification: KZ6496.K87 2008