'We are all in Guantanamo' : state terror and the case of Mamdouh Habib

Mamdouh Habib was one of two Australians detained at the US prison camp in its naval facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Habib was kidnapped in October 2001 from a bus bound for Karachi, after intervening, as what might be described as a solicitous bystander, in the hauling off the bus in Pakistan of two young German national Muslim men whom he had befriended (Habib 2008: 84-7; Dateline 2005). He was taken, shackled and hooded, to Islamabad. He was tortured by the Pakistani security forces and interrogated by American agents, in communication with (and Habib claims in the presence of) Australian officials (Habib 2008: 100-8; Wilkinson 2005). He was then handed over to US forces and unlawfully 'rendered' by the US military in a 'ghost flight' to Egypt, where he was tortured while imprisoned and interrogated over six months, before transfer to Guantánamo in May 2002, via Bagram air base in Afghanistan. He was demonstrably tortured in US custody. In early 2005, details of his kidnapping, rendition and torture reached US courts" and thus the media" during a habeas corpus case, and the presumptively innocent Habib was repatriated to Australia in January 2005 without charge or trial. Australia's security forces and government were evidently complicit in the unlawful mistreatment of Habib. He was certainly not 'the worst of the worst', nor had much, if any, security-sensitive intelligence. What rationale was there for his long-term detention and interrogation? What purpose underlay his abuse and humiliation (including sexual assault) in custody? This chapter argues that these forms of terrifying and well publicized crimes by the states involved serve to terrify and repress the wider communities from which the victims come, making an example of the victim-detainee for political purposes.