NEWS: Suicide Attempts Increased at Guantanamo Since General Miller in Charge

Increase in Suicide Attempts at Guantanamo Came After New General Took Charge
The rash of attempts began three months after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took command of the Guantanamo prison in November 2002 with a mandate to get more and better information from its more than 600 prisoners there.

Miller now is in charge of all military-run U.S. prisons in Iraq, a job he took after news broke of beatings, sexual humiliation and other abuses of prisoners last fall at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.
Human rights groups say the suicide attempts at Guantanamo Bay might be evidence that conditions there amounted to torture.

Human rights groups say the suicide attempts at Guantanamo Bay might be evidence that conditions there amounted to torture.

"Our concern is that the totality of the conditions at Guantanamo - starting with the prolonged detention without trial, combined with the frequent interrogation that may have included problematic methods - may have contributed to an atmosphere that pushed people to attempt suicide," said Alistair Hodgett of the human rights group Amnesty International.

In response to the rash of suicide attempts in early 2003, the military set up a psychiatric ward to treat Guantanamo prisoners. The ward had 20 or more patients last year. "Approximately seven" are there now, Kolarik said, "with illnesses ranging from psychosis to depression."

Kolarik said up to 15 percent of detainees arrived at Guantanamo with some degree of mental illness.


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