Afghan poet freed, minus some writings
by N.C. Aizenmann
The Washington Post
PESHAWAR, Pakistan
Among the old leather volumes in the library of Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost is a
black plastic binder full of rumpled letters he sent from the U.S. military
prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. At the bottom of each form is a perfunctory
salutation. The rest is taken up with the poems that helped Dost keep his
sanity during nearly three years of confinement.
"Bangle bracelets befit a pretty young woman," begins one of the poems.
"Handcuffs befit a brave young man."
The letters were one in a series of measures the Afghan-born author said he
took to record the torrent of imagery and insights that flooded his brain
nearly every day of his captivity. At first, deprived of paper and pen, Dost
memorized his best lines or scribbled them secretly on paper cups. Later, he
was supplied with writing materials, and made up for lost time by producing
reams of poems and essays, only to have all but a few of the documents
confiscated by the U.S. government upon his release.
"Why did they give me a pen and paper if they were planning to do that?"
Dost asked last week with evident anguish. "Each word was like a child to
me," irreplaceable."
The slight, soft-spoken man of 44 was back in his library Friday in this
city near the Pakistani-Afghan border, surrounded by stacks of Islamic
texts. It was just two days after the U.S. government had delivered him and
15 other former prisoners to Afghan authorities. As soon as he was freed,
Dost headed east to Peshawar, his home since the 1980s. Dost said he was
arrested by Pakistani police in November 2001, along with his younger
brother, Badr. The two were kept in solitary confinement for two months,
then transferred to U.S. military detention in Afghanistan, where prisoners
were kept in larger groups but forbidden to speak to one another.
The brothers, both gemstone dealers, said they had been falsely accused by
enemies linked to the Pakistani government, and detained in the frenzied
hunt for terrorists that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
They said they had no links to either Afghanistan's Taliban regime or
al-Qaida. The Americans sheared off their beards, forbade them to wash,
shoved their faces into the dirt and screamed curses in their ears during
frequent interrogations.
The accounts could not be independently verified, and U.S. officials in
Afghanistan refused to comment on the 16 detainees released last week.
Badr, who was released six months ago, said he volunteered to clean out the
metal drums used by prisoners for bathing, hoping to get close enough to
Dost to quietly compare notes on the accounts they were giving
interrogators. Dost had other priorities. "What kind of spring is this," he
whispered in verse as Badr approached, "where there are no flowers and the
air is filled with a miserable smell?" Badr said he gaped in disbelief. Even
in prison, his brother was composing poems.
But Badr said he gained new appreciation for Dost's talent after they were
shipped to Guantánamo in May 2002. The two were kept in separate wire pens.
The U.S. government had declared all such prisoners "enemy combatants,"
subject to indefinite detention and ineligible for many rights accorded
prisoners of war. Badr said he grew increasingly depressed, until one day
someone handed him a tiny note written on a flattened paper cup. "It was
just a short poem," Badr recalled. "Something about how in life everything
is possible and we should be patient because freedom is close at hand." "I
was suddenly so happy," he said.
Every few days, representatives from the International Committee of the Red
Cross arrived with forms so prisoners could write brief letters home.
Prisoners then passed notes between their holding pens on hidden scraps of
paper cups on pulleys made of threads from their prayer caps. Dost said he
also began adding poems to the Red Cross forms.
When they reached Peshawar, his oldest son carefully stowed each new missive
in the black plastic binder. In his first months of confinement, Dost's
poetry had been full of despair. But now, having at last found a way to
record his compositions, Dost said he felt his spirits lift.
A poet's words
Just as the heart beats inside
the darkness of the body,
so I, although in a cage, continue to beat with life.
Those who have no courage or honor
think themselves free,
but are slaves.
I am flying on the
wings of thought,
and so, even in this cage,
I am more free than they.
— Abdul Rahim Muslim Dost
Meanwhile, about a year after Dost's arrival in Cuba, he learned that U.S.
authorities had agreed to allow the prisoners pens and paper. The guards
gave out a flexible, rubber variety that made writing awkward. Each man was
limited to one sheet of paper per shift, but Dost said fellow inmates
donated their paper to him, then eagerly read his poems. One of his most
popular was a satire criticizing the U.S. military for sending people to
Cuba on thin evidence. At Guantánamo, he said, he spent hours explaining to
interrogators a satirical essay he had published in 1998, after President
Clinton offered a $5 million reward for Osama bin Laden. Dost's essay
offered a reward of 5 million afghanis, then the equivalent of about $113,
he said, for Clinton. Eventually, he said, the interrogators seemed
convinced that he had not meant any serious harm.
In February 2004, Dost said, he was transferred to another section of
Guantánamo where he had access to as much paper as he wanted. He continued
to produce hundreds of poems, translated the Koran into Pashto and wrote a
text on Islamic jurisprudence. In the meantime, Dost said, he was taken
before a review tribunal, a brief procedure that he described as a "show
trial," even though it ultimately resulted in his release.
To date, U.S. military officials said, 232 Guantánamo detainees have been
released and more than 500 remain in custody. Often, Dost said, the guards
conducted raids when officials suspected a detainee had issued a fatwa, an
Islamic decree against them. Each time, all inmates' writings were
confiscated. Dost said he was assured that his work would be returned to him
on his release. But when that day finally came last week, Dost said, he
received only a duffel bag with a blanket, a change of clothes and a few
hundred papers, a fraction of his writings.
"If they give me back my writings, truly I will feel as though I was never
imprisoned," he said. "And if they don't ... " Dost's voice trailed off. For
the first time in three years, he was at a loss for words
Back to:
Summer 2005 Peace Talk