A shepherd surveys his land on the outskirts of Fez, Morocco. (David Common/CBC)
DAVID COMMON: DIARY
Talking Gitmo on a Moroccan hillside
March 5, 2008
It was one of those conversations that clicked.
I had been on assignment in Morocco. While working on the story I found myself on a hillside a short distance from the ancient city of Fez. As sheep grazed nearby, plucking grass from between the gravestones in a local cemetery, a tired old mule lay on its side dying.
The mule was said to be 35 years old, and in country where animals are burdened carrying heavy loads of cargo, they don't tend to live more than 25. A group of men — several Moroccans and me, the sole outsider — were waiting for a veterinarian to arrive to end the mule's suffering.
The farmer who owned the mule turned to me and asked if I was American. No, I explained, I am from the country just north of the United States. Then he asked what I knew of Guantánamo.
I went a little rigid. Not from fear, but surprise. Here I was, on a hill with sheep, talking to a man (in his broken French) as he gazed out over the vast emptiness of stone and grass.
Not your usual conversation
The man was older, and not connected to the world by television, radio or newspaper. His view of the world is influenced and inspired by those he comes across. I didn't ask, so I can't say with certainty, but it seems likely he was illiterate.
It was hardly the first time a Muslim has stopped to talk about Gitmo during my travels through various countries. But how does this man, largely cut off from the world and distanced by time from the radical emotions youth can bring, have such an intimate knowledge of Guantánamo?
He did not know the facility was located in Cuba. But he was well aware that hundreds of Muslims from dozens of countries had been held there.
What he really wanted to know was why it still it existed. And how could a country like the U.S., which stands for liberty, tolerate the detention and, he felt, torture of people not publicly accused of a specific crime.
An enduring stain
As prisoners have been released from the American facility in Cuba, many have told their tales. Books have been written. Stories have been told. Gitmo has entered popular culture. The most enduring stain of Guantánamo is its corrosive effect on America's standing in these parts.
Morocco is no stranger to terrorism. In 2003, in the commercial capital Casablanca, 14 young men strapped explosives to their bodies, and killed more than 30 people at five locations.
Four years later, an internet café owner tried to stop two young men from logging into a jihadist site. They blew themselves up — killing him and two others.
Fourteen of the 18 people initially charged for the Madrid train bombings in neighbouring Spain were Moroccans. Morocco's intelligence agencies have consequently been quite busy, including at Guantánamo where the Americans have invited them to do some questioning. (It is also widely believed the U.S. has used extraordinary rendition to fly detained men to Morocco where torture is more palatable or, at least, less illegal.)
But does this explain how the old man on the hill knows the name Guantánamo and what it stands for?
The fact that urbanized people around the world know of the notorious prison — and despise it — is of little surprise.
That this man, surrounded by his flock of sheep, and little else speaks passionately about it, only underscores how difficult it will be for the Americans to erase the stain from the world's memory.
ABOUT THIS AUTHOR
Biography
David Common is the CBC News correspondent in France, from where he covers much of Europe and often travels as far afield as Afghanistan where he has spent weeks at a time reporting on Canada's military operations there.
