Tuesday, May 01, 2007

The Big House

Today was our final trip and the last item on the list. The Garrison S-3 officer has a friend who is the S-3 for the prison in Pol-e-Charki, he invited us and we had always wanted to go for a visit so we went! It's only about 5 miles from the camp, so the trip itself was quick. Once we arrived, it looks as you'd expect - big walls, guard towers, razor wire and guards with guns. No surprise, but as we went in we had to leave our guns, knives, phones and cameras outside. It was the first time I've been outside Blackhorse without a gun on....I felt very odd. The no camera rule was a bit of a bummer, I would like to have gotten some pictures inside. I guess in thinking about it, its a good thing they aren't allowed.

It's actually two prisons side by side - one is the Ministry of Defense Prison(political prisoners and war criminals), and the other is the Ministry of Justice (civil crimes). We toured the MoD version, which is newly renovated, and much nicer than the other. Looking over at the other building and talking with the American mentors who have visited....it looks JUST like you'd think a third world prison would look and from what they said its WORSE inside. It has a reputation with the Afghans, enough so that most of our terps declined to even go on the tour. Both prisons have capacities in the area of 700, the MoD one is almost empty, the other has over 1000 inmates. Bad juju going on in that place.

We walked around and saw all the facilities and they took us to an empty wing where we were able to crawl around in the cells and see basically how they live. We were purposefully taken away from the prisoners so it didn't seem like the big bad Americans were showing off their captures. This is an Afghan run prison through and through, and they want that idea to continue in both the guards and captives minds. We did see some inmates lining up for lunch, they didn't look happy. Not exactly sure what they were in for, we didn't ask, but they are transferring the guys from Guantanamo Bay to this prison. Being as it was just renovated, this is a NICE facility. Way nicer than any Afghan house I've been in, and a whole lot better than we had at Camp Shelby. The bars are a detractor though.

We had lunch in the guards lounge area, it was good, same food as usual. We departed shortly after and headed back. Our last field trip complete, we talked about how we only have a couple trips left on Afghan roads before we fly out!

Gary

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