By Mohammad Zaatari
KHIAM, South Lebanon: Standing on the ruins of Israel’s most notorious prison in Lebanon, Ahmed al-Amine vows to help rebuild the place he was tortured as a prisoner. “Israel may have destroyed the prison during its aggression against Lebanon in 2006, but we will rebuild it as a witness to the crimes of Israel and its agents,” he says, welcoming a reporter on a tour of the prison, his memory filling in the places that were obliterated by the bombing.
Khiam, named for the town where it is located, was first used as a prison during the French Mandate from 1918 to 1943. When Israel invaded in 1982, it took over the complex and placed it under the administration of the South Lebanese Army, an Israeli proxy militia led by Antoine Lahad.
Following the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, the prison was opened to the public as a monument to Israeli crimes in Lebanon, and Amine became one of the tour guides.
The site attracted thousands of Lebanese and foreigners and became an important symbol of the liberation.
Over the years, visitors have included former President Emile Lahoud and Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah.
In July 2006, Israeli aircraft bombed the prison, destroying most of it but leaving some parts intact. Hezbollah has placed replicas of missiles on the ruins of Khiam, along with pictures of the prisoners, some of whom saw freedom after a decade behind bars, and others who died under torture.
Amine still remembers being held in cell No. 4, although it was among those destroyed in the bombing.
“Some of the solitary confinement cells are still standing as witnesses to the barbarism of Israel,” he says.
Amine, now 52, was arrested in 1996 for resisting the occupation.
“I was imprisoned for four years and liberated with my brothers behind bars, and I stayed [in Khiam] as a guide to carry the message of the barbarity of the Zionists,” Amine adds. “[The prison] strengthens our resolve, increases our strength and our commitment to jihad. Israel destroyed the prison to reflect its hatred and to obliterate the crimes it has perpetrated.”
“Hundreds of thousands of visitors have come here from all over the world – America, Europe, Africa, Asia and the Gulf, both before and after it was destroyed,” he says.
Over the years, Amine adds, Khiam held 5,000 prisoners, some of whom were members of the resistance, while others were not.
“We consider our imprisonment a form of oppression as well, because we were simply defending our land and trying to expel the Zionists,” he says of himself and the other fighters.
Between 1984 and 1995, at least 16 prisoners were killed by starvation or torture in Khiam, a fact that comes as a shock to some of the prison’s more recent visitors.
“Europeans who visit Khiam are shocked by the abuses carried out by Israel,” Amine says. “They tell us, ‘We didn’t know Israel did this.’”
Those who survived still bear the psychological and physical scars of their time in Khiam, says Amine, holding up a whip – a favorite tool of Lahad’s militia for torturing detainees.
He leads a visitor to a room with a pole at the center and filled with such implements of torture. Prisoners would be tied to the pole and a bag placed over their head, he explains, before being subjected the ghastly torments.
“Here are the cages known as the ‘chicken coops,’ which measure just 75 cm tall, 50 cm wide and 50 cm deep, where prisoners would be locked up and beaten until the screams were unbearable,” Amine recalls.
Another of the prison guard’s favorite punishments was to cram up to 12 prisoners in a single tiny cell.
“They were always moving us from one cell to another so we would not get to know one another,” Amine says. “Before the liberation the agents [Lahad’s militiamen] told us we would be freed. It was an attempt to woo us – we know an agent has no religion and no homeland.”
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25/07/2013
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