Middle East Human Pawns in a Sordid Game

By RON BEN-YISHAI EL KHIAM

Five men kneel motionless in the windowless cell as they await inspection by the guards. Only a faint light glows from the single electric bulb hanging in the corridor. Thin rubber mattresses with small gray blankets cover the 10-ft. by 13-ft. concrete floor, and the air reeks of sweat. There are no personal effects, no furniture, only a small jar of water and a big plastic can that alternates as a toilet and a washbasin.

At El Khiam prison in southern Lebanon, 304 men and women are held in such cells by the South Lebanon Army, the Israeli-sponsored 2,500-man militia that rules Israel's self-proclaimed security zone. Most of the prisoners are Lebanese Shi'ites. Many are members of Hizballah, caught while attempting to attack SLA positions and patrols or Israeli border settlements. Some were arrested by the SLA security apparatus for interrogation. None have ever been charged or tried. Some will be released if their interrogators decide they are innocent. But for most, the only chance to get out will come when someone makes a deal to swap them for Israeli and SLA soldiers -- and probably some of the Western hostages held by Hizballah. And Hizballah is not considered likely to free the remaining hostages in Beirut until the gates of El Khiam swing open. There is no sign of a break in the impasse.

Although El Khiam is under the formal control of the SLA and its General Antoine Lahad, Israel holds the ultimate authority. TIME's visit was only the second permitted to journalists in six years. Israeli officials apparently hoped the publicity would remind Hizballah that Israel and the SLA hold high cards in the hostage game -- and are ready to deal.

"I know I am a bargaining chip," says Ibrahim Bazi, 27, a Hizballah recruit from the town of Bint Jebeil. Like all the other prisoners, his black hair is cropped short and he wears a dark blue uniform and plastic slippers. His unshaven face reveals little emotion. "My only hope is that all hostages will be released and that I will be part of the deal."

El Khiam has a reputation for torture and abuse. The Israelis deny any responsibility. "It is a Lebanese jail under the authority of General Lahad," says Uri Lubrani, in charge of Lebanese affairs for the Israeli Defense Ministry. "If we ask him to provide us and some 120,000 Lebanese with security, we have to let him do it his way." In its 1986 annual report, Amnesty International quoted ex-prisoners as saying those held at El Khiam were beaten with fists and thick electric cable during interrogations. Prisoners were allegedly hooded and handcuffed, stripped and soaked with water and subjected to electric shocks.

Well-informed Israeli sources say the report was accurate through 1986, when Israel still occupied parts of Lebanon and its officials looked the other way. But after Israel pulled out and established the security zone, the politicians in Jerusalem realized that the world was holding them responsible for the behavior of their Lebanese proteges. The army sent experts to teach Lahad's men how to run a proper jail and to instruct them in sophisticated interrogation methods to minimize the use of torture and physical force.

Inmates describe their interrogation, which usually lasts between 20 and 35 days, as the most difficult experience of their life. Yet they seem curiously unbowed. Says Hassan Mohammed Nasser, who describes himself as an active member of a radical fundamentalist faction called Believers Resistance: "I was beaten from time to time, but that was not hard for me." He has been imprisoned for 19 months, but says he was not tortured or humiliated.

The interrogators contend that violence and force are largely ineffective. "We can get the inmate to confess whatever we want, but that is not what we need," says the chief interrogator, a Lebanese Christian. "The best way to get reliable intelligence is through dialogue and cooperation. We show them how senseless it is and how harmful for them and for their families it will be to withhold information from us." But harsher methods are also common. "Since I have been here, no one has been tortured or treated with electric shocks," says the interrogator. "Beatings, yes. From time to time we beat them, but this is on rare occasions, only with our hands, and never in a way that makes the inmate a cripple or kills him."

Even harder on the prisoners is their isolation. They are not allowed to read or write. The only news from the outside is brought by new detainees. "In the four years since I arrived here I haven't heard a radio or read a paper or a book," says Ali Ra'ad, 27, from the village of Jabah. "Sometimes I hear shooting, sometimes I hear helicopters, but I don't know who is fighting whom and why. I am completely cut off from the rest of the world."

Ali says he has been interrogated and beaten. He has told his captors what little he knows. But for prisoners like him there is little hope of freedom anytime soon. "Please ask General Lahad to pardon me, or tell the leaders of Amal to do something to secure my release," he pleads. But the guards put a dark blue hood over his head and cuff his hands to lead him back to his cell, where he will sit and wait until the lead actors in the ugly hostage affair decide to play their cards.