The Strange World of Gitmo

Vincent J. Curtis


27 Feb 08
                                                                                               
 

 Situated on the south-east shore of Cuba, basking in a sub-tropical climate, justly called the “pearl of the Antilles,” Guantanamo Bay was the home of a quiet backwater of the US Navy.  Sure, refugees pouring out of Haiti were sheltered here in the mid-1990s, but the last of the important missions of the naval station had already decamped for the continental United States.  At the turn of the millennium, all that was going on at Gitmo was keeping the lights on.

            Then came 9/11.  The overthrow of the regime in Afghanistan produced a flood of al-Qaeda and Taliban captives, and a place to keep them was needed in a hurry.  A legacy of the Haitian refugee crisis was a camp for the criminal element named X-Ray.  Constructed of wire fencing and open to the elements, Camp X-Ray was pressed into service as a holding facility for the captives of the new global war on terrorism.

            X-Ray was no more than a stop-gap measure, and Camp Delta was set aside on the property of the Station as the place for the long-term detention facilities.  Camps One through Six were progressively assembled within Delta to incarcerate the unhappy guests of the US government.  Within six months, the detainee population was moved into Delta, and X-Ray now lies empty, abandoned, and overgrown with vines and grass.

            The detention facilities within Camp Delta resemble medium security and maximum security penitentiaries.  Camps 4, 5, and 6 are presently occupied, and the author was led to believe that Camps 2 and 3 are empty.  For security reasons, exact numbers of detainees in each camp are not released, but a total camp population of 277 was given at a recent press briefing.

            The detention camps are designed like penitentiaries because of the violence exhibited by the detainees.  Detainees routinely hurl feces, urine, semen, and spit at the guards, and many have physically attacked them.  Verbal assault is the norm.  The new detention facilities protect the guards from the detainees, and the detainees from each other.

            LTC Ed Bush of the Louisiana National Guard conducted me on a tour of three of the camps.  Bush is a little over six feet in height, trim and fit at about 200 pounds, appears to be in his middle 30s, has short blond hair, and is a friendly sort, unless you try to cross him.  He is a Public Affairs Officer for working for JFT-GTMO.  He has conducted many tours like mine before.

            Bush warned me that the service personnel in contact with the detainees wear nametags with job title or number on them but no name, most will not give me their names, and only a few will allow their faces to be photographed.  As we entered the camps, Bush himself pulled off his nametag, as did the other public affairs service personnel accompanying us.

This policy of anonymity is for two reasons, according to Bush.  First, fear of reprisal at home.  Al-Qaeda is known to monitor the web for any information they can gain and use against US service personnel, and no one wants his family threatened or hurt because of their duties in contact with the detainees.  And al-Qaeda has a long memory.

The second reason is that al-Qaeda personnel are trained to allege torture and abuse against their captors.  Bush drew my attention to the so-called “Manchester Document”, posted on the web, which is an al-Qaeda training manual found in Manchester, England.  If a detainee can read a nametag, he can allege that so-and-so abused him, with all the bad publicity and service inquiries that would ensue.  Easier to remain anonymous.

            We were joined at Camp 4 by “JTF XO.”  Camp 4 is operated like a medium security prison, and holds the “highly compliant” detainees.  Inmates are housed in barracks blocks, and are freely able to socialize with each other most of the time.  The detainees of Camp 4 enjoy a six thousand item library run by two professional librarians, according to one of the librarians, a civilian named Julie.  In addition, the detainees are taught to read and write in Arabic and English.  The classroom features a high definition TV, and the floor bears an arrow that points to Mecca.  A central yard features a small soccer pitch, and detainees are allowed up to twelve hours a day for recreation.  Detainees are kept informed of world events through a weekly newsletter that is posted in the recreation yard.  Laundry is seen hanging to dry on the fencing of the barracks blocks.

            Attached to Camp 4 is the Detention Hospital, which has a state of the art operating room and dental facility, a dispensary, six bed ward, and one hundred medical personnel.  The hospital is able to perform CAT scans and digital x-rays, send the data via the internet to medical experts stateside, and obtain a diagnosis, according to “DH SMO.”

“DH SMO” described himself as senior medical officer of the detention hospital. He would allow his picture to be taken, but would not give out his name.  He reported the median age of the detainee population to be in the upper thirties, and the medical problems he sees now are typical of men of that age: back pain, foot pain, diabetes, asthma, and hypertension.

              A Ph.D. psychologist, an army lieutenant who would not give me her name or allow me to take her picture, described the mental health of the detainee population.  The detainee population is in better mental condition than a comparable prison population in the United States.  Mental problems range from sleeping disorders, anxiety disorders, depression, to schizophrenia.  Only about five per cent of the detainees are on psychotropic medication such as Prozac, and none are currently symptomatic.

             Camps 5 and 6 are the maximum security holding facilities.  Detainees are kept in separate cells and are only allowed out for two hours per day for recreation.  Halal meals are prepared for them by the Delta kitchen, and they receive up to 4,800 calories a day.  Cells are eight feet by twelve feet in size, and have a bed, toilet, sink, desk, and seat.

             Each cell block in Camp 6 has an interrogation room.  The room is quite small: triangular in shape, probably eight feet on a side, and has a television and small fridge.  A small table separates the chair the detainee sits in from the three chairs the interrogators and translator sit in.  There are no klieg lights or rubber hoses, but there is an ankle shackle that is fixed to the floor.

           

Over 500 detainees have been released since 2004, according to Captain Theodore F. Fessel, USN.  The US Department of Defense established the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants, and Captain Fessel is the Forward Director.  He described the process.  The combatant status of each detainee was reviewed by a panel, and each year subsequent another review board hears reasons for continued detention.  

            Annually, a hearing is held to determine whether the detainee represents a continued threat, and whether the detainee possesses military intelligence of current value.  If the answer to either of these questions is yes, detention continues; if no, the detainee becomes a candidate for transfer or release.  The Deputy US Secretary of Defense, Gordon England, makes the final decision on whether the detainee is a candidate.  If a detainee is classed as a candidate for transfer or release, the matter is then turned over to the US State Department which must find a country that will accept the detainee, according to Fessel.

            These Annual Review Boards appear to operate like a three-member parole board rather than a court.  The process is non-adversarial, according to Fessel, and a detainee can attend his hearings if he wishes – not all of them do – and can make representations on his own behalf.

            Commissions trials will soon be in the news.  Military commissions were authorized by the US Congress and took the business of trying people like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, out of the hands of civilian US courts and placed it in the hands of the US military.  The commission of Canada’s Omar Khadr is already at the stage of preliminary defense motions.

            The Commissions are styled like a Court-Martial, and will be held in the secure but rustic facilities of Camp Justice on Guantanamo.

            To some observes, civilian US courts face an insuperable procedural dilemma in trying detainees because international terrorism is not an ordinary act of crime.  Possessing military intelligence, the detainees were not read Miranda rights or questioned with a lawyer present.  Three are known to have been waterboarded.  And it is not clear that enemy combatants captured in Afghanistan and held in Cuba possess Miranda or other rights under the US constitution. 

            Military courts-martial are less concerned with process than with getting at the truth.  US Congress believes the Commissions are a means of getting at the truth and of passing judgment in as fair a way as possible under the circumstances.  The process is rough and ready, but it is better than either raw “victor’s justice” and complete procedural deadlock.

            Many have called for Gitmo to be closed on account of bad publicity and allegations of abuse.  For abuse to take place there must be abusers.  At Gitmo, that finger can only point at members of the United States military, primarily sailors.  However, the most outstanding characteristic of the US military personnel on Gitmo is their high level of professionalism.  Nothing secret could be going on at Gitmo, and everybody there knows that the eyes of the world are upon them.  They know there is no margin for error.  Allegations of abuse ought to be viewed with skepticism.

            The budget for construction at Gitmo indicates that the facility will remain open and carrying on its mission for the duration of the Bush Administration and for a year into the next Administration.

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A version of this report was published in the Kitchener-Waterloo Record.