The rhetoric versus the reality at Guantanamo
A new program is being developed to deal with Guantanamo’s feral cat population. Naturally, it will be called Operation Git-Meow.
It will be a more humane venture than others in the past. “These cats may look cute and cuddly, but they have proven to be trouble,” a 2013 story stated in the Joint Task Force Guantanamo publication, the Wire.
The nuisance cats were fighting and threatening protected species such as Cuban boas and iguanas; once trapped, many were euthanized.
Git-Meow’s volunteers are raising funds and working with the U.S. navy to hire veterinarians to come to spay or neuter the cats. Those wild felines that can be socialized will be fostered and then either adopted by those living on the base or sent to D.C.
“Safe, Humane, Legal, Transparent,” is the motto of JTF Guantanamo and Git-Meow is certainly that.
If only it were as easy to convince the world that the infamous prison also complies with its slogan.
Safe? Perhaps. Detention centre spokesperson Navy Capt. John Filostrat said this week that the current prison population — 41 detainees — is “highly compliant,” which means the guard force is more secure and there are fewer instances of prisoners encountering the military’s Quick Reaction Force of elite commandos.
Humane? Many would object. The majority of detainees that remain are known as “forever prisoners.” They will not be charged and are being held indefinitely.
Legal? Millions of dollars and more than a decade spent litigating that question would say there is still serious doubt.
And transparent? No, not fully.
The job of painting a positive image of Guantanamo falls to the military’s public affairs officers, a team that has been rotating through here for the last 15 years, escorting journalists or reporting for the Wire.
It is a thankless task, and it is harder now with a president who thinks Guantanamo is great, not because it is safe, humane, legal and transparent, but because it isn’t. Trump said during the campaign that waterboarding, a torture technique, works — and even if it doesn’t, ah well, “they deserve it anyway.”
Filostrat has been here on two tours; his most recent is almost over.
Asked if the administration impacts his job? “Nope,” Filostrat answered. “We continue to do our mission down here, which is to safely house the law of war detainees, and we’ll continue to do it.
“I know there are a lot of politics out there, but at the end of the day, we’re still focused on that mission.”
If Trump decides to send more detainees to Guantanamo, Filostrat said as many as 255 could be accommodated “pretty quickly.”
And while Filostrat will not wade into Guantanamo’s politics, he did push for new barracks for the guards this week, saying their housing is “substandard.” Guantanamo’s prison, 15 years on, is showing its age. Infamous Camp X-Ray, built in three weeks to deal with the flood of prisoners from Afghanistan and elsewhere — it essentially looked like an outdoor kennel — is completely overgrown. As Filostrat says, it’s “falling down, literally.” Camp Iguana, where a group of Uyghur detainees lived before their transfer to Albania, Palau or Bermuda, looks derelict.
Guantanamo has always been a temporary base with tents, trailers and troops buzzing around on Kawasaki Mule 4x4s as they obey the island’s 25-mph speed limit. The prison is what the army calls an expeditionary complex, one made to be erected and dismantled quickly in a war zone.
On Thursday, Filostrat escorted journalists on what’s known as a “windshield tour,” driving past the signs declaring “personal courage” as Guantanamo’s “value of the week” and along the perimeter of the prison camps, which are empty except for Camp 6. On Saturday, he will escort journalists inside Camp 6, where 26 of the remaining 41 detainees are imprisoned.
Journalists are not allowed to see Camp 7, the secret prison holding 15 “high-value detainees” interrogated and tortured in so-called CIA black sites before being sent to Guantanamo. No one will talk about that prison or where on this base it is located. Filostrat says he has never seen it.
But five of the captives imprisoned there, the men accused of orchestrating in the 9/11 attacks, were seen in a war crimes court here Wednesday for pretrial hearings. Watching from a separate viewing gallery were six 9/11 survivors and relatives of those killed, flown to the base by the Pentagon to observe the proceedings.
Casser Baksh, who was just 10 years old on 9/11 when his uncle Michael was killed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, said seeing the accused captives in person demythologized them.
“They’re no longer figures of might and evil; they’re individuals who will get justice for the evil they have done,” he said during an emotional press conference Friday afternoon.
All of the observers said they were impressed by the thoroughness and professionalism of the proceedings.
“I believe the military commissions are valid for something like this, especially (for) men that declare themselves warriors against the United States,” said Daniel D’Allara, who lost his twin brother John on Sept. 11, 2001. “We live in a wonderful country that would afford enemies of the United States such very good, high-quality defence counsel.”
A draft executive order leaked this week is the only indication so far of where the Trump administration may be headed on Guantanamo — more detainees, more war crime trials before the controversial military commissions. Trump has already made it clear — if his Twitter feed amounts to presidential policy — that those here now will never leave.
That is especially troubling for the five captives who have long been cleared for transfer and may now be trapped here for at least another four years. They have been waiting for countries to accept them; or in the case of 51-year-old Abdul Latif Nasser, his repatriation deal to Morocco came too late, just after the required 30-day statutory notice informing Congress of a transfer. His lawyers failed to win last-minute legal appeals in Washington to waive the provision as the clock ticked down to Trump’s inauguration.
But there is rhetoric and then there is the reality at this sleepy outpost, with its 1,650 force of troops and civilians, its crumbling and mouldy buildings and its prisoners whose incarceration costs an estimated $10 million a year, per detainee.
The Pentagon announced this week the resumption of Guantanamo’s Periodic Review Boards for the “forever prisoners.” It seems Trump hasn’t yet stopped these panels, which were established by the Obama administration to determine if the 26 men can be resettled.
If Guantanamo were to expand and more war crimes trials held here, it’s hard to envision the base functioning without a major facelift. Which means money. And Trump’s not keen on that. “We spend $40 million a month maintaining it,” Trump said in a campaign speech last year.
“I can guarantee you I could do it for a tiny, tiny fraction. I don’t mean like 39 (million), I mean like maybe five, maybe three, maybe like peanuts.”
“We continue to do our mission down here, which is to safely house the law of war detainees, and we’ll continue to do it.” CAPT. JOHN FILOSTRAT DETENTION CENTRE SPOKESPERSON