Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
Miami Herald
May 23, 2007 Guantanamo Bay captives are allowed to plant and maintain gardens as part of an 'intellectual stimulation program.'
By Carol Rosenberg
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- A garden grows at this U.S. Navy base known as Gitmo.
Escorts recently allowed two visiting reporters to inspect a 10-week-old detainee pastime inside a prison camp for more cooperative captives who are allowed to live in barracks-style housing: two concrete planters containing gardening beds, where seedlings were sprouting but had yet to yield fruit beneath the searing Caribbean sun.
''This is part of the intellectual stimulation program,'' said Army Lt. Col. Todd Melton, deputy commander of the Joint Detention Group. "It just gives them something else to think about. They enjoy doing the plants. They have tomatoes, and I believe the other ones are some type of melon.''
The camp was the scene a year ago of what commanders called a detainee uprising, captives battling guards with metal parts ripped from a bunkhouse.
It has since been downsized from up to 175 minimum-security enemy combatants to at most 60 to 70. Present population, including the gardeners, is fewer than 40 Arabs and Afghanis.
Said Melton: "The younger ones like to play the sports. But the older guys like to come in here and fool with the garden, rather than playing soccer or basketball.''
'Notebook-free zone'
It may be the military's sixth year of detention operations here, but returning journalists are finding new rules at this U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
After years of carrying reporters' notebooks through the various prison camps, an Army escort officer ending a one-year tour here declared the main detention center -- called Camps 5 and 6 -- a notebook-free zone.
He said he feared someone, somewhere, during the media tour might ''weaponize'' the tiny spiral springs holding the pad together.
So a reporter scratched out her notes on the back of a Public Affairs handout titled Mishandling of the Koran.
The first item on it: "The United States takes credible allegations of misconduct seriously.''
Class in session
Another innovation is taking place in a steel-walled bunkhouse where commanders say captives revolted against guards a year ago.
Management has transformed former minimum-security quarters into a classroom -- complete with an Arabic alphabet lining the walls and four stainless steel desks, each equipped with an ankle shackle.
''Some of them resist reading novels because they think the writer is an infidel,'' said an instructor who tells his students to call him ''Adam,'' not his real name. Still, he said, "The mind is like any muscle. It needs movement.''
So the handful of lucky, largely highly literate students studying strict Arabic grammar "always meet me smiling, greeting and they wish me the best day ever.''
Earlier, reporters watched Adam teach a 30-something captive in a white uniform how to conjugate in classic Arabic -- while two sailor guards stood just feet away, rocking in their combat boots, to stay alert.
Souvenir shop
There is a smaller selection of T-shirts at the base souvenir shop, which also offers refrigerator magnets and shot glasses with three sets of blood-red lips and the logo, "Kisses from Guantánamo Bay.''
Gone are the $9.99 specials showing two Camp X-Ray watchtowers and boasting "Taliban Towers -- the Caribbean's newest five-star resort.''
Also no longer for sale are the mock guard undershirts declaring the wearer a ''Behavior Modification Instructor.'' A clerk there said those shirts disappeared from the racks in late 2006. "I guess someone thought they were too funny.''
Instead, there's a play on the popular milk slogan, "Got Freedom?''
May 23, 2007 Guantanamo Bay captives are allowed to plant and maintain gardens as part of an 'intellectual stimulation program.'
By Carol Rosenberg
GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- A garden grows at this U.S. Navy base known as Gitmo.
Escorts recently allowed two visiting reporters to inspect a 10-week-old detainee pastime inside a prison camp for more cooperative captives who are allowed to live in barracks-style housing: two concrete planters containing gardening beds, where seedlings were sprouting but had yet to yield fruit beneath the searing Caribbean sun.
''This is part of the intellectual stimulation program,'' said Army Lt. Col. Todd Melton, deputy commander of the Joint Detention Group. "It just gives them something else to think about. They enjoy doing the plants. They have tomatoes, and I believe the other ones are some type of melon.''
The camp was the scene a year ago of what commanders called a detainee uprising, captives battling guards with metal parts ripped from a bunkhouse.
It has since been downsized from up to 175 minimum-security enemy combatants to at most 60 to 70. Present population, including the gardeners, is fewer than 40 Arabs and Afghanis.
Said Melton: "The younger ones like to play the sports. But the older guys like to come in here and fool with the garden, rather than playing soccer or basketball.''
'Notebook-free zone'
It may be the military's sixth year of detention operations here, but returning journalists are finding new rules at this U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.
After years of carrying reporters' notebooks through the various prison camps, an Army escort officer ending a one-year tour here declared the main detention center -- called Camps 5 and 6 -- a notebook-free zone.
He said he feared someone, somewhere, during the media tour might ''weaponize'' the tiny spiral springs holding the pad together.
So a reporter scratched out her notes on the back of a Public Affairs handout titled Mishandling of the Koran.
The first item on it: "The United States takes credible allegations of misconduct seriously.''
Class in session
Another innovation is taking place in a steel-walled bunkhouse where commanders say captives revolted against guards a year ago.
Management has transformed former minimum-security quarters into a classroom -- complete with an Arabic alphabet lining the walls and four stainless steel desks, each equipped with an ankle shackle.
''Some of them resist reading novels because they think the writer is an infidel,'' said an instructor who tells his students to call him ''Adam,'' not his real name. Still, he said, "The mind is like any muscle. It needs movement.''
So the handful of lucky, largely highly literate students studying strict Arabic grammar "always meet me smiling, greeting and they wish me the best day ever.''
Earlier, reporters watched Adam teach a 30-something captive in a white uniform how to conjugate in classic Arabic -- while two sailor guards stood just feet away, rocking in their combat boots, to stay alert.
Souvenir shop
There is a smaller selection of T-shirts at the base souvenir shop, which also offers refrigerator magnets and shot glasses with three sets of blood-red lips and the logo, "Kisses from Guantánamo Bay.''
Gone are the $9.99 specials showing two Camp X-Ray watchtowers and boasting "Taliban Towers -- the Caribbean's newest five-star resort.''
Also no longer for sale are the mock guard undershirts declaring the wearer a ''Behavior Modification Instructor.'' A clerk there said those shirts disappeared from the racks in late 2006. "I guess someone thought they were too funny.''
Instead, there's a play on the popular milk slogan, "Got Freedom?''