the US goes further mad with incarceration
Guantanamo Detainees Going to New Prison By MICHAEL MELIA 12.07.06, 10:07 PM ET
The U.S. military transferred the first group of detainees on
Thursday to a new maximum-security prison at Guantanamo Bay designed
to restrict contact among the prisoners and prevent attacks on guards.
More than 40 detainees were brought to the $37 million prison perched
on a plateau overlooking the Caribbean Sea from another maximum-
security facility at the U.S. naval base in eastern Cuba, said Navy
Cmdr. Robert Durand.
The 178-cell prison, constructed beside another maximum-security
prison built in 2004, will allow the base to phase out an older
facility, Durand said.
U.N. human rights investigators and foreign governments have called
on the United States to close the entire detention center because of
widespread allegations of abuse of detainees by guards. The United
States labels Guantanamo detainees “enemy combatants,” which accords
them fewer rights than other prisoners.
About 430 men are currently held at Guantanamo on suspicion of links
to al-Qaida or the Taliban, including about 100 who have been cleared
for release and are awaiting transfer to another country. Fewer than
a dozen inmates have been charged with crimes.
The new prison was originally designed as a medium-security facility.
But the military made several modifications, citing concerns raised
by three suicides in June and a clash in May between guards and
detainees armed with makeshift weapons.
It is now one of two facilities reserved for prisoners who are least
compliant - an assessment the military says it bases on detainees’
adherence to base rules rather than their cooperation with
interrogators.
Detainees will be confined in individual cells with long, narrow
windows overlooking areas with metal tables and stools that were
meant to be shared spaces but will now be off-limits.
An open-air recreation area has been divided into smaller spaces,
which will hold only one detainee at a time. Shower doors were
redesigned to allow guards to shackle prisoners’ hands and feet
before they leave the stalls, and fencing was installed on second-
tier catwalks to prevent detainees from jumping over the sides.
The new prison also has air conditioning, an onsite medical center
and two rooms that will allow detainees to meet privately with their
lawyers, Durand said.
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Kris Winter said the modifications will help make
guards safer. In the last year and a half, the military has recorded
more than 430 incidents in which detainees have thrown “cocktails” of
bodily excretions at guards, as well as 225 physical assaults.
“As a commander, I don’t like my folks being in danger every day,”
Winter said this week while leading journalists on a tour of the prison.
Guantanamo officials said the inability of the detainees to
communicate with one another will also improve safety. Officials have
said the May 18 ambush inside another facility on the base resulted
from a plot hatched by detainees as word spread that guards were
searching cells for contraband medication following two suicide
attempts.
A defense attorney said the melee was sparked when guards tried to
search prisoners’ Qurans.
Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the jail, has also
described June 10 suicides at a minimum-security facility at the base
as a coordinated protest. Lawyers and human rights activists called
the suicides an act of desperation.