Guantánamo Bay: Beyond the Prison

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Mention this place, and radical thin to deliberation of caged men wearing orangish uniforms and connected their knees, the representation of opening time astatine the wartime situation 4 months aft the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

But this subject basal is much than 1 large prison. About 6,000 radical unrecorded astatine the U.S. Navy outpost, which has the trappings of small-town America and the amenities of a assemblage campus, and functions similar a transverse betwixt a gated assemblage and a constabulary state.

It has a Defense Department schoolhouse strategy for the children of sailors and contractors, a seaport for Navy and Coast Guard proviso missions, bars, shot fields, neighborhoods with plaything sets, beaches with barbecue grills and pleasance boats to rent for excursions connected the bay.

It besides has a McDonald’s with a drive-through wide capable for tactical vehicles, conscionable beneath a hilltop religion with a achromatic steeple. A 10-minute thrust successful 1 absorption takes you to Nob Hill, a vicinity of three-bedroom homes for inferior officers connected the basal of 700 families.

Drive 10 minutes successful different direction, past the base’s scrubby nine-hole play course, and you get astatine a gross to what is fundamentally a basal wrong the base, the detention zone. It is nether the bid of an Army brigadier wide who is liable for the Pentagon’s last 39 wartime prisoners and a unit of 1,500 people, mostly soldiers from the National Guard connected nine-month tours of duty.

The basal covers 45 quadrate miles straddling Guantánamo Bay, the U.S.-controlled assemblage of h2o that splits the basal successful two. A tiny portion of Marines is liable for information connected the U.S. broadside of 17.4 miles of fences that situation the base. A information of the Cuban broadside has a minefield.

Most days it is casual to hide that the basal sits successful southeast Cuba.

By immoderate measures, the basal resembles a assemblage field — but 1 with a shooting range, razor wire, hundreds of soldiers and sailors successful conflict dress, and cars that abruptly halt successful the roadworthy astatine 8 a.m. erstwhile “The Star-Spangled Banner” is broadcast each morning.

Some residents are issued repast cards for the cafeteria-style eating facilities. Single soldiers and sailors unrecorded successful dormitories. The basal has a souvenir store peddling alumni-style T-shirts, java mugs and changeable glasses. “No Bad Day,” says a T-shirt decorated with thenar trees that boasts “Good Vibes” and “High Tides” astatine Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. It has a Saturday nighttime country astatine the Tiki Bar, a unpaid car excavation called Safe Ride truthful radical won’t portion and drive, and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings 3 times a week.

But it is simply a subject base, aft all. Drones are forbidden. Trick oregon treating is allowed lone successful definite neighbors. News photographers indispensable taxable each and each representation they instrumentality to subject censorship. Forbidden images see defender towers, definite razor-wire-ringed fences and information cameras, arsenic good arsenic captious infrastructure, specified arsenic the 4 upwind turbines that operation supra the basal and tin beryllium seen astatine sea.

Anyone traveling to the basal needs support from the commanding officer, a stamped entree signifier that is fundamentally a visa to the Independent Republic of Guantánamo Bay, and past a spot connected an approved flight, mostly a Pentagon charter from the Eastern Seaboard.

He has a zero-tolerance argumentation for alcohol, meaning nary substance however large you are, you can’t person a brew and drive. Get caught driving portion drunk, and the commandant tin propulsion you disconnected the base. Or not.

Usually the skipper is the idiosyncratic astatine the helm of a ship. But the honorific is peculiarly apt because, ever since the United States chopped itself disconnected from the Cuban infrastructure grid successful the 1960s, aft Fidel Castro’s revolution, Guantánamo is precise overmuch similar an craft astatine sea.

The basal treats its ain h2o successful a desalination works and generates its ain vigor from fossil fuels, star panels and upwind energy. It is resupplied by aerial and sea. A twice-monthly barge from Jacksonville, Fla., brings nutrient for the commissary, caller vehicles for the military, operation and gathering supplies, and household goods. A twice-weekly refrigerator formation delivers caller fruits and vegetables and different perishables.

For astir 20 years, basal commanders person described the U.S.-Cuba narration on the obstruction enactment arsenic benign, with nary of the tensions suggested successful “A Few Good Men.” Each June, the basal commandant reminds his Cuban counterpart successful the Frontier Brigade that determination volition beryllium fireworks connected the Fourth of July; cipher is shooting astatine them.

In 2018, erstwhile a wildfire precocious done the Cuban minefield toward Nob Hill, forces from some sides dug ditches and fought the blaze. The collaboration culminated with a Soviet-era Cuban chopper making respective passes implicit the Navy base, scooping up h2o from the bay and dumping it connected definite blistery spots to snuff them out.

The basal besides has thousands of feral cats, the descendants of felines that recovered their mode to the basal done the Cuban minefield oregon of location cats near down by Navy families. A radical of acrophobic feline lovers founded Operation Git-Meow, which seeks to find homes for the feral cats and is trying to transportation the Navy to licence an all-volunteer catch, neuter and merchandise programme to trim the chaotic feline population.

A tiny assemblage infirmary connected the basal offers household attraction and announces the archetypal babe of each caller twelvemonth connected its website. It besides handles the attraction for the prisoners, nary substance however complicated, nether a legislature prohibition connected bringing prisoners to the United States. Everyone other with a analyzable aesculapian lawsuit is routinely sent to the mainland.

There was a clip aft the situation opened successful 2002 and the detainee colonisation roseate to a highest of 660 successful 2003 erstwhile the basal bustled with a intent that revolved astir the detention operation.

Air Force cargo planes regularly delivered detainees brought from Afghanistan, and basal residents were ordered to enactment wrong for the high-security transportation of prisoners from the airstrip connected 1 broadside of the bay to the cells connected the utmost other.

Troops successful camouflage cruised the basal successful Humvees. Members of Congress, elder subject brass, authorities lawyers, journalists and overseas delegations paid regular visits, filling Guantánamo’s hotel-style impermanent quarters.

Over time, involvement waned. There was a flurry of enactment aft President Barack Obama ordered the situation closed, and medication officials worked to alteration the detainee population. But legislature restrictions made it intolerable to transportation the past dozens to the United States for immoderate reason.

Most days, the situation cognition that enactment Guantánamo connected the representation 2 decades agone is retired of show and retired of caput — but erstwhile a convoy of white, windowless vans passes the McDonald’s to bring a detainee oregon 2 to the tribunal compound astatine Camp Justice.