Inside Donald Trump's Guantanamo: The infamous terror jail the US President has promised to keep (13 Pics)
Trumps's pledge paves the way for the US to send its first wave of Islamic State terrorists to Guantanamo – a move the current detainees dread
Unlike for Barack Obama’s election win, not a single inmate left at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp chanted Donald Trump’s name when he became President.
While his predecessor pledged to shut down the US military base amid claims of human rights abuses, the billionaire vowed to keep it open.
Now, following his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night, Trump made good on his election promise by signing a new executive order to keep “The Bay” running.
Revoking his predecessor’s order to shut the detention centre in Cuba, he went further, declaring the prison should be open to new captives.
It paves the way for the US to send its first wave of Islamic State terrorists to Guantanamo – a move the current detainees dread.
Only 41 prisoners remain, some convicted of terror offences and others who are suspects and have yet to be tried after many years.
Of his new order, Trump said: “We must be clear. Terrorists are not merely criminals. They are unlawful enemy combatants. And when captured overseas, they should be treated like the terrorists they are.”
He even went so far as to threaten to bring back waterboarding.
The brutal practice, along with the notorious treatment of detainees at now closed Camp X-Ray, helped make Guantanamo a powerful recruiting tool for jihadists.
Today, the 41 “enemy combatants” woke up facing the prospect of never crossing the red and white “candy strip” – a plank detainees pass on their release.
Among them, five – an Algerian, a Moroccan, a Tunisian, a Yemeni, and an apparently stateless detainee –had been cleared to leave but now their future is again uncertain.
The Daily Mirror was given a tour of the camp, including watching the 20 or so prisoners in camp six, part of the base’s Camp Delta facility.
As we visited during the Muslim holy period of Ramadan, the communal areas were quiet.
The five-wing block looked empty but for dozens of Styrofoam boxes containing the iftar meal that breaks their daily fast.
But despite some prisoners spending their 16th Ramadan locked up, Guantanamo has failed to rob them of all humanity.
After last year’s Manchester attack, some detainees expressed sympathy for the children among the 22 dead.
As news filtered through the inmates’ headphones – connected to TV via Bluetooth – detainees loyal to al-Qaeda expressed their hatred of ISIS.
As Islamic State claimed and then celebrated the attack, several suspects at the camp told their guards: “We’re sorry”.
Compassion among such evil comes as a shock. Army Colonel Stephen Gabavecs explains: “There is a difference between necessarily their background [al-Qaeda] and the current background [ISIS].
“We have some differences in age and everything else but generally speaking they’ll see it, they’ll say ‘sorry about that’, especially if they see children being killed. It’s not everybody that does that, but there are few individuals who will.
“There is nothing like celebrations or anything like that over a terrorist attack.”
With Trump’s new orders in place, members of the guard force are carrying out their drills in preparation for any new detainees. Officials here admit about 160 suspects could be accommodated immediately.
Colonel Gabavecs said the camp’s 1,500 soldiers are also fully prepared to accept their first members of ISIS – a thought that instils panic among current detainees.
“There is a fear among the detainees about the possibility ISIS suspects may be brought here, but we are prepared if that should be decided,” Colonel Gabavecs says.
“Much like a normal prison, they will be kept separate from those here now to ensure order.”
He also reveals Guantanamo is ready to accept its first women.
“We would treat women with the same professionalism we do the men,” he adds. “Our purpose is to detain people – men or women – that are a risk to the United States as well as our allies off the battlefield. By maintaining them at Guantanamo every single day it’s keeping them being a threat to us.”
The camp remains a symbol of torture and indefinite detention to human rights campaigners.
To the Muslim world, Guantanamo is a byword for American hypocrisy, brutality and injustice.
Remnants of the former Camp X-Ray, closed in 2002, can still be seen from the hills.
There detainees in orange jumpsuits were infamously pictured being forced to kneel for hours at a time wearing blindfolds and headphones.
But the facilities, officials say, are now unrecognisable.
They boast they “conduct safe, humane, legal and transparent care and custody of detainees, including those convicted by military commission”.
Colonel Gabavecs says: “We still get complaints among the detainees, just like a prison would.
“It could be over them not receiving the food they ordered or other issues, but I do receive a thank-you letter every now and again.
“One of their biggest frustrations is that we do not supply cricket on the TV channels. If we can do it we will, just don’t ask me how the game works.”
Most of those remaining are now said to be “highly compliant”.
The well-behaved are given access to the “library”, a dusty collection of 34,000 books, old magazines, PS3 games and DVDs that detainees can check out for a few days at a time.
Those deemed to be the most well-behaved have access to 10 items and a DVD player.
“Compliant” detainees can check out seven while the disobedient are permitted only two.
“They’re more compliant than my kids,” the prison’s Muslim-American cultural adviser Zak says, although he too warns that could change if ISIS arrive.
Gone too are the dozens of detainees on hunger strike –called “non-religious fasters” by warders – and now only two refuse to eat.
They are fed through a tube but no longer do they need to be strapped to the notorious restraining chair.
Doctors at the camp’s 15-bed hospital said the prison might even offer gender transition assistance to inmates if the situation arose.
“Anything that a detainee requests from a medical standpoint, we will consider,” said the camp’s chief medical officer, whose identity is protected for security reasons.
“You know, we haven’t gotten there yet, but it is 2017.”
Asked if the camp still had a role to play in the fight against terrorism the Colonel was emphatic. “Definitely,” he replied.
British views on Guantanamo Bay sharpened after Muslim former Met police chief, Tarique Ghaffur, called for the UK to have its own Guantanamo-style detainment camp.
His demand came months after the outrage sparked when it emerged former Guantanamo detainee, Manchester-born Jamal Udeen al-Harith, was gifted £1million of taxpayers’ money in compensation after the UK government successfully lobbied for his freedom.
Last February, the father of five, real name Ronald Fiddler, carried out an ISIS suicide bombing at an army station near Mosul, Iraq.
Pictures surfaced online showing Al-Harith, who previously denied being an extremist, grinning with what appears to be the detonator moments before his attack.
His link to the Manchester attacker Salman Abedi also became clear when it was discovered they shared mutual friends, including terror recruiter Raphael Hostey.
Ghaffur, an Assistant Commissioner at Scotland Yard when the London 7/7 bombings took place, has proposed the UK has it own facility to detain as many as 3,000 extremists, where they can be kept from launching attacks.
While British politics remains in disarray and uncertainty on tackling extremism, the future for The Bay under Trump is now assured.
Inside Donald Trump's Guantanamo: The infamous terror jail the US President has promised to keep (13 Pics)
Reviewed by Your Destination
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February 01, 2018
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February 01, 2018
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