Interview with Julie Schwietert Collazo About Her Visit to the Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay

President Obama’s executive order to close the detention center at Guatanamo Bay, Cuba has focused the world’s attention on the U.S. military base and the policy considerations involving the future status of the prisoners.

In this interview, Julie Schwietert Collazo–managing editor of the Matador Network–describes a visit she made to the detention center in October 2008. She also explains why she believes closing the detention center is no more than a symbolic gesture without a policy that guarantees a fair trial for each of the prisoners and the continued imprisonment for those who are found guilty.

Most people in the U.S. think of Cuba as this communist island
country that has somehow eluded the grasp of the U.S. But the U.S. actually occupies part of the island. As someone who has studied and visited Cuba, is it  possible to reconcile these seemingly contradictory facts?

I’ve been on both sides of the (quite literal) fence. I’ve visited
“Cuba proper” seven or eight times and I’ve been to Guantanamo Bay
(it’s worth noting, by the way, that Cuba has a town called
Guantanamo, which is on the other side of the fence that the US erected around the base).

Photo by woodleywonderworks

I’m not sure that these are contradictory facts, in the strictest sense. The US essentially claimed this patch of southern Cuba as its own after the Spanish-American War as part of a very strategic plan to establish key outposts in the Caribbean basin.

While it must rankle Castro no end that the US is sitting on Cuban territory, the terms of the agreement that the US set forth more than 100 years ago bind both parties to very specific terms which, to date, have not been renegotiated significantly.

Geographically, the base occupies an ideal vantage point; the US is not likely to give up the base easily or willingly. And given that the US military’s
presence in other areas of the Caribbean, most notably in our commonwealth of Puerto Rico, has been reduced considerably, the value
of Guantanamo has become more important, not less.

I’m not one to make predictions about how or when the US presence in southern Cuba will be resolved, though I do think the conversation about this subject will become increasingly important once the detention part of the base is closed.

However, what I can say is that I was very interested in hearing US military officials, including the base commander, talking about the relationships that have been forged in recent years between US and Cuban military brass, who hold monthly meetings to talk about topics of mutual interest. These meetings started during the Clinton administration and continue today.

Last year, a major milestone was achieved when the military officials of both countries collaborated on a fire drill that involved the cooperation of both sides. These individuals may be able to lead the way in modeling how both sides can negotiate in a civil manner– they manage to meet every month and discuss mutually important business, and then conclude meetings with coffee and small talk about baseball, cigars, and other topics of shared interest that have nothing to do with politics.

How and when did you come to visit Guantanamo Bay?

Back in February of 2008, I was watching a documentary about the
military base at Guantanamo Bay and heard the filmmaker say that he’d
obtained a press pass to be able to go on a media tour there.

This was the first time that it had even occurred to me that I could also get a
press pass and go to Guantanamo Bay. I immediately began searching for
the contacts to do so, which took about a week, and then filed my
application. Seven months passed before I received approval to visit
Guantanamo Bay in October 2008. I was one of only a handful of
journalists to visit the detention facility–which is a separate
entity within the base–in 2008.

I stayed in visitors’ housing, which was surprisingly luxurious,
though I must point out that the journalists who cover the military
tribunals, which are held outside of the Joint Task Force detention
facility (referred to on base as JTF) do not stay in these same
accommodations, but in large, military style tents that are set up in
a parking lot.

My lodging was a duplex apartment that had two bedrooms, a large living room, kitchen, two bathrooms, a washer and dryer, and even a patio with a BBQ. I’ll admit that I was surprised–the apartment even had internet access and nice toiletries from England. I wrote about the lodging experience here:
http://matadortravel.com/travel-blog/cuba/novoarte/sweet-digs

As with the lodgings, my expectations were completely subverted by the
way I was treated by the press handlers. While the officers who
talked, briefly, to me while I was on the cell blocks were clearly
trying to paint a portrait of the detention facility that didn’t
entirely square with reality (I mean, how comfortable can it be to
sleep in a cell where the lights never go off completely? They’re just
dimmed), the press handlers were refreshingly candid, both about what
occurs on the base and, in particular, about their own feelings about
politics, Guantanamo, and the war.

I was also surprised by my conversations with the the base commander and the JTF commanders. They never seemed as if they wanted to withhold any information, but they admitted that one of the persistent challenges at Guantanamo is the way in which deployments there are structured.

Typically, both service members and officers have very short tours (6 months to a year, in most cases), which undermines the ability to convey information, policies, and public disclosures consistently and effectively.

It’s a complex matter, and one that I wrote more about here:
http://matadortravel.com/travel-blog/cuba/novoarte/the-party-line

There were no restrictions imposed upon me regarding what I chose to
write or report about; however, all of my photography was reviewed at
the end of each day and was subject to deletion by a security adviser
who decides if any of the photos compromise operations. Off-limits
photographic subjects included any full frontal or profile views of
men being held at Guantanamo Bay, any facial views of guards or
service members without their express consent, empty guard towers,
coastline, and images of lock and key operations.

I think it’s too soon, actually. After I returned from the detention
facility, I began paying a lot more attention to the rhetoric and
media talk about Guantanamo and realized that a critical consideration
was missing.

I support President Obama wholeheartedly, and appreciated
the idea of closing Guantanamo, but until very recently, there was no
talk about what to do with the 240+ men being held at the detention
facilities there. Closing Guantanamo is merely a symbolic gesture
(albeit an important one) if we don’t also put into place a policy
that answers the questions:

• What do we do with the men being held at Guantanamo once the detention facility is closed? and
• How do we deal with the inevitable consequences of having held many people in this facility without having applied democratic principles of a fair trial?

I asked these questions back in November (I wrote about that here:
http://collazoprojects.com/2008/11/25/close-guantanamo-wait-just-a-minute/), before they came up in the mainstream media.

I’m still not convinced that these questions are being addressed adequately, and this week’s news that the #2 Al Qaeda operative was released from Guantanamo a year ago seems to underscore the urgency of addressing these questions.

Until Obama took office, one of the biggest problems facing
officials at Guantanamo was finding a place to go for men who’d been
deemed appropriate for release; no country would claim or accept them.
When I was there in October, I was told that a number of men were
cleared for release but no plans to free them were imminent because
they had nowhere to go. That’s a problem.

Finally, it’s important to distinguish (which few people have) that
Guantanamo is not simply a detention facility in the war on terror.
It’s also a military base, one the United States has held for more
than a century. It’s a point of contention (one among many) in
U.S.-Cuban relations, but military officials I spoke with at
Guantanamo argued that even if the detention facility closes, the base
itself is unlikely to close– it is a critical strategic vantage point
for the United States, particularly as the US has shuttered or scaled
back operations on other bases in the Caribbean basin.

For a narrative slide show that Schwietert Collazo made about her trip, visit her blog–the Collazo Projects–here.