In between the hearings and waiting to see if Khadr would show up to court or not, being at GTMO has weirdly been like being at camp. I mean it’s a camp where you are escorted almost everywhere you go by members of the military and driven on white school busses to the McDonalds, but still, camp. There are flashlights and tents and mosquitoes and men in uniform.
However, GTMO lost it’s decidedly camp-feel when we went up the hill to Camp X-Ray.
The day started off beautifully. Our group took a short ride to the beach to swim in the buoyant and warm Caribbean and take my first long snorkeling swim from one beach to another. Warm water. Warm sand. Red Stripe. Razor Wire. And people who, while I didn’t know them a week ago, I’m really enjoying being around.
We had a ride up to the infamous Camp X-Ray scheduled for 5pm. We all piled back into our white bus and rumbled up and down GTMO’s hills. We went by the NEX (Navy Exchange aka taxless Wal-Mart), the McDonalds and the football field until we got to the now overgrown and abandoned Camp X-Ray.
Due to its state of disrepair as well as its government designation as evidence, we weren’t allowed to go into the camp. Behind wired fences and signs proclaiming “HALT RESTRICTED AREA” we could see the remnants of X-Ray in the distance. The blue tin roofs still standing between wooden guard towers.
According to the government Camp X-Ray was closed in April of 2002, but there are reports of it being used in some fashion until 2003.
What’s striking, even from my far away vantage point, is how out in the open the camp would’ve been. I have of course read about it, but being there in person makes all of those news reports more clear. I couldn’t help but think to myself “this is how we keep pigs in farms.”
Chicken wire and exposure to the elements.
Even taking away the overt mistreatment that’s been documented by various media organizations, I shot video of the still standing chain link in the distance and just felt sad. Sadness that we would keep human beings, some of whom I know are dangerous, in such conditions. I was reminded of Howard Dean’s line from the 2004 election: “We can do better.”
Earlier in the week, we had taken tours of the camps that detainees are currently kept in that are much more humane and look basically like prisons you find in America. Even with our gawking at prisoners through the fences of Camp 4, the prisoners could come into the yard and go back into their rooms as they wished. If they didn’t want to be exploited by our cameras, they could go behind a wall and have something that resembled privacy.
Prison’s not perfect but it was better than what I saw at X-Ray. The newer facilities are an example of doing better.
So why is it even still standing? Why not tear it down? The military is not allowed to raze the camp because it’s evidence. As late as November 2009, FBI agents were photographing the camp as part of a federal preservation order. Multiple courts have said that it can’t be torn down. It’s considered a crime scene.
