Gitmo considers easing conditions for detainees

In hopes of encouraging better behavior among men being held as terrorism suspects in the highest-security...

In hopes of encouraging better behavior among men being held as terrorism suspects in the highest-security facility at the military prison here, parts of it will be gradually transformed to allow some of them to eat, visit and exercise together.

The planned easing of conditions in some cell blocks of Camp Six is part of an effort to provide more “intellectual stimulation” for the prisoners, said Rear Adm Dave Thomas, who two months ago took over command of the prison and interrogation network.

“The effect I hope to achieve is to get greater compliance,” Thomas said Saturday as he showed journalists the construction work under way to reconfigure guard posts and access. Prisoners left out of the initial group accorded communal living “would see that others got this and that might be an incentive.”

Camp Six, where about 75 prisoners live in individual cement-walled cells with steel doors, was modeled after a prison in Michigan, with a common area outfitted with tables and stools for meals, games and conversation. The detainees have been able to see those areas through the narrow windows in their cell doors, but they haven’tbeen allowed to use them.

Camp Six was nearing completion in May 2006, when a riot in Camp Four — which housed detainees considered the most compliant — prompted prison officials to order a ramping up of restrictions throughout the sprawl of prison camps that now number eight.

Camp Four held 175 men before the riot — reportedly sparked by the mishandling by guards of the Koran during a search for contraband. Only 75 men are now at the barracks-like facility, where they live 10 to a room, take their meals together and can spend most daylight hours outside playing sports.

Guantanamo’s prisoner population has dropped in the last few years from more than 700 to about 270 with the release of men deemed little threat to US security or transferred to be dealt with by their home countries.

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Thomas declined to say whether the prisoner population has become more hard-core as less confrontational detainees have been weeded out. But he conceded there was no more demand for facilities for those considered highly compliant.

At Camp Four, which has a capacity of 200, one of the empty rooms has been outfitted with a flat-screen TV for showing taped sports events and TV programs, the favorite of which, Thomas said, is Discovery Channel’s adventure fishing series “Deadliest Catch”. Another barracks has been converted to a school room where English lessons are offered as well as basic Arabic and Pashto for illiterate detainees.

At Camp Five, housing about 50 prisoners in maximum-security conditions, movies are shown every two weeks to individual detainees as a reward for good behavior, the admiral said. The films are shown in the prison’s interrogation room.

While the changes being made at Camp Six are intended to allow more interaction among prisoners, camp-to camp communication is still being discouraged.