A journalist heads to the US naval base and detention center, seeking out truths we’re not meant to see.
By Moustafa Bayoumi
If it’s your first visit to Guantánamo Bay, you might be forgiven for expecting the world’s most notorious prison site to look more like a garrisoned penal colony than a sleepy suburb in Southern California. But when you realize that the actual detention facility is tucked away in a far corner of this 45-square-mile naval base, and that what you can and cannot see will be determined almost completely by the same US government that invited you to observe the military commissions here, you arrive at the conclusion that your week on this occupied spit of Cuban territory will probably be a little strange.
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If you believed in omens and premonitions, you might have been able to see something like this coming. In that case, you probably would have considered it meaningful rather than just odd that while you and the rest of the small media crew were waiting to be admitted to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland at 6 am to board a charter flight to Guantánamo, the large-screen television in the waiting room was, for reasons unknown to you, playing the movie The Matrix.
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If it’s your first visit to Guantánamo as a member of the media, you will be told of the requirement that you must display your media credentials wherever you go. After you arrive on the base, you will notice that the members of the media are the only people wearing anything around their necks, making everyone stare at your chest and repeatedly ask you who you work for. Several days later, when you find yourself searching for something to eat at the naval base’s bowling alley, a man in civilian clothes who looks to be a member of the military will approach you and ask, “Does it make you feel bad that nobody wants to talk to you because of that thing around your neck?” To which you respond, “Are you instructed not to talk to members of the media?” After which he will respond with a half smile, “I’m not saying, but I’m saying.”
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