Guantanamo camp a base of contradictions

This quiet outpost hastily turned into a prison for terror suspects looks like a surreal slice of Americana -- families gather at an outdoor movie theater, kids play baseball on tidy fields and pieces of apple pie swirl around dessert carousels to the crackle of The Star-Spangled Banner.

But whispers of espionage have disturbed the peace at this US base where three workers -- a Muslim chaplain and two Arabic translators -- have been charged with crimes ranging from spying to disobeying orders.

It's the latest twist in a tale that began in January last year. Shackled, bearded and fresh from the badlands of Afghanistan, Guantanamo personnel say it was easy to spot potential enemies back then. Now, the task has become harder at the US base in communist Cuba where contrasts abound and few escape the throes of paranoia.

"You think twice about what you do," said army Sergeant Jovani Barber, 24, from the US Virgin Islands, who has been guarding the detainees for about two months. "You watch what you say inside and outside the fence" holding the prisoners.

Fearful of being questioned, troops say they don't talk to strangers anymore. Some are writing friends less frequently because they think their e-mails are being monitored. Others keep opinions to themselves.

"We call it the buddy system," says army 1st Sergeant Jeffrey McCann, in charge of Camp America, where the prison guards live. "But that system can also apply to security as well. We watch each other."

That buddy system -- not a sophisticated security system -- may have been what alerted US officials to a security breach. Fellow troops testified that translator Air Force Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi uttered anti-American sentiments. Al-Halabi, a Syrian-American, is charged with espionage and aiding an unspecified enemy after allegedly releasing detainee serial numbers and trying to pass secrets to Syria.

Ahmed Mehalba, a contracted Arabic translator, has been charged with lying to federal agents when he denied the compact disc he was carrying contained secret information from Guantanamo.

The Muslim chaplain, Army Captain Yousef Yee, has been charged with disobeying orders. He is accused of leaving the base with a layout of the prison block.

All three say they are innocent.

But the chaplain's arrest hits close to home for Major General Geoffrey Miller. Yee advised Miller on everything from the history of Islam to insights on the rise in suicide attempts among some 660 detainees from 42 countries.

Miller, who still insists "We have a thorough screening process," said Yee's arrest came as a shock. "Some of it is objective. A lot of it is subjective. It's the feel. It's the look," he said on Friday. "I was surprised. The implication, whether it's true or not, is an area that we have to examine quickly."

This past week, military investigators arrived amid fears the camp has been infiltrated from within.

In a rare public statement, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) condemned the indefinite detentions without charge or access to lawyers and blamed it for "a worrying deterioration" in the prisoners' mental health. Twenty-one detainees have attempted suicide 32 times.

Others questioned the morality of the mission.

"If we don't set an example by treating people honorably, we're in big trouble," said Leslie Jackson, who was captured by the Nazis during World War II and held for 13 months.

Jackson signed one of seven friend-of-the-court briefs filed Thursday by a group of former US judges, diplomats and ex-POWs urging the US Supreme Court to review the appeals of some detainees.

Lower courts have supported the administration's argument that the detainees are aliens held outside US territory and therefore are not entitled to rights granted by the US Constitution.

Human-rights groups have criticized the US refusal to classify the detainees as POWs and reprimanded US officials for holding three teenagers among the detainees the US government classifies as "enemy combatants."

The three teenagers are held in quaint townhouses where they watch movies, learn to read and get debriefed by US captors who have become foster parents of sorts. Miller says the boys were "taken hostage into a life of terrorism" -- but he hasn't recommended their release.

It is but one peculiarity on this base of contradictions.

Jamaican and Filipino contract workers earning less than US$3 an hour serve McDonald's hamburgers and apple pies. Military wives in shorts sit next to the wives of 10 Muslim troops, wearing head scarves and long-sleeved shirts despite the scorching heat. Children play baseball a short drive from the sprawling prison camp.