WASHINGTON - The United States plans to turn its Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, into a detention centre for al Qaeda and Taleban prisoners, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed yesterday.
"We are making preparations to hold detainees there," Rumsfeld told reporters at a regular Pentagon briefing.
But he added there were no plans to conduct military tribunals at the 116kmsup2 facility in southeast Cuba.
Some commentators say the decision to hold Afghan and Arab fighters in Cuba could anger President Fidel Castro, who has described the Guantanamo base as a "dagger pointed at Cuba's heart" and criticised Washington's Afghan military campaign. His reaction to the latest development remains to be seen.
"We don't anticipate any trouble with Mr Castro in that regard," Rumsfeld said, describing the base as "the least worst place we could have selected".
A US Marine Corps-led force has taken custody of 20 more suspected Osama bin Laden loyalists, bringing the total number of Afghan war prisoners under US control to 45, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said yesterday.
The 20 new prisoners were brought from neighbouring Pakistan and were being held at a makeshift prison at the US Marines' base at Kandahar airport in southern Afghanistan.
Clarke said the 45 prisoners included members of both al Qaeda and the Taleban militia driven from power in the US-led assault that began on October 7.
Prisoners taken under US control were "those that we think might provide some valuable information so we want to be able to talk to them pretty thoroughly".
The primary US objectives remained "getting the Taleban and al Qaeda leadership and we're working closely with the anti-Taleban forces, with the interim government of Afghanistan," she said.
Interrogation of detainees was being carried out by a "variety of US officials," including US military officers, she added.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, was used in the mid-1990s to house thousands of Cuban and Haitian refugees.
In 1999, it was mooted as a temporary home for Kosovo refugees but that plan was dropped.
A base spokesman said the idea of bringing prisoners from the Afghan war to the base had been discussed for some time.
Access to the base, long a sore point in the United States' tense relations with communist Cuba, is possible only through the US military.
Since Castro's 1959 revolution, the perimeter of the base has been virtually sealed. US Marines and Cuban frontier guards face each other across barbed-wire lines and minefields along a 28km fence.
"There's always a little harassment and taunting by the Cubans, but nothing serious for quite some time," said base spokesman Chief Petty Officer Richard Evans.
In the tense years of the Cold War, Cuban guards would fire shots over the Marines' heads, he said.
The US side, to comply with international treaties, finished clearing its minefields in 1999, but the Cuban mines remain.
The base has its own McDonald's, cinema and golf course, although, says Evans "we've not had much rain lately and the green is turning pretty brown".
It has a population of about 2700.
There are also 11 "commuters", Cubans who cross the line each day to work at jobs they have held since before the revolution. All are now over age 65. Many retired workers live nearby, still benefiting from US pensions.
The base was founded after US Marines landed at Guantanamo Bay in 1898 during the Spanish-American War.
The US pays rent cheques of $US4085 ($9944) a year under a 1934 treaty, although Castro refuses to cash them.
- REUTERS
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