GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba -- For two weeks in June, two dozen war-on-terror captives staged a sit-in at an exercise yard in a maximum-security prison camp -- refusing to budge from a labyrinth of open-air cells in a previously undisclosed coordinated protest that evoked images of the early days of Camp X-Ray.

Guards delivered the detainees' meals to their recreation yards rather than risk injury by forcing the 26 protesting prisoners back into their solitary cells. Captives turned trash bags into toilets and plastic water bottles into urinals in the standoff.

Military officials this week confirmed the mass protest by about half the prisoners at Camp 5 in response to a detailed query from The Miami Herald. Camp 5 is a steel and cement building where the least cooperative captives are held.

Defense lawyers learned of the episode while it was happening but were gagged under a Pentagon system that initially classifies as secret all attorney-client meetings.

''We have been in the recreation area for two weeks with bugs by day, mosquitoes by night, no showering or washing. It's terribly hot,'' Yemeni detainee Yasin Qasim Ismail told his attorney, David H. Remes, on June 19 in a newly declassified conversation.

The two sides offered nearly identical accounts of the showdown, which offered an unusual window into the way captives and commanders coexists in the eighth year of the detention center.

On Day 5 of the protest, for example, the two sides negotiated a timeout in the strike that let guards escort each captive to his single-occupancy cell to temporarily sit out a tropical storm.

''We were not going to let them stay out there and get hit by lightning,'' said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brook DeWalt, the prison camps' spokesman.

So guards gave their captives a choice:

Return voluntarily to their cells for the duration of the lightning strikes in the compound in exchange for a promise to let them resume the sit-in once the storm passed.

Or be subjected to a much reviled tackle-and-shackle technique, called a Forced Cell Extraction, or FCE, with no guarantees of return. ''They chose to come in,'' said DeWalt, and then were escorted back to the yard after the storm.

Denver attorney Darold W. Killmer told The Herald on Tuesday that his protesting client, Jalal bin Amer, about 35, told him about it on June 10, a rainy day.

''Pretty much all of life was existing in the recreation area for these detainees,'' said Killmer. ``What they were describing was peaceful civil disobedience -- a good old-fashioned sit-in.

``I was especially surprised and pleased that the administration had not intervened and allowed this to happen. Typically speaking the conditions are more harsh and more strict.''

Both sides even agreed on the source of tension that triggered the strike -- an early June force-cell-extraction of a Camp 5 prisoner during a guard search for contraband.

Detainees said guards were strip-searching the captives in the days after the apparent suicide of a detainee, Muhammed Salih of Yemeni, and were protesting what they saw as humiliating prolonged nudity and examination of their genitals.

DeWalt called that allegation a fabrication but said the protest began after a single Camp 5 prisoner was subjected to a strip-search that uncovered some unidentified contraband. Guards, however, provided the unnamed captive a towel to preserve his dignity while they searched his clothing.

The spokesman described the episode as reflective of the day-to-day challenges to staff at the prison camps, where select detainees are constantly protesting. The best known technique is an on-again, off-again hunger strike that has lasted more than three years.

Other examples of what he called ''the realm of peaceful protests'' include refusal to go to recreation, refusal to shower, refusal to attend language or art classes.

''There have been different elements across the course of time,'' he said. ``This did not jump out as anything new or unique in our point of view.''

The sit-in ultimately fizzled out on its own accord after about two weeks, DeWalt said.

Remes said that while his clients have frequently described brutal and humiliating treatment, their characterization of the recreation yard sit-in was of a calculated tolerance by the guards.

They even agreed to shuttle one of his Yemeni clients Abdul Malik al Wahab, about 30, to and from the recreation yard sit-in to meet his attorney. Remes is handling Wahab's unlawful detention lawsuit in federal court.

''Their strategy was simply to let the protest burn itself out rather than aggravate matters further,'' said Remes. ``It was terribly interesting.''

Join the discussion

The Miami Herald is pleased to provide this opportunity to share information, experiences and observations about what's in the news. Some of the comments may be reprinted elsewhere in the site or in the newspaper. We encourage lively, open debate on the issues of the day, and ask that you refrain from profanity, hate speech, personal comments and remarks that are off point. In order to post comments, you must be a registered user of MiamiHerald.com. Your username will show along with the comments you post. Thank you for taking the time to offer your thoughts.

     Showing: Oldest first Newest first Most-recommended first Least-recommended first

@Nyx.AuthorDisplayName@ wrote on @Nyx.PostedAtTime@:

@Nyx.repliedToText@

@Nyx.replyAnswerText@

Reply to this Comment @Nyx.Recommender@ @Nyx.AbuseReporter@