Obama to Give GITMO Killers Laptops and Al Jazeera

GITMO spa mates now call Al Jazeera directly with any complaints they have. Isn't that special?

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — These captives already get to order
fast-food takeout from the base and have access to a phone booth for weekly
calls. Now some 17 Uighur Muslims awaiting a nation to grant them asylum are
about to go high-tech, with laptops and web training.

While awaiting details of President Barack Obama's order to close the prison
camps by Jan. 22, commanders here have ordered 20 laptops for the captives of
Camp Iguana.

''As you know, detainees are leaving this place,'' said Army Lt. Col. Miguel
Mendez, who oversees detainee classes, a multilingual library and now-emerging
virtual computer lab. "We're getting them computer classes to prepare for their
return.''

E-MAIL LESSONS

The Uighur detainees won't be sending electronic mail to their lawyers or
family members back in communist China anytime soon. Instead their lessons will
be limited to DVD driven training.

A federal judge last year ordered that the men be set free after reviewing
the American military's reasons for holding them in habeas corpus petitions that
reached the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. by order of the Supreme
Court.

But the Chinese citizens in exile have no place to go.

As devout Muslims, they fear religious persecution in their homeland, in part
because of the stigma of having been held at Guantánamo for allegedly getting
paramilitary training in Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001.

Attorney General Eric Holder said some could come to the United States for
resettlement, triggering protests from members of Congress around Virginia,
where other Uighurs live and have offered to settle them.

Nury Turkel, a Washington, D.C.-based Uighur rights activist, hailed the
computer training development. Internet access could allow the men to listen to
Uighur broadcasts of Radio Free Asia, he said.

Moreover, laptops would help the men ''be reintroduced into a modern
society,'' said Turkel, who noted that after eight years in U.S. custody the
computer training "also would give hope to the men that their freedom is
nearing.''

Some Uighurs sent from Guantánamo to asylum in Albania several years ago now
e-mail with Turkel regularly, he said.

Attorneys for the men did not respond to requests for comment.

LANGUAGE SKILLS

The computer training will offer DVD language training as well as a basic
users skill-set to help in any future employment options, Mendez said. For
example, detainees bound for Spain would get basic Spanish language classes.

The virtual computer lab is part of an emerging administration effort to
persuade both Americans and European allies that some detainees are safe enough
to resettle in their communities.

'DRAMATIC' CHANGE

''Change is coming,'' he told 200 Navy guards at a town meeting at a military
chapel.

"It's coming a little slow, but when it does it's going to be dramatic.''

He provided no timetable for closure. Two detainees have departed the prison
since Obama took office, both for Europe, and a third is to be transferred to
New York City for trial in the 1998 twin suicide bombings of the U.S. Embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania.