by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian

HUMINT IN OPERATION GTMO

On November 25, 1991, the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion arrived at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The battalion’s mission was to establish and manage camps for rescued Haitian migrants fleeing potential persecution in their native country. Part of the battalion’s deployed force for this humanitarian mission was Cpt. James A. Vick, Jr., and his nine-man S-2 Section.

On September 30, 1991, Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s government was overthrown during a military coup. In the ensuing months, more than 30,000 Haitian citizens attempted to reach Florida in small boats. The U.S. Coast Guard began rescuing boatloads of migrants in the Windward Passage between Haiti and Cuba, and by mid-November, it housed five hundred Haitians onboard two cutters anchored in Guantanamo Bay until decision makers in Washington, D.C. determined their fate. Meanwhile, Haitians continued to flee their island nation. On November 25, a U.S. Marine Corps-led joint task force (JTF) for Operation SAFE HARBOR was established at Guantanamo. Two days later, it became known as Operation GTMO.

The JTF soon had three compounds of Camp McCalla constructed and surrounded by barbed wire fences. The migrants disembarked from the cutters and moved into the camp, which had a total capacity of 12,500 temporary residents. Migrants were screened by Immigration and Naturalization Service agents. Those approved to enter the United States were moved to a separate camp to complete the immigration process. Meanwhile, the population of Camp McCalla continued to grow, as did fear, boredom, and discontent.

Vick, a 1987 graduate of William and Mary College who received his commission through the ROTC program, had previously deployed with the battalion to Panama for Operation JUST CAUSE and Saudi Arabia for Operation DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM. In Cuba, he found conditions and attitudes in the camp almost as dangerous as in combat. He wrote, “Widespread discontent proved to be the biggest threat to the stability, security, and safety of both migrants and JTF personnel.” The key to diffusing potential hostile situations lay in human intelligence, but “[t]he cultural gap,” Vick wrote, “was the single largest obstacle to our intelligence effort.”

Vick had his staff circulate through the camps to learn a bit of the language and culture of the Haitians, but the S-2 Section relied heavily on the U.S. military’s Creole-speaking interpreters. During daily debriefings, a mutual sharing of information took place between the interpreters, Vick, the JTF J-2, the Naval Base’s intelligence staff, and the Coast Guard Intelligence Center. To disseminate information to the migrants, Vick’s section worked with the JTF’s 4th Psychological Operations Group, which published a daily newspaper and operated a radio station playing music and news in Creole.

As temperatures and tempers heated up, Vick implemented a swing shift to always have personnel on duty during the cooler evening hours of increased activity. Still, the section missed indications of simmering agitation that developed into a riot on 15 December, requiring the deployment of reinforcements. After the situation had calmed, Vick’s analysts worked with the J-2 to outline the commander’s Priority Intelligence Requirements (PIR) regarding discontent. He then disseminated an indicators card to all camp personnel, encouraging them to report relevant information to intelligence personnel immediately. Meanwhile, Army and Marine Corps counterintelligence agents developed informant networks and videotaped camp activities to identify malcontents, who were then isolated. These actions mitigated most of the trouble in the camp, but intelligence personnel and military police continued to monitor the situation.

By January 1992, Camp McCalla housed more than 11,000 migrants. Later that month, after the Supreme Court approved repatriation, the detained migrants and any new migrants picked up at sea began to be returned to Haiti. For the next six months, the number of detainees at the camp ebbed and grew depending on conditions in Haiti. By mid-June, however, Camp McCalla began to be dismantled, and it closed completely on July 10.

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