My tour of 'beautiful' Guantanamo Bay, by Miss Universe
By Claire Soares, Deputy Foreign Editor
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Wishing for world peace is so passé; nowadays Miss Universe can be found blogging about Guantanamo Bay.
"I didn't want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful," Dayana Mendoza gushed at the end of a five-day trip. It may not be a sentiment that Binyam Mohamed would share about his time at the US base in Cuba, but then he wasn't buying souvenir necklaces to take home at the end of his four years of incarceration.
Ms Mendoza, a Venezuelan model, was crowned Miss Universe last summer. Since then, she has clocked up stops in Indonesia, Spain, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. "This week, Guantanamo!!!" she trumpeted on her blog.
Her visit to the base was designed as a morale-boosting treat for troops. "The first thing we did was attend a big lunch and then we visited one of the bars they have in the base. We talked about Gitmo and what it was like living there," wrote Ms Mendoza.
Other highlights included meeting the military dogs – who "did a very nice demonstration of their skills" – and a first-hand look at the detainee camps with their orange jump-suited inmates. "We saw the jails, where they shower, how they recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books," she said. "It was very interesting."
More:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/my-tour-of-beautiful-guantanamo-bay-by-miss-universe-16(Oh, my god.)