This is an audio cast of the Frontline segment Forever Prison, released February 21st on

PBS and Frontline.org. The correspondent is a rune wroth of NPR and WGBH news.

Tonight on Frontline, a collaboration with Retro Report, drawing on Rare Footage, a forgotten

story about Guantanamo's past. It felt like you were in prison. I mean, that's what it was to us.

It was being in prison. How the US Naval Base became a detention center for Haitian refugees

and the legal battle that set the stage for today. This is, essentially, Guantanamo Episode 1.

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Over the years I've been reporting on Guantanamo, I've seen the prison camp evolve.

Once crammed full of suspected terrorists in orange jumpsuits, parts of the camp are now empty.

Just right here by the side of the road, this is where the detainees were kept in cages,

essentially. Guidmu is a symbol of the post-911 war on terror. But on my trips here, I began to hear a

rarely told history of how it was first used to hold people outside the reach of U.S. law.

It began a decade before 911, in the wake of a bloody coup in September of 1991, just across the

water, in nearby Haiti. The military coup is underway with the Haitian military over through

elected president John Bertrand Eristie, reports that soldiers have killed up to 150 people this week.

...