Everything about Guantanamo Bay Naval Base totally explained
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located on the shore of
Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of
Cuba and has been used by the
United States Navy for more than a century. It is the oldest overseas U.S. Navy Base and the only one in a country with which the
United States doesn't have diplomatic relations. The United States controls the land on both sides of the southern part of Guantánamo Bay (
Bahía de Guantánamo in
Spanish) under a
lease set up in the wake of the
1898 Spanish-American War. The lease was established in a 1903 agreement between the two governments, and its terms were modified in a 1934 treaty.
The current Cuban government considers the U.S. presence in Guantánamo to be an illegal occupation of the area, and argues that the
Cuban-American Treaty, which established the lease in 1903, now violates article 52 of the
1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. However, Article 4 of the same document states that the
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties shan't be retroactively applied to any treaties made before it. The U.S. also argues that its right to the base have been reaffirmed by Cuba since the original treaty.
Since 2002, the naval base has contained a
military prison, the
Guantanamo Bay detention camp, for persons alleged to be militant combatants captured in
Afghanistan and later in
Iraq.
Prior to
July 11,
2006, the Bush Administration maintained that these prisoners are not protected under the
Geneva Convention.
The ongoing detention of prisoners at the base is in itself said to constitute a violation of the original treaty, which explicitly states that the base is to be used for "coaling and naval purposes only, and for no other purpose". The treaty also explicitly prohibits the use of "commercial, industrial or other enterprise within said areas", yet the base sports half a dozen fast-food concessions, including a
McDonald's.
History
» See also Timeline of Guantánamo Bay
See also List of commanders of Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
The bay was originally called Guantánamo by the
Taíno.
Christopher Columbus landed at the location known as Fisherman's Point in 1494. The bay was briefly renamed Cumberland Bay when the British took it in the first part of the 18th century during the
War of Jenkins' Ear. In 1790, the British garrison at Cumberland died of fever as had a previous British force, before they could attack Santiago by land.
During the
Spanish-American War, the U.S. fleet attacking Santiago retreated to Guantánamo's excellent harbor to ride out the summer
hurricane season of 1898. The Marines
landed with naval support, but required Cuban scouts to push off Spanish resistance that increased as they moved inland. This area became the location of
U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, which covers about 45
square miles (116 km²) and is sometimes abbreviated as
GTMO or "
Gitmo".
By the war's end, the U.S. government had obtained control of all of Cuba from Spain. A perpetual lease for the area around Guantánamo Bay was offered
February 23,
1903, from
Tomás Estrada Palma, an American citizen, who became the first President of Cuba. The
Cuban-American Treaty gave, among other things, the Republic of Cuba ultimate sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay while granting the United States "complete jurisdiction and control" of the area for coaling and naval stations.
A 1934 treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars, and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it or the U.S. abandoned the base property. Since the Cuban Revolution, the government under Fidel Castro has cashed only one of the rent checks from the US government. The Cuban government maintains this was only done because of "confusion" in the heady early days of the leftist revolution, while the US government maintains that the cashing constitutes an official validation of the treaty. The remaining uncashed checks made out to "Treasurer General of the Republic" (A position that has ceased to exist after the revolution) are kept in Castro's office stuffed into a desk drawer.
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Until the
1953-59 revolution, thousands of Cubans commuted daily from outside the base to jobs within. In mid-1958, vehicular traffic was stopped; workers were required to walk through the base's several gates. Public Works Center buses were pressed into service almost overnight to carry the tides of workers to and from the gate. By 2006, only two elderly Cubans still crossed the base's North East Gate daily to work on the base; this because the Cuban government prohibits new recruitment.
During the
Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the families of military personnel were evacuated from the base. Notified of the evacuation on
October 22, evacuees were told to pack one suitcase per family member, to bring evacuation and immunization cards, to tie pets in the yard, to leave the keys to the house on the dining table, and to wait in front of the house for buses. Dependents traveled to the airfield for flights to the United States, or to ports for passage aboard evacuation ships.
Since 1939, the base's water had been supplied by pipelines that drew water from the
Yateras River about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) northeast of the base. The U.S. government paid a fee for this; in 1964, it was about $14,000 a month for about two and a half million U.S.
gallons (10 million
L) per day. In 1964, the Cuban government stopped the flow. The base had about 14 million gallons water in storage, and strict water conservation was put into effect immediately. The U.S. first imported water from
Jamaica via barges, then relocated a
desalination plant from
San Diego, California (
Point Loma). When the Cuban government accused the United States of stealing water, base commander
John D. Bulkeley ordered that the pipelines be cut and a section removed. A 38-inch (964 mm) length of the 14-inch (355 mm) diameter pipe and a 20-inch (508 mm) length of the 10-inch (254 mm) diameter pipe were lifted from the ground and the openings sealed. After this resolution, family members were allowed to return to the base in December 1964.
With over 9,500 U.S. sailors and marines, Guantanamo Bay is the only U.S. base in operation in a
Communist led country.
The long-term lease of this territory by the United States has been unpopular with the current Cuban government since 1959. The present sovereigns of the territory covering Guantanamo Bay, the Republic of Cuba, led by the
Communist Party of Cuba, claim that as sovereign land owners they may evict the people who live and work there, pointing to article 52 of the 1969
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties which declares a treaty void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force — in this case by the inclusion, in 1901, of the
Platt Amendment in the first
Cuban Constitution. The United States warned the
Cuban Constitutional Convention not to remove the Amendment, and stated U.S. troops wouldn't leave Cuba until its terms had been adopted as a condition for the U.S. to grant independence. However, the United States argues that Article 4 of the
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties prohibits retroactive (after the fact) application of said Convention to already existing treaties
After coming to power in
1959, Cuban President
Fidel Castro refused to cash all but the very first rent check in protest. But the United States argues that its cashing signifies Havana's ratification of the lease — and that ratification by the new government renders moot any questions about violations of sovereignty and illegal military occupation.
The
San Francisco Chronicle published an article, on
April 22 2007, about the base, and the conditions under which the treaty would be rendered void.
The article states the treaty allows the USA to use the base for "coaling and naval purposes only." It states it doesn't allow the USA to use it for detaining "enemy combatants", or trying them for war crimes. It further states that the treaty explicitly proscribes "commercial, industrial or other enterprise within said areas." And yet the base sports half a dozen fast-food concessions. According to the article, American business, political and cultural figures with regular contact with Cuban leaders say they've the impression that the Cuban government wants the U.S. military off the island but that the issue isn't a priority now.
Cactus Curtain
After the Revolution, some Cubans sought refuge on the base. In fall 1961, Cuba had its troops plant an 8-
mile (13 km) barrier of cactus along the northeastern section of the fence. This was dubbed the "Cactus Curtain", an allusion to Europe's
Iron Curtain and the
Bamboo Curtain in East Asia. In 2006, despite the continuing lack of diplomatic relations between the countries, the United States agreed to return fugitives from Cuban law to Cuban authorities, and Cuba agreed to return fugitives from U.S. law, for offenses committed in Guantánamo Bay, to U.S. authorities.
U.S. troops placed 75,000
land mines across the "no man's land" between the U.S. and Cuban border, creating the second-largest minefield in the world, and the largest in the Western Hemisphere. On
May 16,
1996, U.S. president
Bill Clinton ordered their removal. They have since been replaced with motion and sound sensors to detect intruders. The Cuban government hasn't removed the corresponding minefield on its side of the border.
Detention of prisoners
In the last quarter of the 20th century, the base was used to house Cuban and
Haitian refugees intercepted on the high seas. In the early 1990s, it held refugees who fled Haiti after military forces overthrew democratically elected President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. These refugees were held in a detainment area called
Camp Bulkeley until
United States district court Judge
Sterling Johnson Jr. declared the camp unconstitutional on
June 8,
1993. This decision was later
vacated. The last Haitian migrants departed Guantánamo on
November 1,
1995.
The Migrant Operations Center on Guantánamo typically keeps fewer than 30 people interdicted at sea in the Caribbean region.
Beginning in 2002, a small portion of the base was used to imprison several hundred individuals — some of whom were captured by US forces in
Afghanistan, though the majority were 'bought' for a substantial bounty (generally in the region of $US 5,000) from various warlords and mercenaries both in Afghanistan and elsewhere — at
Camp Delta,
Camp Echo,
Camp Iguana, and the now-closed
Camp X-Ray. The US military has asserted that some, but not all, of these captives are linked to Al-Qaida or the Taliban. The military has withheld the evidence against captives asserted to be linked to terrorist organizations or enemy states. In litigation regarding the availability of fundamental rights to those imprisoned at the base, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that the captives "have been imprisoned in territory over which the United States exercises exclusive jurisdiction and control." Therefore, the captives have the fundamental right to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment. A district court has since held that the "Geneva Conventions applied to the Taliban captives, but not to members of al Qaeda terrorist organization."
On
June 10,
2006, the Department of Defense reported that three Guantánamo Bay captives committed suicide. The military reported the men hanged themselves with nooses made of sheets and clothes.
The closing-down of the Guantánamo Prison has been requested by Amnesty International (May 2005), the United Nations (February 2006) and the European Union (May 2006).
On
September 6,
2006, President Bush announced that enemy combatants held by the CIA will be transferred to the custody of Department of Defense, and held at Guantánamo Prison. Among approximately 500 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, only 10 have been
tried by the
Guantanamo military commission, but all cases have been stayed pending the adjustments being made to comply with the Hamdi decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Businesses represented at Guantánamo Bay
In
1986, Guantanamo became host to Cuba's first and only
McDonald's restaurant, as well as a
Subway. These
fast food restaurants are on base, and not accessible to Cubans. It has been reported that prisoners cooperating with interrogations have been rewarded with
Happy Meals from the McDonald's located on the mainside of the base.
In
2003, Guantanamo opened a combined
KFC taco bell &
A&W restaurants at the bowling alley and a
Pizza Hut Express at the Wind Jammer Restaurant . All the restaurants on the installation are franchises owned and operated by the Department of the Navy, and all proceeds from these restaurants are used to support morale, welfare and recreation (MWR) activities for service personnel and their families .
Fictional representations and mentions of Guantanamo
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