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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2023/02/28/guantanamo-the-meaning-of-120-years-of-illegal-occupation/">struggle-la-lucha.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Guantanamo: The meaning of 120 years of illegal occupation</h1>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr">February 28, 2023<br></div>
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<font size="1">The view of the people of Guantanamo. Photo: Bill Hackwell</font>
<p>To a great many people of the world, the word Guantanamo has become
synonymous with torture since the U.S. opened up its military prison
center there in 2002. Over 780 people captured by U.S. forces have
suffered from massive human rights violations there carried out by the
CIA since that time.<span id="gmail-more-22788"></span> For the people of
Cuba, a society that places human rights and well-being above all else,
this is a collective horror carried out on their sovereign soil by a
foreign military.</p>
<p>This article hopes to go beyond that because today marks the 120<sup>th</sup> year
of continuous U.S. Naval occupation of Guantanamo. Our president Miguel
Diaz Canal made the collective sentiment of the Cuban people clear this
morning, “Our sovereignty was severed, this day in 1903, when Tomás
Estrada Palma signed the cession of the territory that remains illegally
occupied by the United States against the will of the Cuban people”.</p>
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<p>The 1903 signing was a “Treaty for the leasing of naval and coal
bases,” which gave the United States the right to use four of the
island’s best bays to build military facilities. The treaty was signed
under Article VII of the Platt Amendment, a document drafted by the U.S.
Congress and annexed to the recently passed Cuban Constitution (1901).
It was a mandatory action to end the U.S. occupation that had already
lasted four years. The amendment was nothing but the lid of the grave on
the recently born Cuban “independence.” It drew out clearly that for
U.S. troops to leave, Cuba will have to get U.S. approval for any and
all significant decisions of the country.</p>
<p>The framework of international law does not adequately represent the
sentiment of the Cuban people; to them, the signing of that treaty was
nothing but an act of coercion by the hemispheric power over a small
country that bore the heavy cross of a constant threat of military
intervention, a threat that is ever-present today.</p>
<p>The naval station base’s history, its details, and the U.S. military
forces’ usual overseas excesses have been addressed in a number of
articles and books during these 120 years. However, the Cuban people’s
feelings, especially those who have lived near the military base, are
the best legal and moral argument to understand why it is a territory
seized by force and illegally occupied.</p>
<p>For them, those almost 118 square kilometers represent more than
their proven geographic or economic importance. It is something that
goes deep into the nation’s soul. There are still some witnesses among
local people who remember how the facility shaped their lives for over
five decades.</p>
<p>Before our revolution in 1959 Guantanamo was a place where education
and health services barely existed, but there were plenty of bars and
brothels. Even the scarce water sources were dedicated exclusively to
satisfying U.S. Marines’ needs. For local people, it was like being
foreigners in their own country. Today, this reality is only a bitter
memory, but the base remains an anachronistic symbol that prevents us
from obtaining our complete sovereignty. Of the more than 750 U.S.
military bases that dot the world, Guantanamo is the oldest.</p>
<p>During the armed struggle led by Fidel Castro in the Sierra Maestra,
the U.S. military devised several plans to fabricate a pretext to invade
the island or provide more aid to Batista’s dictatorship to defeat the
rebels. After the Triumph of the Revolution the U.S. military moved
towards real actions. From the base, they supported counterrevolutionary
groups, planned attacks against the Revolution’s leaders, and even
launched mortar attacks against local populations.</p>
<p>It was during the early years of the revolution when the Border
Brigade was created to protect the area, perhaps not from a possible
attack, which was always a possibility, but more from provocative acts
along the border of the base that went as far as the assassination of
two Cuban soldiers. Thousands of young Cubans have passed through this
military corp there in six decades, ensuring that this enduring blight
on our country is understood by each generation.</p>
<p>Although tensions along the border have decreased to the point of
cautious co-existence, disrespectful behavior towards Cuban soldiers
seems to be an inheritance. Pointing rifles at Cuban posts, especially
those guarded by women, or violating Cuban territorial waters, are
persisting practices.</p>
<p>From the perspective of a young Cuban soldier from the Border
Brigade, the Cuban military uniform has an additional value in that
place. People understand much better how much honor it carries and how
much responsibility it implies. He also explained about the affront that
takes place at 8 a.m. every morning, when the U.S. anthem resounds
thanks to dozens of loudspeakers installed on the base’s perimeter. The
sound floods the silent characteristic of the desert areas and extends
to the nearest towns and surrounding Cuban military camps.</p>
<p>Despite the passage of time, no one has gotten used to it, and every
morning they share the same feeling that the Cuban poet Bonifacio Byrne
expressed in his poem “My Flag” when he returned to Havana at the
beginning of the U.S. military occupation:</p>
<p><em>“Eagerly I looked for my flag</em></p>
<p><em> and I saw another next to my own!</em></p>
<p><em>today I loudly say</em></p>
<p><em>that two flags should not float</em></p>
<p><em>one is enough: mine!”</em></p>
<p>This feeling explains why this is the region where the Cuban flag
flies with incomparable beauty, even though the landscape seems desolate
and is not impregnated with the typical greenery of the Cuban
countryside.</p>
<p>That feeling cannot be wielded in an international court by any of
the best International lawyers. However, every Cuban who has had a foot
in this zone would be able to convince the toughest of juries that
Guantanamo Bay is illegally occupied, a usurpation of the land that
belongs to all Cubans that can only continue with the vilest blackmail
lingering from 120 years ago. It is the only possible explanation since
no Cuban has ever accepted the vile nature of the<em> yanqui</em> naval base in our Guantanamo.</p>
<p>Source: <a href="https://resumen-english.org/2023/02/guantanamo-the-meaning-of-120-years-of-illegal-occupation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Resumen Latinoamericano – U.S.</a></p>
<p><em>See Resumen Latinoamericano’s 2016 film</em> <a href="https://youtu.be/XKEs4mE7INs">All Guantanamo is Ours</a></p>
<hr><p><strong>Join the Struggle-La Lucha <a href="https://t.me/StruggleLaLucha" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">Telegram channel</a></strong></p>
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