Cuba USA

The history of the Guantanamo base written by… its occupants

by Jose Manzaneda

source La Pupila Insomne

translation Cuba - Network in Defense of Humanity

The television section of the Spanish daily, El Pais, visited the Naval Base of Guantanamo. But not to view the horrors of the high security prison but to interview the Cubans who for decades have

decided to live in the Base and break from their country.

But what is more amazing is how a journalist like Carlos de Vega – who was, not be chance, seven years correspondent for CNN Plus in Washington transmitted without blinking the official story of the Guantanamo Base written … by its occupants.

“Technically we hired this land from Castro in exchange for a monthly sum”, a US military official said. What the journalist explained: “a rental of 4 000 dollars a year that Castro always rejects but the contract still stays”.

But what contract? Is there a rental contract for this Cuban land with the US? And if there is a contract why would Havana refuse to collect rent?

El Pais far from giving an informative answer to these questions limits itself to recite the official propaganda of the White House: “The Americans used the Base during the War with Spain and at the

conclusion the Cuban government granted them 120 Km2 permanently”.

Incredible: First he is wrong in saying that the Americans used the Base during the War with Spain” because the base was set up after the war.

Secondly the alleged “rental contract” which – it assures – the Cuban government accepted to “cede” the territories “permanently” was – in fact – an imposition by the US government to the first Cuban

government.

We should remember:that in1899 the US intervenes in a war waged by the Cuban independence fighters against Spain that was defeated a few months later. The Paris Treaty is signed and the Island is militarily occupied by the United States until May 20 of 1902 when formal independence of the Island was declared .

Cuba then passes from being a Spanish colony to be a US neo colony. Because in its first Constitution the Washington government demands as a condition to withdrawal of its troops to include 8 articles called the Platt Ammendment that granted the US the right to militarily intervene in the Island and occupy lands “for coal barges or naval stations” in the territory of Guantanamo and Bahía Honda.

That is why there is a Naval Base in Guantanamo. Not because the first Cuban government agreed to “cede” its territories “permanently” but because it was forced to do so by the occupying army.

The intentions of dominating the Island were clear in a confidential letter written then by the US military governor in Cuba, Leonard Wood, sent to President Theodore Roosevelt. Cuba has been granted a little independence with the Platt Ammendment and the only thing left to do is annexation (…) with control that will undoubtedly make it a possession to control commerce of sugar in the world. The Island will become Americanized gradually”, he writes.

Today’s Cuban Government demands the return of the Guantanamo base supported by article 52 of the Vienna Convention of 1969 that declares terminated a treaty that has been used by force or military intervention.

But an entire history of imposition, theft of territories or intervention of the sovereignty of a country is hidden from public opinion through media such as El Pais.

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