Guantanamo Bay

[commiecrusader]

I have been pondering this question for a while. Why does Castro allow the U$ to have it's illegal prisons on his people's island? Is it because with age Castro is growing intimidated by America? Or for economic reasons? Or what?

[RevolucioN NoW]

The US has held guantanamo bay since 1903, after the spanish-american war, and castro has demanded its removal since 1959, however the US refuses to budge and the cuban military obviously can't just expell them. So don't think that Guantanamo or the prison enclosed in it is in any way the responsibility of cuba's revolutionary governement, they'd kick the yanks out if they could.

[LSD]

Why the U$ in Guantanamo? (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=3648)
Guantanamo Bay, Why Cuba? (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=17286)
Cuba and guantanamo bay, this has probs been asked before but... (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=19446)
Guantanamo Bay, question (http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=20213)

[commiecrusader]

Oops thanks LSD. Which of those threads is the best one to read do you think?

[Red Rebel]

Why does Castro allow the U$ to have it's illegal prisons on his people's island?

First of all it is not his island. It belongs to the Cuban people.

Guantanamo Bay will be returned to Cuba after both countries can reach an accord. Needless to say, that is not happening until one of the goverments falls.

[commiecrusader]

I did say 'his people's island'.

Aside from that, thankyou for your comment.

Why does Castro feel that the U$ deserves an accord over Guantanamo bay?

[Red October]

only one of the checks we pay them for use of guantanamo bay has ever been cashed. thats what i heard.

[Scars]

As has been said, because he has no choice. If Cuba was to attempt to retake the camp by force, which the Cuban army probably could manage, it would provide a perfectly legal pretext for an invasion of Cuba- somthing none of us want.

[Red Rebel]

Guantanamo Bay (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_bay)
U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, which covers 116 km² (approx. 45 sq miles), is sometimes abbreviated as GTMO or "Gitmo". It was established in 1898, when the United States obtained control of Cuba from Spain at the end of the Spanish-American War, following the 1898 invasion of Guantánamo Bay. The U.S. government obtained a perpetual lease that began on February 23, 1903, from Tomás Estrada Palma, an American citizen, who became the first President of Cuba. The newly formed American protectorate incorporated the Platt Amendment in the Cuban Constitution. The Cuban-American Treaty held, among other things, that the United States, for the purposes of operating coaling and naval stations, has "complete jurisdiction and control" of the Guantánamo Bay, while the Republic of Cuba is recognized to retain ultimate sovereignty.

In 1905, in part because of the Platt Amendment, there was an uprising to which the United States responded by occupying Cuba for three years. 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. Treasury Dollars, and added a requirement that termination of the lease requires the consent of both governments, or the abandonment of the base property by the United States.

With over 9,500 U.S. troops, [3] Guantánamo Bay is the only U.S. base in operation on Communist soil, as of 2005.

Since coming to power, Fidel Castro has only cashed one rent cheque, while steadfastly refusing to cash any others, because he views the lease as illegitimate. Although diplomatic relations do not exist between the two countries, the United States has 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.

The U.S. control of this Cuban territory has never been popular with the Cuban government or the Cuban people. The Cuban government strongly denounces the treaty on grounds that article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties declares a treaty void if its conclusion has been procured by the threat or use of force — in this case by the inclusion, in 1903, of the Platt Amendment in the Cuban Constitution. The United States warned the Cuban Constitutional Convention not to modify the Amendment, and was told U.S. troops would not leave Cuba until its terms had been adopted as a condition for the U.S. to grant independence, making the Geneva Conventions applicable to the 1903/1934 treaty upheld by that Amendment.

The United States holds that by cashing the first check received in accordance with said treaty, Castro's government effectively ratified the lease, and cannot unilaterally change its mind after the fact on account of political tensions or ideological differences. It further argues that all claims regarding an original violation of sovereignty under the Platt Amendment, and questions of an illegal military occupation, became moot once the new and independent revolutionary government freely reaffirmed the base's legitimacy.

The Cuban government cut off water to the base, causing the United States to first import water from Jamaica and then to build desalination plants. Today, the base is self-sufficient, producing its own water and electricity. Only two Cubans, both elderly, still cross the base's North East Gate daily to work on the base; the Cuban government prohibits new recruitment. Now only rarely do Cubans escape here, going by water around the mine fields, to reach the base. US Troops scattered 75.000 land mines accross the so-called "No man's land", i.e. the land strip between the US and Cuban border. It is the largest mine field in the western hemisphere and 2nd largest in the world.

In 1986, Guantánamo became host to Cuba's first and only McDonald's restaurant. It is not accessible to Cubans.

[Fight Them With Your Lives]

One other reason that Guantanamo Bay is allowed to operate bare the reasons said about money been given to the cuban powers that be etc....is the PLATT AMENDMENT which allows the U.S navy to operate a base in Cuba FOREVER and that also means that U.S marines would intervene at will, and that Washington would determinate Cuba's foreign and financial policies.