After the defeat of Spain in the American-Spanish War of 1898, Cuba came under US influence. In fact, the Spanish colonialists were replaced by the Americans.
American soldiers after the Spanish surrender of Santiago de Cuba, 1898
In 1903, an agreement was concluded between the United States and the then Cuban authorities on the lease of the territory adjacent to Guantanamo Bay with an area of 118 square kilometers, which corresponds to a rectangle measuring 9 × 13 km.
The United States has the right to use 37 square kilometers of the water surface of Guantanamo Bay. Previously, a Spanish naval base was located on this territory.
Guantanamo Bay is the largest bay at the southeastern tip of Cuba. The bay is surrounded by steep mountains.
US Navy ships docked in Guantanamo Bay
In the contract, the lease term was stipulated by the wording "for the period of time that will be required." To implement this, a special amendment was included in the Cuban Constitution as an annex. In this agreement, in particular, a fixed rental price was established - "2000 pesos in the gold currency of the United States" per year. The contract itself is "indefinite" and may be terminated "only by mutual agreement of the parties, or if the terms of the lease are violated."
Construction of an American naval base soon began on this rented Cuban territory.
The current status of the base is governed by the 1934 treaty concluded after a series of coups d'état in Cuba in the early 1930s. As a result, the fee for using the base was raised to $ 3400. These funds were paid to Cuba until the pro-American regime of the dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown as a result of a popular uprising. It is worth noting that for similar bases in Taiwan and the Philippines in the 1950-1970s, the United States paid 120 and 140 million dollars per year, respectively.
After the victory of the 1959 revolution, the Cuban state refused from 1961 to accept a ridiculous rent from the United States for renting this base, demanding its liquidation or, otherwise, an increase in rent 50 times. In the same year, Havana unilaterally withdrew from the 1934 US-Cuban agreement confirming the terms of the lease. But the United States generally refused to negotiate with Havana on these issues, increasing its military presence in Guantanamo.
Aggravated US-Cuban relations almost led the world to a nuclear war. After the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), the United States promised Moscow that no sorties of the Cuban emigrants, Castro's opponents, would be carried out from the territory of the Guantanamo naval base. This promise is still being fulfilled by Washington.
And in response, Moscow promised to keep Havana from action against Guantanamo, which also succeeded. Therefore, even during the Soviet period, the base and the area occupied by it were not included by the Soviet delegations to the UN, unlike the Chinese, in the list of colonial and dependent territories.
Not a single Soviet statesman in his speeches either in Cuba or in the USSR, not a single word ever mentioned this base and the illegality of its existence. And the representatives of the Kremlin "advised" Cuban leaders who visited the USSR as little as possible, and it is better not to mention her at all in public speeches.
In the 1970s, Albanian, North Korean and Chinese representatives to the UN sharply criticized Moscow for keeping silent about the illegal American base at Guantanamo. This criticism was sometimes so harsh that the representatives of the USSR in the UN often had to leave the meeting hall in protest.
Last but not least, the position of the USSR on this issue influenced the fact that the American base is still illegally staying in Cuba. For very many interrelated reasons, the United States not only continues to occupy part of the Cuban sovereign territory, but also to use it to control a very large region.
However, in the past, the US military has regularly conducted emergency evacuation exercises from Guantanamo Bay. At the same time, Cuban units during the Cold War conducted regular military maneuvers in areas adjacent to the base.
There is no doubt that, if necessary, the Cubans would quickly liquidate the American base; it is another matter that this would inevitably lead to unpredictable consequences. Realizing this, both sides, despite mutual hostility, refrained from rash actions. In many ways, the factor holding the Americans back was the presence of a Soviet military contingent on the "Island of Freedom". Aggression against Cuba would automatically mean an armed escalation with the USSR.
The Cuban government declares the deployment of the American base illegal, citing article 52 of the 1969 Vienna Convention, which invalidates unequal international treaties (concluded under the threat of the use of military force). However, the US authorities refer to article 4 of the same convention, according to which the convention does not apply to previously concluded agreements.
During the Soviet-American confrontation, the naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba played a key role in the US naval strategy in the region and served as the cornerstone of the American military operation in the 4th Fleet's area of responsibility. The Guantanamo naval base has played a significant role in the US Navy's operations in Grenada, Panama and Haiti.
In fact, the United States exercises its state sovereignty in this territory unconditionally and in full, and Cuba's jurisdiction is purely formal, which is recognized by the US Supreme Court. “From a practical point of view, Guantanamo is not overseas,” the judges said.
In terms of area, the Guantanamo Naval Base is the largest US military base on foreign soil. It has two runways that can accommodate all types of aircraft.
Google Earth snapshot: American aircraft at Guantanamo airfield
On land there are over 1,500 service and residential facilities, a mechanized port, ship repair shops, a floating dock, warehouses for food, ammunition, fuel and lubricants.
Google Earth Snapshot: Guantanamo Naval Base Port Facilities
It can accommodate up to 10 thousand military personnel in comfortable conditions. The base is regularly visited by large warships of the US Navy.
Landing ship dock US Navy class "San Antonio" in the naval base Guantanamo
To ensure normal living conditions for the permanent contingent, the base has a developed civil infrastructure, including entertainment clubs, tennis courts, baseball courts, swimming pools, beaches, a racetrack, fishing boats and yachts.
McDonald's at the Guantanamo Base
Guantanamo became notorious in 2002, when a prison was created on its territory for "suspects of terrorist activities against the United States and its allies." Before that, this section of the base was a filtration camp for refugees from Cuba and Haiti.
In January 2002, the first 20 people were brought there from Afghanistan, accused of "participating in hostilities on the side of Islamic extremists" - the Taliban.
In the four years since the arrival of the first prisoners, more than 750 "suspects" captured by American troops during operations in Afghanistan and Iraq have passed through the prison in Guantanamo. All of them, according to the US military, participated in operations on the side of al-Qaeda or the Taliban. Subsequently, about a third of them were released, transferred to other prisons or extradited to the countries of which they are citizens (among them there were seven citizens of Russia). All Russians were detained in the fall of 2001 during a military operation against the Taliban. In February 2004, seven prisoners were extradited to Russia. Six of them were subsequently sentenced to imprisonment on charges of various crimes. Another one - Ruslan Odizhev - was killed in Nalchik in 2007.
Since 2002, the prison has turned from an open-air temporary detention facility into a full-fledged penitentiary institution, through which 779 people from 42 countries, aged 15 to 62, have passed. There are currently about 160 people in detention at Guantanamo.
In June 2013, the US administration sent a list of the most dangerous prisoners in the prison to Congress. According to the Miami Herald newspaper, the number of "indefinite prisoners who are too dangerous to be transferred to other prisons or countries, but cannot be tried for lack of evidence," originally included 48 people. Two of them have already died: one committed suicide, the other died of a heart attack. Of the remaining 26, they are citizens of Yemen, 10 from Afghanistan, 3 from Saudi Arabia, 2 each from Kuwait and Libya, and one more from Kenya, Morocco and Somalia.
Since the territory of the base is not included in any of the American judicial districts, the persons held there are outside the zone of American jurisdiction. In accordance with the decree of US President George W. Bush of November 2001 "On the legal status of prisoners captured in Afghanistan," they are considered not "arrested" or "prisoners of war" subject to certain norms of international law, but "detainees" who are not officially charges were brought.
In practice, this means that they can be held in prison indefinitely. Many inmates claimed that they had been subjected to prohibited methods of inquiry such as sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures, loud music, and imitation of drowning. According to human rights activists, the detention of prisoners in such conditions is a violation of the 1984 UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
On the second day after taking office on January 21, 2009, fulfilling his election promises, US President Barack Obama signed an order to dissolve the prison. However, the prison is still not closed. This approach of the American authorities to international norms and so beloved by them "human rights" once again demonstrates the commitment of the United States to "double standards."
