Athenæum

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02/23/2004: Arcanum Arcanum

What IS Guantanamo Bay?

Recently, I have heard that the US is preparing Guantanamo Bay to house up to 50,000 Haitian refugees that they expect in the aftermath of the ongoing coup attempt there. We have all heard of Guantanamo Bay, but does anyone know anything about it? Here are some facts that I picked up:

Guantanamo Bay, which is on the southern side of the island and faces Haiti and the Caribbean Sea, was first occupied by the US in 1898 during the Spanish- American War, and they ultimately gained control of Cuba from Spain. In 1903, the US forced the Platt Amendment into the new Cuban constitution, which allowed the US to interfere in Cuba's affairs and to establish a base there "to maintain the independence of Cuba" for $2,000 gold coins per year. A new lease for "Gitmo" (as the people stationed there call it) was signed in 1906. In 1934, the Cubans annulled the Platt Amendment, but the Roosevelt Administration signed a new deal with Fulgencio Batista. In 1959, Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro, but the US did not return Guantanamo Bay. In an interesting note, the US still sends Cuba a check every year for the lease but the Cuabns do not cash it, as they think the occupation is illegal. Since Guantanamo Bay is not part of the US, it creates the loophole which allows the Bush, Jr. administration to keep "illegal combatants" there rather than having to call them "prisoners of war" and give them rights they would enjoy under the Geneva Convention.

See what Global Security has to say about Gitmo.