Front Door to Cuba Notes on Guantánamo Bay

The first U.S. presence on Guantánamo Bay was a Marine battalion that camped there on June 10 1898, and the first American casualties of the Spanish-Cuban-American War were two marines killed there the following day.

Five years later, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt signed an agreement with Cuba's new government, leasing the bay for 2,000 gold coins per year. The agreement was forced on the new Cuban government through the Platt Amendment, which gave the U.S. authority to interfere in Cuban affairs.

The Lease Agreement signed on February 16 1903, granted the U.S. "the right to use and occupy the waters adjacent to said areas of land and water… and generally to do any and all things necessary to fit the premises for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose."

On July 2 1906, (just before the 2nd U.S. military intervention) a new lease was signed in Havana for Guantánamo Bay and Bahía Honda, for which the U.S. would pay $2,000 per year.

The U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, the oldest existing U.S. military base outside U.S. territory, sits on a 45-square- mile area (117.6 square kilometers) about the size of Manhattan Island.

After the Platt Amendment was annulled in 1934, a new lease was negotiated between the Roosevelt administration and a Cuban government that included Fulgencio Batista as one of three signatories. Batista emerged as the strong man on the island over the next twenty-five years.

When the Revolution triumphed in 1959, the U.S. banned its soldiers stationed at the bay from entering Cuban territory. The Cuban government asserts that Guantánamo should have been returned to Cuba at this time.

"It's no secret," wrote Rafael Hernández Rodriquez in Subject to Solution: Problems in Cuban-U.S. Relations, "that the main mission of the naval bases in this area of the Gulf is to control, police and spy on Cuba."

During a speech in Chile on December 3 1971, Castro said, "that base is there just to humiliate Cuba; just like a knife stuck in the heart of Cuba's dignity and sovereignty… But from a military standpoint, the base is completely useless."

On January 11 1985, in a speech during a visit to Nicaragua, Castro addressed the potential use of military violence to recover this territory. "What interest can we have in waging a war with our neighbors?" he said. "In our country we have a military base against the will of our people. It has been there throughout the twenty-six years of the revolution, and it is being occupied by force. We have the moral and legal right to demand its return. We have made the claim in the moral and legal way. We do not intend to recover it with the use of arms. It is part of our territory being occupied by a U.S. military base. Never has anyone, a revolutionary cadre, a revolutionary leader, or a fellow citizen, had the idea of recovering the piece of our territory by the use of force. If some day it will be ours, it will not be by the use of force, but the advance of the consciousness of justice in the world."

In an interview with Soviet journalists in October 1985, U.S. President Ronald Reagan said that the purpose of the base was political: to impose the U.S. presence, even if the Cubans didn't want it.

On June 14 2002, at the United Nations General Assembly, Cuba demanded that Guantánamo territory be returned to the island.

The issue of returning Guantánamo to Cuba is complicated by the agreement signed by Batista in 1934. The agreement states: "Until the two Contracting Parties agree to the modification or abrogation of the stipulations of the agreement in regard to the lease to the United States of America of lands in Cuba for coaling and naval stations… the stipulations of that Agreement with regard to the naval station of Guantánamo shall continue in effect."

To the U.S. this means an "open-ended duration" that can only be terminated by mutual agreement. To Cuba it means that Guantánamo Bay is "occupied territory."

While this paper will not attempt to enumerate the many legal aspects of international law invoked by this "occupation," it's important to note that most other "territories held" throughout the world have been returned. The Panama Canal was returned to Panama in January 2000, Hong Kong was returned to China by the United Kingdom in 1997, and Portugal returned Macau Island to China in 1999.

Since 1959, the U.S. sends a check for the lease amount every year, but the Cuban government has never cashed them.

Related: U.S. Occupation of Cuba | The Teller Amendment | The Platt Amendment

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/funfacts/guantan.htm