Naval Station Guantanamo Bay
The United States of America is entitled, by treaty, to maintain Naval Station Guantanamo Bay on a 20 square kilometer parcel of land on the Southern coast of Cuba. The Station historically was used for coaling and other logistics, but has been used as a facility for the involuntary detention of various categories of people, from Haitian refugees to persons accused of terrorism. It has also been used as a forward base for naval patrols in the Caribbean.
History
The United Statest seized Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain, during the Spanish American War.
Treaty
When the USA allowed Cuba to become independent they signed a treaty with the new Government giving it a lease on the site.[1][2] The treaty allows the USA to use it as a Naval Base and Coaling Station, in return for rent of $4,000 per year. When Fidel Castro took power, fifty years ago, to show its opposition to the treaty, the Cuban Government stopped cashing the USA's rent checks.
Uses
Cuban Missile Crisis
Intelligence and surveillance
Prison Camp (extrajudicial)
During the later decades of the 20th Century the USA used the station to detain refugees from Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Like other bases outside the territory of the U.S.A., the camp is under military control and, being off-shore from the U.S., is outside of the U.S. civilian justice system. The practice of detaining people at military bases is a controversial legal issue. It is a more public adjunct to secret detention facilities operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. On January 11th, 2002 the USA opened the first of several camps on the base to hold prisoners that the George W. Bush Administration captured during the Afghanistan War (2001-2021). A total of 779 non-U.S. citizens were detained there without a general judicial or prisoner of war determination.[3]
This base was one of several detention facilities for persons captured in the Afghanistan War (2001-2021), along others such as the Bagram Theater Internment Facility). The George W. Bush Administration ruled that these were not entitled to prisoner of war status under the Third Geneva Convention. Subsequent concerns about their treatment led to the Detainee Treatment Act [4] and rulings, including Rasul v. Bush and Boumediene v. Bush, by the Supreme Court of the United States. On January 22, 2009, incoming President Barack Obama announced its intention to close the facility.[5]
Eventually (often after many years in detention), most were transferred to other countries (not the one in which they were captured) and released. As of April 2023, 30 remained there, and 9 had died while in custody. The vast majority were never charged with, much less convicted of, a crime.[6] |}
References
- ↑ Agreement Between the United States and Cuba for the Lease of Lands for Coaling and Naval stations. The Avalon project, Yale Law School (February 23, 1903). Retrieved on 2007-0.
- ↑ . The treaty was updated in 1934. Treaty Between the United States of America and Cuba. The Avalon project, Yale Law School (May 29, 1934). Retrieved on 2007-06-20.
- ↑ U.S. Shifts Policy on Geneva Conventions Bowing to Justices, Administration Says It Will Apply Treaties to Terror Suspects A01. Washington Post (2006-07-12).
- ↑ Detainee Treatment Act of 2005
- ↑ Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; no text was provided for refs namedObamaExec - ↑ In a rare move, U.S. release 'high-value' Guantanmo prisoner by Missy Ryan, Washington Post, Feb. 2, 2023.