Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay is located at the south-eastern end of Cuba, in the province of Guantanamo, and contains a United States naval base (116 km2). The base was established in 1898 when the US obtained control of Cuba from Spain at the end of the Spanish-American War. The US government obtained a permanent lease for the base on February 23, 1903 from the newly independent Cuban state. As of 2003, it is still occupied by the US.
The US presence at the base has never been popular with the Fidel Castro government. The base became a strategic strongpoint in the American fight against Communism during the decades following World War II. The Castro government cut off water to the base causing the United States to first import water from Jamaica and then to build desalination plants. Even though the United States pays about four thousand dollars of rent to the Cuban government each year, the Cuban government never cashes the treasury check because it views the base as illegitimate.
Beginning in 2002 the base has been used to house suspected al-Qaeda prisoners captured in Afghanistan (see Camp X-Ray), and has also been used in the past to house Cuban and Haitian refugees who have been intercepted on the high seas. The peculiar legal status of Guantanamo Bay aids in these uses. Because sovereignty of Guantanamo Bay ultimately resides with Cuba, persons detained at Guantanamo are legally outside of the United States and do not have the Constitutional rights that they would have if they were held on United States territory (see Cuban American Bar Ass'n, Inc. v. Christopher, 43 F.3d 1412 (11th Cir. 1995)). In the case of the Afghan prisoners, the U.S. did not classify them as prisoners of war, which would also have given them protection through the Geneva Conventions.
External Link
- The base's website: http://www.nsgtmo.navy.mil/