Cuban president rejects permanence of Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 23 (ACN) Miguel Diaz-Canel, first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the country, said today that the permanence of the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo, against the will of the people, is a theft of national sovereignty.

On Twitter, the president recalled that 120 years ago a treaty was signed that allowed the United States to establish the military site in eastern Cuba, the first naval base installed by the government of the northern nation outside its borders.

The head of state affirmed that by its use as a lawless prison, the U.S. base also hurts other nations.

The installation was the result of an Agreement for the Coal and Naval Stations, signed on February 23, 1903 between the governments of the United States and Cuba, in circumstances in which the latter had practically no independence, due to the imposition of the Platt Amendment (1901).
With a 117.6 square kilometers area of Cuba's national territory, the Guantanamo Naval Base began operations in December 1903 and was, in the first half of the 20th century, the training and preparation scenario for the U.S. fleet.

After the triumph of the Revolution (1959), the enclave became a platform for permanent aggression against the country, through the support of counterrevolutionary organizations and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) networks, which received from there all the necessary material support.
As of 2002, a detention center for prisoners accused of terrorism was established, which in 2003 already housed 700 inmates, most of them detained in Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion.

According to United Nations human rights experts, there are ongoing and relentless violations of the fundamental rights of detainees and since its opening and until 2021, nine detainees have died in custody there, two of natural causes and, according to reports, seven have committed suicide.

February 23 is the International Day of Struggle against foreign military bases of the United States and NATO, instituted five years ago in Dublin, Ireland.