Naval Station Guantanamo Bay: Difference between revisions
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[[Image:Guantanamo Bay Navy Exchange and BEQ.jpg|right|thumb|350px|{{#ifexist:Template:Guantanamo Bay Navy Exchange and BEQ.jpg/credit|{{Guantanamo Bay Navy Exchange and BEQ.jpg/credit}}<br/>|}}Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, circa 1995.]] | [[Image:Guantanamo Bay Navy Exchange and BEQ.jpg|right|thumb|350px|{{#ifexist:Template:Guantanamo Bay Navy Exchange and BEQ.jpg/credit|{{Guantanamo Bay Navy Exchange and BEQ.jpg/credit}}<br/>|}}Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, circa 1995.]] | ||
[[Image:Guantanamo Naval Base with the Bay in the background.jpg|right|thumb|350px|{{#ifexist:Template:Guantanamo Naval Base with the Bay in the background.jpg/credit|{{Guantanamo Naval Base with the Bay in the background.jpg/credit}}<br/>|}}Naval Base Guantanamo Bay with the Bay in the background, circa 2007.]] | |||
The [[United States]] is entitled, by treaty, to maintain '''Naval Base Guantanamo Bay''' on a 20 square kilometer parcel of land on the Southern coast of [[Cuba]]. | The [[United States]] is entitled, by treaty, to maintain '''Naval Base Guantanamo Bay''' on a 20 square kilometer parcel of land on the Southern coast of [[Cuba]]. | ||
Revision as of 12:41, 30 April 2008
The United States is entitled, by treaty, to maintain Naval Base Guantanamo Bay on a 20 square kilometer parcel of land on the Southern coast of Cuba.
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. 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.
The internment of refugees
During the later decades of the 20th Century the USA used the base to intern human rights and economic refugees from Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Tens of thousands of migrants spent years interned at the base. The base is still, occasionally, used to intern refugees.
The internment of "enemy combatants"
On January 11th, 2002 the USA opened the Camp X-Ray, the first of several camps in the complex of Guantanamo Bay detention camps that hold captives the USA considers "enemy combatants" in the "war on terror".