Is clock ticking on US base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay?

Is clock ticking on US base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay?
NICK MIROFF | THE WASHINGTON POST

HAVANA, Cuba — If the United States and Cuba restore diplomatic ties in
the coming weeks, as anticipated, the two countries will still be a long
way from anything resembling a "normal" relationship, Cuban President
Raúl Castro has said repeatedly. His list of grievances is lengthy. But
this week Castro said it boils down to two big issues.

The first, of course, is the U.S. trade embargo. The other is the
Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, the oldest overseas U.S. Navy base in the
world, which the United States has occupied for 116 years.

That one isn't up for debate, the Obama administration says.

But, one can only wonder, for how long?

Scholars and military experts say it's difficult to see how United
States can overhaul its relationship with Havana while hanging on to a
big chunk of Cuban territory indefinitely, especially if relations warm
significantly in a post-Castro era.

While there are plenty of examples in the world of disputed borders or
contested islands, the 45-square-mile U.S. enclave at Guantanamo is
something of a global geopolitical anomaly. There is no other place in
the world where the U.S. military forcefully occupies foreign land on an
open-ended basis, against the wishes of its host nation.

"It's probably inevitable that we'll have to give it back to Cuba, but
it would take a lot of diplomatic heavy-lifting," said retired Adm.
James Stavridis, a former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO and now dean
of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Stavridis was head of the U.S. military's Southern Command between 2006
and 2009, putting him in charge of the Guantanamo base, which he said
remains a "strategic, and highly useful" U.S asset.

"It's hard to think of another place with the combination of a deep
water port, decent airstrip and a lot of land," Stavridis said.

The controversial U.S. detention camp for global terrorism suspects is
just one of the base's conveniences. It is a logistical hub for the
Navy's Fourth Fleet, as well as counter-narcotics operations and
disaster-relief efforts. It also functions as a detention center for
north-bound migrants intercepted at sea. The base's location on Cuba's
south coast allows the U.S. military to project power across the entire
Caribbean basin. And it's strategically located next to Haiti, a place
that often needs U.S. help.

As a military installation, though, Guantanamo — Gitmo is its nickname —
is no longer essential in a modern era of aircraft carriers, nuclear
submarines and drones, Stavridis said. "You wouldn't launch a
large-scale military operation from there," he explained, adding that
many of the other uses Guantanamo provides could be fulfilled by
existing U.S. military facilities in Puerto Rico or south Florida.

"I don't think it's irreplaceable," Stavridis said.

U.S. warships sailed into Guantanamo Bay in 1898, and together with
Cuban rebels, defeated the Spanish fleet. The U.S. essentially never
left, conditioning Cuban independence on constitutional provisions
allowing the U.S. Navy to occupy the area "for the time required." Rent
was set at $2,000 a year, paid in gold.

A new lease increased the amount to $4,000 in 1934, according to this
history of the base by scholar Paul Kramer. But there was no cut-off
date for the U.S. to leave.

The U.S. government still dutifully sends rent checks to the Cuban
government, but the Castros don't cash them. They don't recognize the
lease, and — like landlords in a rent-controlled Brooklyn apartment —
want their tenants to leave. Fidel Castro is said to keep the checks
piled up in his desk drawer, using them as a kind of political prop.
It's hard to imagine a more ready-made symbol of U.S. imperialism than a
military base whose history is so wrapped up in late 19th-century
attempts at American empire.

After Castro's revolution, the United States had no intention of letting
the base fall under communist control. At times of peak tensions during
the Cold War, such as the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the base's fences
became a front line for the Soviet-U.S. standoff. Volleys of gunfire
were occasionally exchanged between U.S. and Cuban troops. One such
event was dramatized in the 1992 film "A Few Good Men," in which an
agitated Jack Nicholson memorably told Tom Cruise he wouldn't be able to
handle the pressures of living under constant threat at Guantanamo.

Castro shut off the water and electricity in 1964, and today the base is
completely isolated from the rest of Cuba. Visitors say it resembles a
small U.S. city, with the island's only McDonald's franchise, as well as
a Taco Bell, a Subway and other chains. The divide from the rest of the
island is lethally enforced by land mines, concertina wire and thickets
of thorny cactus.

In recent years, President Barack Obama's unsuccessful attempts to close
the base's prison camp have inspired several dream scenarios of a
post-military future for the base. One would converted it to a research
center and treatment facility for tropical diseases and epidemics. If
returned to Cuban control, it could become a second campus of Cuba's
Latin American School of Medicine, where students from around the world
get free medical training from the Cuban government.

Stavridis said a proposal along these lines to "internationalize" the
base that retains its value as a logistical center for humanitarian
relief would probably be an acceptable future within the Pentagon — at
least in the long run. Other optimists say the base's transformation
could serve as an exercise in trust-building between Cuba and the United
States as hostilities ease.

Such a move wouldn't be without precedent. The U.S. reluctantly gave up
the Panama Canal Zone, a place far more strategic to military operations
and U.S. commercial interests than Guantanamo Bay.

Panama converted the military installations into a "City of Knowledge,"
a cluster of research labs and campus facilities in partnership with
several U.S. universities.

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Here's the timeline on how the United States came to occupy Guantanamo bay:

1898: U.S. warships sail to Guantanamo Bay, helping Cuban rebels defeat
Spanish forces.

1903: U.S. granted territorial rights to Guantanamo Bay. Lease is
extended in 1934; rent doubles to $4,000 a year.

1959: Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba, toppling U.S.-backed strongman
Fulgencio Batista. He cuts off water and electricity to base in 1964.

1990s: Base serves as detention camp and processing center for tens of
thousands of refugees from Haiti and Cuba.

2002: Prison camp opens for global terrorism suspects. Nearly 800
detainees have been held at the facility, and roughly 100 remain today.

Source: Is clock ticking on US base at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay? - The Tico
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