Despite Better U.S.-Cuba Relations, Guantanamo Set To Stay In U.S. Hands

Despite Better U.S.-Cuba Relations, Guantanamo Set To Stay In U.S. Hands
SEPTEMBER 07, 2015 4:38 AM ET
DAVID WELNA

The only American military installation abroad that's unwelcome to its
host government is the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A treaty
signed in 1934 leases Guantanamo to the United States in perpetuity, for
about four thousand dollars a year. And the U.S. has no plans to leave,
despite the two countries having just restored diplomatic ties.

Guantanamo Bay — at least officially — is still part of the "Pearl of
the Antilles," as the Caribbean's largest island is known. But Cuban
officials are nowhere to be seen when flights from the U.S. land at the
naval base.

Americans who arrive at the airstrip alongside the bay have to show
their passports, just as they would entering any country other than
Canada and Mexico. The officials checking those passports are with the
U.S. Navy.

The United States has controlled Guantanamo Bay since the end of the
Spanish-American war in 1898. The American forces that joined Cubans
during the final months of the struggle for independence from Spain
installed a U.S. military governor after the defeat of the Spanish.

Under the terms of the so-called 1901 Platt Amendment the U.S. obtained
the right to lease Guantanamo Bay for a coaling and naval station, with
an annual payment at the time set at $2,000 worth of gold coins.

That payment was doubled in the 1934 treaty, and to this day remains at
$4,087 a year - although Cuba has refused to cash the American rent
check since shortly after Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.

The naval station's original rationale, as a strategic port for U.S.
warships to refuel and resupply, has waned. When the Navy destroyer
U.S.S. Jason Dunham docked there on its way to the Baltic Sea earlier
this year, it was only the third ship to do so in six months.

"She's an amazing warship," says Cmdr. Jason Dugan, commanding officer
of this guided-missile destroyer equipped with an advanced Aegis radar
system and Tomahawk missiles.

Dugan says he's happy to be making the port call, even though he finds
it easier to refuel at sea.

"Guantanamo Bay is great," he says. "It gives us the ability to refuel,
get maintenance done, (and) the crew enjoys some time ashore."

Among the base's attractions: an outdoor movie theater with free admission.

As he settles in for a screening there of "American Sniper," Carl Davis
says the base is a great place for civilians as well. For him, it's a
hometown.

"My father was in the Navy here, and me and my twin brother were born
here," says Davis. The 50-year-old assistant fire chief considers the
base a kind of Mayberry, USA — with iguanas. And he does not think the
U.S. should or will relinquish the installation.

"I think it would be a good loss for a lot of the military folks," says
Davis, "because getting stationed in Guantanamo is really a hidden gem
of a duty assignment for the active duty folks."

Indeed, many in the military are determined to keep it open indefinitely.

"Guantanamo Naval Base is a hugely useful factility to the United
States," Marine Corps Gen. John Kelly told reporters at the Pentagon
earlier this year.

Kelly, who heads the U.S. Southern Command in Florida and oversees
Guantanamo, acknowledged that President Obama wants to close
Guantanamo's prison camp, which currently holds 116 war captives.

But Kelly said the base would still be needed for dealing with refugees
from nearby Haiti and elsewhere who are picked up at sea.

"We construct camps, temporary camps, treat them right, feed them, you
know, take care of them, in the way that, you know, the U.N.
particularly has got guidelines for refugees," said Kelly. "And then we
assist the (Department of Homeland Services) in repatriating them. So
it's a very useful base."

Some say it's too useful, and not always in a good way.

Miami-based immigration lawyer Ira Kurzban accuses U.S. officials of
using Guantanamo to skirt the law.

"What is the purpose of taking people to Guantanamo?" Kurzban asks.
"It's to keep people who are seeking asylum and who may have genuine
claims for asylum out of the United States, so they can't assert those
claims."

Others who know Guantanamo well question whether the benefits for the
U.S. of remaining at the outpost outweigh the costs.

"It has significant strategic value," says retired Navy Adm. James
Stavridis, who was in charge of the U.S. Southern Command from 2006 to
2009 and is now Dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University. "But I
wouldn't describe it as vital to the national security needs of the
United States."

The U.S. occupation of Guantanamo is still a sore subject for Cuba,
despite the recent restoration of diplomatic ties between the two countries.

Last month, on the day the American Embassy in Havana re-opened, Cuba's
foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, demanded "the return of the territory
occupied illegally by the Guantanamo Naval Base."

Standing alongside Rodriguez, Secretary of State John Kerry was not
making any promises.

"At the moment," Kerry told reporters in Havana, "there is no current
discussion or plan to change the arrangement with respect to Guantanamo."

For the time being, the only sign of Cuba at the naval base is radio
broadcasts from Havana boasting of the Cuban revolution enduring into
its 57th year. Cubans no longer work at Guantanamo — they've been
replaced by Jamaicans and Filipinos who are paid half the wages
Americans are offered for the same jobs.

At The Jerk House, a Jamaican-style base restaurant, an American
civilian named Bill Condon says he moved to Guantanamo two years ago
with his wife, a Navy official who works at the base hospital.

Condon senses that Cubans resent the U.S. presence on their island, and
he says they may have a point.

"I don't think they're going to let us forget about the fact that they
want this base back," Condon says. "I don't think this is going to
continue on forever."

If the 1934 perpetual lease treaty were to be terminated, one of two
things would have to happen. Either the U.S. would have to abandon the
base, or both countries would have to mutually agree to a pullout —
similar to what happened in the 1977 Panama Canal Treaty under which the
U.S. relinquished control of the Canal Zone in 2000 to Panama.

Former Southcom commander Stavridis sees a similar future for
Guantanamo, but not until relations with Cuba get warmer and the war
captives prison is shut down.

"To have the negotiation before we have a clear path to closing the
detention facility," says Stavridis, "will be an exercise in futility
for both sides."

In the meantime, with a GOP-led Congress resisting efforts to close that
facility, the U.S. will likely keep sending Havana its annual Guantanamo
$4,087 rent check.

And Cuba, no doubt, will keep refusing to cash it.

Source: Despite Better U.S.-Cuba Relations, Guantanamo Set To Stay In
U.S. Hands : Parallels : NPR -
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/09/07/437306897/despite-better-u-s-cuba-relations-guantanamo-set-to-stay-in-u-s-hands