London protest tells Obama "Close it now', 2015.Demotix/ Peter Marshall. All rights reserved.This month marks the 112th anniversary of the signing of the lease for the Guantánamo base between the Cuban and US governments. For at least half this period the base hasn’t been welcome in Cuba, and it’s high time the US worked out a timetable to hand the land back to the Cubans. The current negotiations between the two governments provide an excellent chance not only to recognise the injustice of the lease but also for the US to pursue two of its own objectives about the base and about Cuba. So far, the issue isn’t even on the table, but it should be.
The legality of the base and especially of the GITMO prison has long been in doubt. For a start, the original lease is for a naval base and coaling station, not a prison, and expressly excludes use of the land for any other purpose. On the face of it, as soon as the prison was established there, the lease was violated. But the questionable legality of the lease goes right back to before it was even signed.
At the very end of the nineteenth century, Cuba became a virtual colony of the United States as a result of the latter winning the so-called Spanish-American war. Initially the US gained Cuban support by promising (through the ‘Teller Amendment’) that its role was temporary and it would then ‘leave the government and control of the island to its people’.
