Team Infidel
Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
August 12, 2008
Pg. 6
By Marc Lacey
GUANTANAMO, Cuba — As a major terrorism trial was getting under way at the American naval base not far from here last month, Guantánamo’s municipal court, located in Cuban-controlled territory, had a contested divorce on its docket. It was the only case that afternoon.
The aging Guantánamo courtroom, with its leaky roof and well-worn wooden benches, is a far cry from the fancy new judicial center that the Defense Department installed at its base across the fence. There are typewriters on the desks at Cuba’s court, faded portraits of Che Guevara on the walls and a classic motorcycle, complete with a sidecar bearing the court logo, parked in the courtyard.
Both courts, it turns out, earn international scorn. The United States and other critics of Cuba consider the island’s judiciary an appendage of the Socialist government, a tool of the Castro brothers’ repressive ways. Cuba, in turn, is among the loudest critics of the American policy of holding enemy combatants from the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq at Guantánamo Bay and denying them the legal protections they would be entitled to on American soil.
“The base is needed to humiliate and to do the dirty work that occurs there,” Fidel Castro wrote in a newspaper commentary last year.
Despite the sniping, however, the base has been around so long, 105 years to be exact, that Cubans have grown used to its presence — and its propaganda value — and seem to hold out little hope that the 45 square miles will be returned anytime soon.
“They will leave on their own,” predicted Carlos González, 80, who fought alongside the Castro brothers, Che Guevara and other notable figures during the 1959 revolution, which began in eastern Cuba not far from the base. “We’ll just wait.”
That is an oft-heard sentiment in and around Guantánamo, which relied heavily on the base in the years before relations between Washington and Havana grew frosty once Fidel Castro came to power. There was a time when the base was a major source of employment for local residents. But there were plenty of downsides when the base’s fencing was more porous, local people say, like the many brothels that operated in town.
Around the corner of the Guantánamo courthouse is a park devoted to the popular Cuban song “Guantanamera,” which commemorates a local farm girl. The relatively few tourists who pass through take pictures of themselves in front of the oversize lyrics. Getting a glimpse of the base is trickier, requiring Cuban government permission, which is only sometimes granted.
“It’s right over there,” said Guillermo Elizalde, 78, who is considered one of the heroes of the revolution. He pointed off into the distance toward the site of the American military presence, which was first established in 1898 when the United States landed in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. “It’s our territory,” he said. “They took it.”
Technically, Guantánamo Bay still remains Cuba, though it is the only patch of the Socialist island with a McDonald’s and a Starbucks in operation. That commercial presence would seem to violate the 1903 treaty that set up the base, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt and his Cuban counterpart. The treaty says that it can be used only as a naval base and that commercial activity is banned.
The American presence has long been used as a rallying cry by the Cubans, a sign of old-time imperialism continuing into the present day. The last time it came up was July 11, when Raúl Castro, who took over the presidency from his brother in February, mentioned the base in a speech to challenge criticism of Cuba’s human rights record. He said Washington had lost any moral authority because of the prisoners it held “in the territory usurped from our country.”
But the base, having been in American hands for so many generations, is not one of the issues raised most frequently by the Cubans. Instead, it is the case of five Cuban men who were convicted in the United States seven years ago for infiltrating anti-Cuban organizations in Miami and sending information on them back to Havana. Cuba sees them as heroes, not spies, since they aimed to stop what Cuba says were terrorist plots aimed at Cuban soil.
In its latest public relations push, the government is decrying that two of the five men’s wives have not been allowed to visit their husbands in the decade they have been behind bars, despite applying for visas nine times. The United States counters that the two women who have not been allowed to visit were involved in the Cuban surveillance effort.
Roberto González, the brother of one of the incarcerated men and a member of their legal team, said that when he saw his brother in an American prison dressed in a jumpsuit he could not help but think of the similar outfits that the terrorism suspects don at Guantánamo Bay.
There is a legal underpinning to the American presence in Cuba, albeit one that Havana disputes. Following the 1903 treaty giving the United States rights to the land, the Americans reaffirmed the arrangement with another accord in 1934. Havana says both agreements were imposed upon Cuba and are thus void.
To make its point, Cuba refuses to cash the monthly rent checks that the United States sends to Cuba for the base — a bargain at $4,085 a month. The very first check sent to Fidel Castro’s government, in 1959, was cashed because of what the former president later called confusion in the heady early days of post-revolution Cuba.
“If we have to wait for the collapse of the system, we will wait,” Fidel Castro wrote last year.
Raúl Castro has continued his brother’s policy of not cashing the checks. The last one, dated March 14, 2008, went from the State Department to the Cuban treasury but was never cashed. It becomes void after one year.
The base and its surroundings, although monitored by both countries’ militaries, lack some of the cold war hostility they used to have. In the late 1990s, the United States removed the anti-personnel and anti-tank mines it had placed at the perimeter of the base, eliminating the last minefield that the United States had in the Western Hemisphere. American officials meet along the fence monthly with their Cuban counterparts despite the lack of official diplomatic relations between the countries.
Mr. Elizalde, the revolution veteran, is confident there will be a day when his country controls the entire island again. But he doubts he will ever stroll on that part behind the fence.
“I probably won’t ever see it,” he said. “But I have children and grandchildren, and maybe they’ll see us get it back.”
Then he thought for a minute and added: “Or maybe it will be their children and grandchildren.”
August 12, 2008
Pg. 6
By Marc Lacey
GUANTANAMO, Cuba — As a major terrorism trial was getting under way at the American naval base not far from here last month, Guantánamo’s municipal court, located in Cuban-controlled territory, had a contested divorce on its docket. It was the only case that afternoon.
The aging Guantánamo courtroom, with its leaky roof and well-worn wooden benches, is a far cry from the fancy new judicial center that the Defense Department installed at its base across the fence. There are typewriters on the desks at Cuba’s court, faded portraits of Che Guevara on the walls and a classic motorcycle, complete with a sidecar bearing the court logo, parked in the courtyard.
Both courts, it turns out, earn international scorn. The United States and other critics of Cuba consider the island’s judiciary an appendage of the Socialist government, a tool of the Castro brothers’ repressive ways. Cuba, in turn, is among the loudest critics of the American policy of holding enemy combatants from the battlefields in Afghanistan and Iraq at Guantánamo Bay and denying them the legal protections they would be entitled to on American soil.
“The base is needed to humiliate and to do the dirty work that occurs there,” Fidel Castro wrote in a newspaper commentary last year.
Despite the sniping, however, the base has been around so long, 105 years to be exact, that Cubans have grown used to its presence — and its propaganda value — and seem to hold out little hope that the 45 square miles will be returned anytime soon.
“They will leave on their own,” predicted Carlos González, 80, who fought alongside the Castro brothers, Che Guevara and other notable figures during the 1959 revolution, which began in eastern Cuba not far from the base. “We’ll just wait.”
That is an oft-heard sentiment in and around Guantánamo, which relied heavily on the base in the years before relations between Washington and Havana grew frosty once Fidel Castro came to power. There was a time when the base was a major source of employment for local residents. But there were plenty of downsides when the base’s fencing was more porous, local people say, like the many brothels that operated in town.
Around the corner of the Guantánamo courthouse is a park devoted to the popular Cuban song “Guantanamera,” which commemorates a local farm girl. The relatively few tourists who pass through take pictures of themselves in front of the oversize lyrics. Getting a glimpse of the base is trickier, requiring Cuban government permission, which is only sometimes granted.
“It’s right over there,” said Guillermo Elizalde, 78, who is considered one of the heroes of the revolution. He pointed off into the distance toward the site of the American military presence, which was first established in 1898 when the United States landed in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. “It’s our territory,” he said. “They took it.”
Technically, Guantánamo Bay still remains Cuba, though it is the only patch of the Socialist island with a McDonald’s and a Starbucks in operation. That commercial presence would seem to violate the 1903 treaty that set up the base, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt and his Cuban counterpart. The treaty says that it can be used only as a naval base and that commercial activity is banned.
The American presence has long been used as a rallying cry by the Cubans, a sign of old-time imperialism continuing into the present day. The last time it came up was July 11, when Raúl Castro, who took over the presidency from his brother in February, mentioned the base in a speech to challenge criticism of Cuba’s human rights record. He said Washington had lost any moral authority because of the prisoners it held “in the territory usurped from our country.”
But the base, having been in American hands for so many generations, is not one of the issues raised most frequently by the Cubans. Instead, it is the case of five Cuban men who were convicted in the United States seven years ago for infiltrating anti-Cuban organizations in Miami and sending information on them back to Havana. Cuba sees them as heroes, not spies, since they aimed to stop what Cuba says were terrorist plots aimed at Cuban soil.
In its latest public relations push, the government is decrying that two of the five men’s wives have not been allowed to visit their husbands in the decade they have been behind bars, despite applying for visas nine times. The United States counters that the two women who have not been allowed to visit were involved in the Cuban surveillance effort.
Roberto González, the brother of one of the incarcerated men and a member of their legal team, said that when he saw his brother in an American prison dressed in a jumpsuit he could not help but think of the similar outfits that the terrorism suspects don at Guantánamo Bay.
There is a legal underpinning to the American presence in Cuba, albeit one that Havana disputes. Following the 1903 treaty giving the United States rights to the land, the Americans reaffirmed the arrangement with another accord in 1934. Havana says both agreements were imposed upon Cuba and are thus void.
To make its point, Cuba refuses to cash the monthly rent checks that the United States sends to Cuba for the base — a bargain at $4,085 a month. The very first check sent to Fidel Castro’s government, in 1959, was cashed because of what the former president later called confusion in the heady early days of post-revolution Cuba.
“If we have to wait for the collapse of the system, we will wait,” Fidel Castro wrote last year.
Raúl Castro has continued his brother’s policy of not cashing the checks. The last one, dated March 14, 2008, went from the State Department to the Cuban treasury but was never cashed. It becomes void after one year.
The base and its surroundings, although monitored by both countries’ militaries, lack some of the cold war hostility they used to have. In the late 1990s, the United States removed the anti-personnel and anti-tank mines it had placed at the perimeter of the base, eliminating the last minefield that the United States had in the Western Hemisphere. American officials meet along the fence monthly with their Cuban counterparts despite the lack of official diplomatic relations between the countries.
Mr. Elizalde, the revolution veteran, is confident there will be a day when his country controls the entire island again. But he doubts he will ever stroll on that part behind the fence.
“I probably won’t ever see it,” he said. “But I have children and grandchildren, and maybe they’ll see us get it back.”
Then he thought for a minute and added: “Or maybe it will be their children and grandchildren.”