{"id":68338,"date":"2016-05-11T13:03:44","date_gmt":"2016-05-11T17:02:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oncubamagazine.com\/?p=68338"},"modified":"2018-10-02T03:05:21","modified_gmt":"2018-10-02T07:05:21","slug":"scanning-guantanamo-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/special\/scanning-guantanamo-en\/","title":{"rendered":"Scanning Guantanamo"},"content":{"rendered":"

[vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” enable_overlay=”yes” vc_row_background=”” css=”.vc_custom_1528232761812{padding-top: 150px !important;padding-bottom: 150px !important;background-image: url(https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/intro-bg1.jpg?id=109822) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}” overlay_color=”rgba(12,0,0,0.52)”][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_custom_heading text=”Portrait of the US military base ” font_container=”tag:h3|font_size:38|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”in Cuba<\/p>\n

” font_container=”tag:h3|font_size:38|text_align:center|color:%23ffffff” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” vc_row_background=”” css=”.vc_custom_1518890833223{background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column][vc_video link=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/vT5md1Fiq1A”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” vc_row_background=”” css=”.vc_custom_1518891534531{background-image: url(https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/cap1-bg.jpg?id=109833) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: contain !important;}”][vc_column][vc_row_inner css=”.vc_custom_1518891455232{padding-top: 80px !important;padding-bottom: 80px !important;}”][vc_column_inner css=”.vc_custom_1528233596400{padding-top: 32px !important;padding-bottom: 64px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”CHAPTER 1
\n” font_container=”tag:h3|font_size:48px|text_align:center|color:%23e4d4bc” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”FRONTIER ZONE” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:88px|text_align:center|color:%23e4d4bc” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” vc_row_background=”” css=”.vc_custom_1518890833223{background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: cover !important;}”][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

By Yisell Rodr\u00edguez Mil\u00e1n<\/p>\n

\n

I am in Caimanera. Behind me, on one side of the long, semi-deserted highway is the biggest salt mine from Cuba and a \u201cRestricted Access\u201d sign that announces the entry to the town closest to the U.S. military base that the world calls\u00a0Gitmo<\/i>. Here they simply call it \u201cThe Base.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYour pass, please,\u201d an official tells me at the entrance to the community, and I hold out the paper that states my date of arrival and exit, who I am and whom I am coming to see.<\/p>\n

My friend\u2019s husband is waiting for me. If he weren\u2019t there I wouldn\u2019t be able to enter. That\u2019s what they tell me, although I already knew. Who doesn\u2019t? In Guantanamo they teach you from childhood that in Caimanera no one gets in without a pass, that someone always has to meet you (unless you work there), and that it is a special area, so special that its inhabitants earn 30% extra on top of their salary, and receive extra benefits from butchers and warehouses. All this is explained by the danger, the proximity, the foreign militarization of a small fragment of the land.<\/p>\n

I inspect the two main streets. One is called Correo (Post), where the seat of the Government and the media are, along with some self-employed individuals and a small central park. The other street is Carretera (Road). Going straight down it you can arrive at the edge of the sea, from where it\u2019s possible to see, skirting the coast, the wreckage of some wooden houses, built on stilts and covered with sheets of zinc. They say that this is how they used to build houses in the South of the United States.<\/p>\n

A friend once told me that living a few kilometres from the Base was as normal as living in Guant\u00e1namo city: \u201cbut you always fear the unexpected.\u201d \u201cYou can see the 4th of July fireworks,\u201d he said to me, \u201cand you occasionally hear the sounds of the military training.\u201d<\/p>\n

A neighbour explained how the town works. The locals travel to the more isolated communities in dinghies and a small catamaran, while they go to the provincial capital on bus or train. She also, very kindly, shows me the way to the main museum where \u2013 she says \u2013 they will explain it all to me much more clearly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_images_carousel images=”110667,110668,110669,110670,110671,110672,110673,110674,110675″ img_size=”full” slides_per_view=”2″ autoplay=”yes” wrap=”yes”][vc_column_text]Ofelia Garc\u00eda Campusano, the museum director, talks to me about prostitution, which seems to be another historical trauma for Caimanera\u2026 after the Base. Until the middle of the 20th century, she said, in the southern part of the city there was a tolerated Red Light District, a neighbourhood full of bars and brothels like the \u201cCachalotte Bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe girls left the countryside and came to Caimanera to look for work. The men did the same because there were over 2,000 businesses of all kinds here, related to the port and the Base, but the women always had worse luck and ended up in the brothels. Once used, they couldn\u2019t go back to their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

This permissive zone was the first one that had a \u201chealth office\u201d (a type of medical clinic), asphalt streets, and access to drinkable water. It even had\u00a0Guidelines on practicing prostitution<\/i>, a copy of which \u2013 Ofelia confirms \u2013 is held in the municipal archives.<\/p>\n

\u201cCaimanera became Cuba\u2019s biggest brothel, and around 3,000 women of Guantanamo married American officials and sailors,\u201d explains Jos\u00e9 S\u00e1nchez Guerra, the Historian of Guantanamo City, who claims that the business from traders and brothel owners linked to the Base reached 23 million dollars annually in the 1950s.<\/p>\n

They say that from Boquer\u00f3n, a community located to the side of the entry to the large bay that belongs to the \u201cMartyrs of the Border\u201d People\u2019s Council, you can see everything more clearly\u2026 including the building\u2019s infrastructure, the airports and the bay.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The town seems too quiet to me and claustrophobic, despite the squalls. In the queue for the bus I talk to a woman. I ask if she remembers the Chanel 8 programs, broadcast in English for the Marines, and she tells me \u201cYes, but you can\u2019t pick up the signal for it anymore.\u201d Sometimes you can still tune into a radio broadcast in English.<\/p>\n

I arrive home. I turn on the computer to download the photos from the trip and I open the document where I saved the transcription of a debate hosted by\u00a0Temas<\/i><\/a>\u00a0magazine in Havana, focusing on the Naval Base. The moderator argues that the Guantanamo Bay is 10 times bigger than the bay in Santiago de Cuba, 15 times bigger than Mariel and 24 times bigger than the Havana Bay. The surface area is comparable to that of Manhattan, and I, at this distance, can only think of the size of the bite that the Americans took out of us.[\/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sg047rWd7kM”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

BALSEROS<\/h2>\n
\n

1994 marked a new chapter in the Guant\u00e1namo story as a mass exodus of Cubans attempted to emigrate to the United States. Tens of thousands of Cuban rafters made the perilous voyage across the Florida Straits, often travelling aboard homemade rafts improvised out of truck inner tubes and wood. Many also chose to make it to the base, by both land and sea.<\/p>\n

After a number of weeks and with the objecting of averting mass immigration to the United States, President Bill Clinton ordered the US coast guard to intercept all rafters at sea and transport them to Guant\u00e1namo Bay Naval Base. Over 30 000 Cubans were held at the high security naval base. The rafters concentration camps were a precursor to the infamous Guant\u00e1namo Bay prison camps we know today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/goDiiEgRC0M”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

\n
SOURCE:<\/h5>\n

Fragment of the documentary Balseros (Rafters) (2002) by Carles Bosch and Josep Maria Dom\u00e8nech i Graells \/ Courtesy of producers<\/p>\n

\n

In December 1994 the first group of elderly people, children and pregnant women left from the naval base heading to the United States. Throughout 1995 almost everyone who had been held at base was able to reach the United States.<\/p>\n

Many Cubans, both inside and outside the island, have stories to tell about emigration and Guant\u00e1namo Bay Naval Base. If you have a story to tell, please get in touch![\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row full_width=”stretch_row_content_no_spaces” vc_row_background=”” css=”.vc_custom_1525374082290{padding-top: 50px !important;padding-bottom: 50px !important;background-image: url(https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/cap2-bg.jpg?id=109855) !important;background-position: center !important;background-repeat: no-repeat !important;background-size: contain !important;}”][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner css=”.vc_custom_1528231293853{padding-top: 16px !important;padding-bottom: 16px !important;}”][vc_custom_heading text=”CHAPTER 2″ font_container=”tag:h3|font_size:48px|text_align:center|color:%23e4d4bc” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][vc_custom_heading text=”LA BASE” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:88px|text_align:center|color:%23e4d4bc” use_theme_fonts=”yes”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/6″][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”2\/3″][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

WELCOME TO PARADISE!<\/h2>\n

By Ed Augustin<\/p>\n

\n

The Big Mac\u2019s always been my favourite. I like the way they\u2019re all the same \u2013 the squishy bun, the tasteless gherkins, and the familiar shape of the burger. Wherever you are in the world, you can bet your bottom dollar that your Big Mac will be reassuringly, comfortingly the same. And that\u2019s just as well when you\u2019re in one of the world\u2019s most infamous places: Guantanamo Bay.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s isn\u2019t the first thing one might associate with Cuba. The golden arches conjure up images of globalised capitalism and the spread of the American way of life; everything the Cuban revolution has defined itself against. Yet on the South Eastern tip of the island, along an arid road lined with cacti, lies Cuba\u2019s only McDonald\u2019s.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 8:00am on Friday morning a few hundred metres from Camp 5 at the tail end of the shoot. A bit early for a burger, I know, but the Big Mac\u2019s always been my go-to.<\/p>\n

A friendly woman from the Naval Base\u2019s Public Relations Unit is filling me in about how US ships first arrived in Guant\u00e1namo Bay over one hundred years ago. Around us a dozen or so Joint Task Force military personnel are tucking into more conventional breakfast-fare: bagels, crispy apple pies and Egg McMuffins.<\/p>\n

Perhaps some were catching a bite to eat after a night shift guarding the prisoners. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, identified by the 9\/11 Commission Report as the \u201cprincipal architect of the 9\/11 attacks\u201d, is one of the \u201chigh value detainees\u201d held on site.<\/p>\n

While gulping down the last of their coffee, perhaps other personnel were mentally preparing themselves for a morning session of force-feeding the prisoners. Most of the prisoners languishing in GTMO have never been put on trial or even been charged. This indefinite imprisonment has fuelled a wave of hunger strikes. During my visit, the majority of the complex\u2019s 166 inmates were refusing to eat. With so much tension in the air, GTMO\u2019s could-be-anywhere McDonald\u2019s provides a welcome sense of normality.<\/p>\n

McDonald\u2019s is one of the many idiosyncrasies that GTMO throws up at visitors. The base, which is home to around 6000 US servicemen and women, has its own schools, churches, cinemas and even an American football field. With the prisoners and the watchtowers tucked safely away behind the hills, some neighbourhoods here resemble a 1950s U.S. suburb.<\/p>\n

For Simon Johnston, the bases former public works officer, \u201cIt\u2019s like an Eisenhower-era town: You can leave your door unlocked, no one uses bike locks, and you even have the Communist enemy to stare down.\u201d<\/p>\n

On my first day at the base I was invited to Camp 6 for a guided tour and an interview with some prison guards. While waiting to be frisked, I read a slogan under the GTMO logo: \u201cHonor Bound to Defend Freedom\u201d. I soon found out that this is Guant\u00e1namo Bay\u2019s official motto!<\/p>\n

Before arriving at Guant\u00e1namo Bay, \u2018freedom\u2019 wouldn\u2019t have been the first word to come to mind. For 15 years now, the prison has been a weight on America\u2019s moral conscience; a blemish that grates with the country\u2019s self-image. Americans don\u2019t like to think that their country kidnaps innocent civilians, tortures, or embraces lawlessness. Yet the Bush Administration chose to imprison those they suspected of terrorism in Guant\u00e1namo Bay precisely because the US constitution \u2013 and the legal protections it affords \u2013 does not apply there.<\/p>\n

Most of the personnel I spoke to at the base, however, seemed to take the freedom theme seriously. In Camp 3 I was introduced to a group of medics who proudly demonstrated how \u201centeral feeding\u201d (a.k.a. force-feeding) is carried out on \u201cnon-compliant detainees\u201d. When I asked a nurse there how force-feeding squares with GTMO\u2019s motto, he didn\u2019t miss a beat: \u201cLike it or not, our mission is to safeguard these detainees, keep them alive, keep them medically healthy, and that’s helping the global War on Terror\u2026 So, yes, we are honor bound to defend freedom. And we do that every day.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
SOURCE:<\/h5>\n

http:\/\/www.usnews.com\/news\/articles\/2014\/12\/09\/here-is-the-cia-torture-report<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]The freedom leitmotif repeats itself in bizarre ways throughout the 45-square-mile base. Just outside the hotel I was staying stands a sign welcoming visitors with the word \u201cLiberty\u201d. It\u2019s bold blue letters ensnared in barbed wire and \u2013 cherry on the icing \u2013 an iguana firing a machine gun perched on top!<\/p>\n

A final quirk that many visitors come across at the base is the gift shop. Presumably intended for family and friends visiting loved ones posted at the base, rather than for prisoners to buy a memento on their way out.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t resist going in. Guantanamo teddy bears, mugs and baseball caps lined the shelves. I bought a t-shirt reading \u201cGTMO: Welcome to Paradise!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to find much reference to Cuba amongst the trinkets on offer. Like Big Macs, GTMO tourist paraphernalia has a habit of feeling tub-thumpingly American. Perhaps the historian Jonathan Hansen, author of the book\u00a0Guant\u00e1namo: An American History<\/i>, is right when he writes “in many ways, Guant\u00e1namo Bay remains more quintessentially American than America itself: a distillation of the idealism and arrogance that has characterized U.S. national identity and foreign policy from the very beginning”.<\/p>\n

With the Cuban-US relationship in flux, and Raul Castro\u2019s team ushering in big economic changes, perhaps the Golden Arches will adorn some unsuspecting street in Havana before too long. But for now Guant\u00e1namo Bay remains home to Communist Cuba\u2019s one and only McDonalds.[\/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https:\/\/youtu.be\/EDwT7fiBCgc”][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n

US VIEWS ON GUANT\u00c1NAMO: A PROBLEM OF PEDAGOGY?<\/h2>\n

By Bonnie A. Lucero<\/p>\n

\n

Mere months before the tragic attacks on the Twin Towers in September 2001, I was sitting in my ninth grade history class, hearing for the very first time about Cuba. My teacher recounted the triumphant story of the Spanish-American War of 1898, calling it as many North American today still do, a \u201cSplendid Little War.\u201d<\/p>\n

I learned that the United States invaded the Caribbean island to liberate Cubans from Spanish tyranny, selflessly driving the flag of freedom deep into its soil. Our discussion of this transformative moment in the histories of the United States and Cuba did not so much as allude to one of the most powerful legacies of that military intervention: the imposition in 1901 of the sovereignty-limiting Platt Amendment upon the Cuban Constitution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n