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January
8, 2002
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
January
6, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Students
Put the Heat on Foreign Sweatshops
Tariq
Ali
Battleground
Kashmir
January
5, 2002
Mark Schneider
Kifah:
The Movie Star
Israel Killed
Edward
Said
Is
Israel More Secure Now?
January
4, 2002
CG Estabrook
Anti-War
= Anti-Globalization
Jordan
Green
What's
Changed in New York
January
3, 2002
Walt Brasch
Exit
Cheney, Enter Ridge
Mokhiber
and Weissman
The
10 Worst Corporations
of 2001
Robert
Hunter Wade
America's
Empire Rules an Unbalanced World
Shahid
Alam
Is
There an Islamic Problem?
January
2, 2002
Ross Regnart
Patriot
Act Redefines the Mob as "Terrorist Associates"
John Chuckman
The
Republicans' Secret Plan X
David
Vest
Turn,
Turn, Turn
January
1, 2002
Kathy
Kelly
Iraq's
New Year
December
31, 2001
John Absood
An
Alternative to War in Iraq
Ramzi
Kysia
Iraq
Goes Radioactive
December
28, 2001
John Chuckman
Observing
George Bush
Suren
Pillay
Civilian
Bodies
Aaron
Lehmer
Inviting
Future Terrorism
December
27, 2001
Patrick
McNamara
Palestinian
Children Bear Brunt of Mideast Violence
Nelson
Valdés
A
Possible Scenario on the Location of bin Laden
Jensen
and Mahajan
Remember
the Afghan Dead
Philip
Farruggio
A
New Year's Resolution
Ramzi
Kysia
The
People of the Valley
December 26, 2001
John Chuckman
In
Praise of the Unspeakable
Sam Bahour
2002:
Year of the Twos
December 25, 2001
Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's
Human Rights Record
December 24, 2001
Sam Bahour
It
Happened One Morning
Yair Khilou
Why I Resisted
Being Drafted into the Israeli Army
Michael
Chisari
War
as Diversionary Tactic
Cockburn/St. Clair
Enron
and the Green Seal
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
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About 9/11
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
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January
8, 2002
Guantánamo Naval Base, Anti-Terrorism
and US/Cuban Relations
By Nelson P Valdés
The U.S. Defense Department announcement that
it will use Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba to set up prison facilities
and military tribunals where terrorists captured in Afghanistan
and elsewhere will be held and tried raises important questions.
Why select Guantanamo base rather than,
Utah or the Marshall Islands which are more isolated and the
surrounding territory is controlled by the United States military?
What possible military or political attraction could Cuba provide?
It should be noted that the base has
71 square miles, of which 48 square miles are on land (swamps
claim 13 square miles). This small territory is surrounded by
the Sierra Cristal mountain range controlled by the Cuban military.
Thus, in a sense the real security of the base will not depend
on the US government alone but on the Cuban armed forces. It
is odd that the United States will hold such high profile prisoners
in a place that is so close to another country's territory.
Even more peculiar is the fact that the
U.S. State Department in its most recent 2001 report on "international
terrorism" claims that Cuba harbors and supports terrorists.
Then why set up the tribunals and the prison facilities on the
island? Obviously the U.S. military consider that Cuba does not
present any real terrorist threat, despite what the State Department
has claimed. So, which side of the US government is correct?
From the Cuban government perspective
the U.S. government decision constitutes an outright political
provocation.
Since 1959 the Cuban government has asked
the United States government to leave the base (which was granted
"in perpetuity" to the US military by a Cuban Congress
handpicked by the US armed forces in 1901. Yes, the base is the
outcome of Teddy Roosevelt's "Big Stick" policy and
the Platt Amendment. When in the 1990s Cuban rafters were intercepted
by the US Coast Guard and refused entry into the US mainland,
the INS transported thousands of Cubans to Guantanamo base. At
the time Cuba complained about the new use given to the military
base. It will not be surprising if again the Cuban government
denounces the new function given to the base. The Cuban authorities
have not been consulted nor asked by anyone in the U.S. government.
They have earned about the matter from the American media.
But there may be an added insult as far
as the Cuban government is concerned. Five Cuban nationals have
just been sentenced in the last 2 weeks to long prison terms
(three have received life) by a Miami. They were accused of having
engaged in espionage. The Cuban agents were in Miami spying on
anti-Castro terrorist organizations. Thus, Cuba antiterrorism
agents have been tried and found guilty by a Miami court precisely
for attempting to thwart what the US claims to be trying to stop
as well. The government in Havana, and many Cubans in the island,
consider such developments an outrageous affront.
So, why was Cuba chosen? Secreatry of
Defense Donald Rumsfeld has stated that Cuba was "the least
of the worse" options. Seemingly, the argument for not having
the prison and the tribunals on the US mainland would be a matter
of security for the American people. But, if that is the argument,
should the security of Cubans not be taken into account as well?
What would happen if an Al Qaeda agent
manages to get to the Cuban mountains surrounding the base and
literally attacks the base? Is the Cuban government going to
be held accountable by the United States government? Then what?
If the Cuban government rejects the Defense
Department plan (Rumsfeld assumes the Cubans will keep silent),
then it is possible that the U.S. government could claim that
the Cuban government has rejected collaborating with the anti-terror
campaign, which could open another chapter of conflict between
the two countries.
It is clear that if the "detainees"
are held at Guantanamo within Cuba, it can be assumed that Al
Qaeda or other terrorist organizations may attempt to do something
about it. Thus, the United States government decision has externally
impose a political, military and economic cost on the Cuban government.
After all, it is not in the interests of Cuba to have terrorists
running around the island. or attempting to attack the base.
Thus, Cuba, the only country that has stated that it opposed
the terrorists as well as the war against Afghanistan will be
forced to deploy Cubans and limited resources to protect Cuba's
"home security" against Cuban exile terrorists as well
as those that are the enemies of the United States.
But what can Cuba's government do about
the decision made by the United States government? Not much.
The base is under U.S. control. If the
Cuban government officially denounces the new use given to the
base, then the Bush administration as well as the rightwing Cuban
exiles will have one more issue to exploit against any kind of
improvement in relations. On the other hand if the Cuban government
consents to the new function, it could be interpreted by the
most reactionary sectors within the US government and in Miami
as a Havana concession made out of fear.
The Cuban government will have to opt
for a policy that denounces all forms of terrorism, expresses
its willingness to work with the United States, yet demands of
the Bush administration to address the issues involving terrorism
against the Cuban government. Hence, Cuba's government might
not openly state its opposition of the use given to Guantanamo
as long as the United States addresses the historical problem
of rightwing Cuban exile terrorism against the island, including
over 600 assassination attempts against Fidel Castro.
That probably will be the message that
the Cuban revolutionary government would like to convey to the
US mass media, the Congress and the American people.
United States' unilateral decisions on
the use of Guantanamo base, without taking into account of Cuba's
security needs will only contribute to greater instability throughout
the Caribbean region and will exacerbate the poor relations between
the United States and Cuba. The strategists at the Pentagon and
the politicians in Washington, DC. should reconsider their ill-conceived
decision or, at the very least, become more sensitive of the
rational demands made from Havana.
It is doubtful, however, that Cuba's
needs or interests will be recognized by the Washington crowd.
To do so would be to go against over 42 years of confrontation
and arrogance.
Nelson Valdés is director of the Program of Academic Research
on Cuba at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
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