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Cuba, the USA and Guantánamo Bay: the collision between national sovereignty and imperial ambition

In the aftermath of the attack upon the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001, the administration of President George W. Bush announced a war on terrorism. An immediate consequence of this was the arrest of more than 650 al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects who were subsequently transported to the US naval base of Guantánamo Bay situated on the eastern tip of the island of Cuba. Of this initial contingent, fewer than 50 detainees were eventually sent home to be questioned by government officials (many facing torture and disappearance) while new prisoners continued to arrive. Those suspected of terrorist criminal activity in distant places were rendered into US custody, transported like livestock and without recourse to any legal process. The majority of Guantánamo detainees were not charged with any offence. International media reports routinely described the base as American territory, thus acquiescing with a long-term fiction of history, which was that the USA had the right to be in Guantánamo. In fact, the presence of its personnel and hardware on the base represents both a violation of Cuba’s sovereignty and of international law. That the USA is able to ride roughshod over such considerations—and the conspicuous absence of serious criticism of its activities from its allies or agencies such as the UN—tells us a great deal about the nature of power relations in the contemporary world and also informs us about the history of US interventions in the affairs of Third World countries and particularly in Latin and Central America. Guantánamo acts as a window through which we can view Washington’s understanding of its hemispheric power. Blindfolded, nearly naked, manacled, caged and guarded by Alsatians (an image which in itself invites comparison with earlier manifestations of state brutality), it is not surprising that there was a high rate of suicide attempts amongst the detainees (29 in its first year of existence alone). Subject to daily interrogations, the prisoners were held without trial or promise of eventual release, had no contact with relatives other than heavily censored letters and were permitted only intermittent meetings with diplomatic officials, humanitarian agencies and journalists. For the Bush administration, legal niceties or the creation of a civilized environment for the captives were irrelevant. The president urged people to remember that those ‘. . . in Guantánamo Bay are killers. Terrorists. They don’t share the same values we share.’ As dangerous members of the worldwide