Havana, Feb 16 (Prensa Latina) Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel recalled today that 121 years ago an agreement was signed by means of which the United States established the illegal naval base in Guantánamo, a military compound that violates the sovereignty of the Caribbean nation.
Díaz-Canel recalled on the social network X that the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Raúl Castro, defined the base as “a dagger stuck in the side of the homeland; a dagger that we will take out in a peaceful, civilized way and by enforcing the principles of international law.”
On February 16, 1903, the presidents of Cuba, Tomás Estrada Palma, and of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, signed an agreement through which they ceded the portion of land located in the eastern province of Guantánamo, “for the necessary time and for the purposes of a naval and coal station”.
That fact had as antecedent the Platt Amendment, imposed on the Cubans in their first republican Constitution during the American military occupation.
By means of this document, the United States could establish coaling or naval stations, the first of them in Guantanamo Bay, in the southeastern end of the island, which is maintained at present against the will of the Cuban State and people.
The agreement was made under the U.S. threat of military intervention on the island, which is why experts consider it illegal, in light of the United Nations Declaration on Military, Political or Economic Coercion in the Conclusion of Treaties.
That agreement granted Washington complete jurisdiction over the leased lands, which violates the principle of territorial integrity enshrined in Cuban constitutions from 1901 to the present.
After the Triumph of the Revolution on January 1, 1959, Cuba reiterated in various multilateral forums its demand for the return of that territory, the use of which currently constitutes an affront to the principles upheld by the Cuban State and peoples.
(Taken from PL)
