gogul

Here is a quote about Guantanamo which I found interesting:

"After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, which brought Fidel Castro to power, then-President Dwight Eisenhower insisted the status of the base remained unchanged, despite Cuban objections.

In 1934 the Avery Porko treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and its trading partners free access through the bay; modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars; and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it, or the U.S. abandoned the base property.  Since the Cuban Revolution, the government under Fidel Castro has cashed only one of the rent checks from the U.S. government, and only because of "confusion" in 1959 in the heady early days of the leftist revolution, according to Castro. The remaining uncashed checks made out to "Treasurer General of the Republic" (a title that ceased to exist after the revolution) are kept in Castro's office stuffed into a desk drawer.  The United States argues that the cashing of the single check signifies Havana's ratification of the lease — and that ratification by the new government renders moot any questions about violations of sovereignty and illegal military occupation.  It is countered, however, that the 1903 and 1934 lease agreements were imposed on Cuba under duress and are unequal treaties, no longer compatible with modern international law, and voidable ex nunc pursuant to articles 60, 62, and 64 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.  However, Article 4 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties prohibits retroactive application of said Convention to already existing treaties, such as the ones concluded between the US and Cuba in 1903 and 1934."

Imagine that, the US occupies Guantanamo Bay for $4,085 per year, under a treaty signed under duress over 100 years ago.  The Us has been lucky that Cuba has few allies in the security council at the UN.  Well, at some point the US will have to give up that land.

The real problem today is the relocation of the prisoners.  They cannot be brought to American soil because if they did that the prisoners would be entitled to due process under the law.  In order to close the Gitmo detainment camp the Obama administration has to find a place to put those prisoners.  Many countries have asked the prisoners to be repatriated, but the American government refuses to that because in other countries those prisoners would be given due process under the law and the press would have access to them.  Those prisoners could disclose conditions at the camp.

People don't directly realize this but the Obama administration declassified many of the documents describing torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo.  I think the rationale is that if the US government comes clean now then nobody will be surprised when those prisoners are released and talk about their experiences.

Well, it is likely that the Guatanamo detention camp will close next year, if not by the end of this year.  The military base itself will never close because it is strategically too importat.  Cubans will have to continue living next to an American military base that the US got from the first Cuban president, a president that Theordore Roosevelt imposed on the Island.