By Emmanuel Bonforti*
(Unofficial translation by Alma)
Meeting of Cuban President Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama at the UN headquarters on 29 September 2015. Photo: AP / Andrew Harnik
The proposal to close the Guantanamo prison and the impact on US domestic policy. The role of the mass media. Story of a long-standing occupation and need the support of Latin America.
In recent days the media reproduced the proposal presented by US President Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo prison. The liberal press received the proposal favorably, identifying Guantanamo as a symbol of abuse, torture and illegal practices committed against detainees. The closure plan is seen as an old promise of Obama outlined the Jan. 22, 2009 who also decreed the ban interrogation methods equated to torture. The promise is part of the next trip that carried Obama to the island, ending eighty-eight years without visits by a US president to Cuba. Obama himself said in presenting the plan that the existence of that prison «is counterproductive in the fight against terrorism.» The measure is read as a gesture of rapprochement of humanitarian content in order to move forward a process of rapprochement between Cuba and the United States. In operational terms, the proposal involves the transfer of persons deprived of liberty to thirteen different places, including prisons in Colorado, South Carolina and Kansas, and six military installations.
The promise is part of the next trip that carried Obama to the island, ending eighty-eight years without visits by a US president to Cuba.
The media highlight the humanitarian side of US President contradistinction to his Republican adversaries parliamentarians who took to cross the Obama proposal. The Republican leader of Miami and son of Cuban immigrants said: «Not only will not close Guantanamo, when I am president, if we capture a live terrorist will not have a hearing in Manhattan, will not be shipped to Nevada, but go to go to Guantanamo and we will find out everything he knows. » Thus the historical tension between hawks and doves in Guantanamo finds a new episode, as to finalize the closure will be necessary to revoke the Defence Act 2010 which prohibits transfer detainees from Guantanamo to the United States.
However, not all are gestures of democratic humanity by Obama. Moved by a tactical approach «to the US» with Cuba and giving gesture to public opinion in democratic understanding, Obama no longer a pragmatic politician who leads the largest empire of today.
With his gesture intended to make clear that Guantanamo prison has been a symbol of discredit within the world community and, in turn, seeks to show that the prison did not mean a breakthrough for US national security. Also for Obama himself, the closure of the prison means avoiding spending $ 650 million required for its operation. The commodification of the proposal is reinforced by the defense tax exposing Obama when he argues that closing the prison would save them a lot to US taxpayers. Whereupon his goal he responds not only to the «prestige» of the country, but also economic interests. This perspective would eliminate criteria seeking to locate the decision only as a product of good American intentions and the struggle for the defense of human rights and freedoms worldwide.
With his gesture intended to make clear that Guantanamo prisonhas been a symbol of discredit within the world community and, in turn, seeks to show that the prison did not mean a breakthrough for US national security.
Pragmatism also hides the pressure of lobbying by the military industrial complex, linked to the US ruling class responsible for finance imperial adventures, which currently endanger world peace.
But there is an even more dangerous media omission: naturalize the existence of a US military base on foreign soil. Thus the real cause Guantanamo prison that exceeds itself is hidden: the US military base is an offense for Cuba but also for the rest of Latin America.
Guantanamo is a direct result of the invasion of the United States to Cuba in 1898, in the context of war of liberation against Spain. That invasion had a double effect: first, the defeat of Spain and the independence of Cuba and, on the other, the direct interference of the United States in the largest island of the Antilles. Since then, the United States set its expansionist position in the region during the Age of Empire and also used that fact as a springboard to consolidate its hegemony in the Caribbean. In Cuba and Guantanamo, the desire that manifest destiny lies. This is evidenced by not contemplate at any time, as part of the plan to return to Cuba the territory occupied by the Guantanamo naval base.
Guantanamo is a direct result of the invasion of the United States to Cuba in 1898, in the context of war of liberation against Spain. That invasion had a double effect: first, the defeat of Spain and the independence of Cuba and, on the other, the direct interference of the United States in the largest island of the Antilles.
The Cuban government expressed in the field of the international community on several occasions that the only way for progress in an effective process of full restoration of diplomatic relations between the two countries is lifting the blockade and returning the territory of Guantanamo. Both the end of the blockade and the final departure of the US military base at Guantanamo become the indeclinables demands by the Cuban authorities.
The end of the prison says two issues: first, a continental regroupment behind the Guantanamo case, silenced by the hegemonic press, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States -CELAC- has stated on several occasions in favor of returning to the Republic of Cuba the territory occupied by the Naval Base of the United States. The return, according to CELAC should be given through bilateral dialogue attached to international law. And on the other, the validity of the anti-imperialist discourse of Fidel Castro who on December 13, 1965 held a ceremony on the steps of the University of Havana: «That enemy is not easily resign himself, even though no other option left , the revolutionary successes of our people. That enemy, not here thousands of kilometers from here attacks other people, as does murderously against the people of North Vietnam and the revolutionary people of South Vietnam. (…) That enemy ships boats, their’marines and aircraft anywhere in the world. «
At present, the solidarity that Fidel extended to all countries suffering imperialist aggression during the sixties, puts us under obligation to definitely accompanied by a Latin American voice, the request for withdrawal of the military base of Guantanamo and all bases on our continent.
Photo: EFE (Archive)
*Sociologist Emmanuel Bonforti UBA/UNLa (Taken from Cuadernos de coyuntura)
Alma Cubanita 