Guantánamo and Gitmo are two radically different beasts.
This is important – especially when considering Obama’s executive order to close Guantánamo.
Here follows (if copyright allows) a brief article that I published in the Guardian in March ’09 entitled GITMO ISN’T GUANTÁNAMO
Gitmo isn’t Guantánamo
Though Obama has promised to close Guantánamo’s detention facility, the US naval base still lingers – as do US-Cuba tensionsMistaken assumptions are regularly being made that President Barack Obama has planned to close the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. This is not so. He has promised to close only the base’s detention facility – which has no bearing on US-Cuba relations.
While attention is focused on Obama’s gargantuan $787bn (£548bn) economic stimulus plan, the effect of the putative closure of Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility on US-Cuba relations has generally been overlooked.
Having browsed ad nauseam message boards, discussion groups, blogs and forums from both the US and the UK concerning the closure of Guantánamo, I have been struck by a pattern of perceptions that appears endemic. The pattern goes something like this: All detainees in Guantánamo are terrorists. Guantánamo is somehow owned or controlled by Cuba. As such, the detainees are lucky they are under US protection rather than being in the island prison of Cuba itself. And Obama is set to close down the entire operation at Guantánamo Bay.
All of the above are wrong.
First, in the absence of due process of law, the guilt of most of the detainees has not been established. Second, the base is reluctantly leasehold from Cuba – creating an ambiguity of sovereignty and jurisdiction that Judith Butler, back in 2002, described as contributing to “Guantánamo limbo”. Third, the detainees are not under US protection, but rather are incarcerated without charge or sentence. Fourth, on his second full day in office, President Obama publicly signed an executive order to suspend the proceedings of the Guantánamo military commission for 120 days and to close the detention facility within the year. He has not pledged to end the lease of Guantánamo Naval Base.
In November of last year, Raúl Castro explained to actor Sean Penn that he would be willing to discuss with President Obama the return of Guantánamo Bay to Cuba. He suggested that a mutual and neutral space for the meeting could be, ironically, Guantánamo Bay itself. Castro also voiced this opinion in the Russian press prior to his recent state visit, and the idea has been embraced by his brother Fidel Castro, who recently called for Obama to return Guantánamo to Cuba, arguing that the base was a violation of Cuban sovereignty. Cuban foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque and Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez have also publicly declared this view.
Obama, for his part, has indicated that he is keen to normalise US-Cuba relations. Yet he has also suggested that lifting the trade embargo, and easing the travel and remittance restrictions for Cuban-Americans, would only be possible after political reforms in Cuba – in particular, amnesty for political prisoners. Raúl Castro declares this to be tantamount to exhorting change in the Cuban political structure.
We have now entered the old game of tit-for-tat. The US accuses Cuba of imprisoning political opposition, while the Cuban Five remain behind bars in US penitentiaries. The US accuses Cuba of suppressing dissident voices, while Cuba points to the continuing human-rights abuses at Guantánamo. Cuba retains the label of “rogue state” and supporter of terrorism, while the US refuses to allow Luís Carriles Posada to be extradited. The game is a tired one, and shows no sign of ending.
Meanwhile, detainees in Guantánamo have recently declared a mass hunger strike, the embargo against Cuba is maintained, travel to Cuba by Cuban exiles remains restricted and expensive – and communication between Cuban and US leaders continues to be conducted through the intermediation of Hollywood actors.
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 March 2009 14.00 GMT