Under the terms of the 1903 treaty, Cuba retains ultimate sovereignty over the territory. This agreement allows the United States to do anything necessary, "to fit the premises for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose." The construction of permanent detention facilities by the United States in 2002 to house prisoners from the wars in the Middle East makes the original lease voidable. Camp Delta is definitely not a naval brig of any plausible description. Cubans view the lease as void from ab initio since it was obtained under duress and threat of continued military occupation. After the war in 1899 the US occupied the island to quash insurrection, reducing it to a virtual colony before installing a friendly government. Now that the Current Occupant has made belated overtures to normalize relations between the two nations, the question of the continued occupation of Guantanamo Bay cannot be avoided.
President Raul Castro, 83, brother of the Commandante, seized the historical moment by demanding at a recent Latin American summit meeting that Guantanamo be returned to Cuba as part of any rehabilitation of bilateral relations. He also asked for compensation for the damage done to the Cuban economy by the United States' fifty-year trade embargo. One would think that the Current Occupant's promise to close the gulag would coincide partly with Cuba's demands--NOT--for several reasons. While the number of releases and relocations has increased recently, there are still over a 100 prisoners in the detention camp. A conservative Congress operating under antique notions of patriotism has made it illegal to house the remaining prisoners on the mainland. Few other countries are willing to take the human remains of jihad in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those that are willing to repatriate their nationals are immersed in Islamic insurrection, so the objection that harden extremists may return to the battle zone is in a few cases legitimate. Congress has refused to fund the gulag's closure; perhaps they would fund reopening Alcatraz?
Whether Cuba's demand to close an active US military base will undermine the initiative begun on December 17th remains to be seen. There are many right-wing ideologues in the US government and military that resist any change in relations with "Marxist types". Fidel Castro, who is in good health at age 89 [2014 photo], wrote a letter to a student organization endorsing the high-level talks to end one of the last anachronisms of the Cold War. He said while he "does not trust United States' politics", he will not reject an opportunity to restore peace and prosperity. The revolutionary leader survived multiple assassination plots by the CIA during his presidency*. Viva Fidel!*See e.g. Operation Mongoose, a CIA operation to destabilize Cuba and overthrow Fidel Castro was approved by the Kennedy administration. This hostile policy had its roots in the Eisenhower administration that in 1960 approved covert raids, sabotage, and training of a guerrilla force to be use against the communist government. The effort had an initial budget of $13 million. The American Mafia, which had lost confiscated assets in Cuba, was brought in to the covert effort to overthrow the revolution by Allen Dulles, then Director of CIA. The operation had its headquarters at CIA's JM/WAVE station in Miami; head of the station was agent Ted Shackley. The operation was the directed responsibility of General Edward Landsdale, a trusted Kennedy military advisor. It was this covert US effort that prompted Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev to send Castro military aid to stave off the expected attack. The aid eventually included ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. Several prominent Kennedy assassination investigators conclude that it was this Mafia connection and the abject failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion that eventually blewback and resulted in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. US Person agrees with this revision of official history. {05.12.06 Dead Kennedys II, III, Epilogue}