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Michael Parmley's 2013 Guantanamo Proposal
the fletcher forum
of world affairs
The Guantánamo Bay
Naval Base: The United
States and Cuba—Dealing with
A Historic Anomaly
Michael Parmly
PDF here https://web.archive.org/web/20140726114103/http://www.fletcherforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Parmly-FA.pdf
This paper is based on a pipe dream. It deals with a
political (international) reality
that nobody in a position of responsibility has seriously addressed. It raises a matter in which the
status quo is locked, seemingly permanently but certainly for the time
being, in rigid U.S. Congressional legislation.
It takes up a relationship between two countries—the United States and Cuba—that at this point can
hardly be said to exist at all. One can legitimately ask the question:
Why discuss the matter at all?
The answer is simple:
Guantánamo Bay is back in the news. As a result of a hunger strike by as
many as one hundred of the 166 detainees from
the anti-terrorist efforts of the last decade who are—held in the
various camps scattered around the
naval base, hardly a day goes by without an article
in the New York Times or another
major media outlet reporting or commenting on the detainees, their jailers, or the judicial
processes that for now
have kept the 166 on Cuban soil.1
The breadth of the movement focusing on the detainees at Guantánamo Bay has included UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay and International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) President Peter Maurer, as well as almost every major human rights NGO in the world. Maurer, newly elected this year to head the ICRC, made one of his first trips to Washington. There, Maurer met with, among others, President Obama, Secretary of Defense Hagel, and, in a first for an ICRC head, Congressional leaders, all with the purpose of discussing the detainees at Guantánamo.2
And whether or not the renewed world
attention was the reason, Obama himself took up the cause again in the spring of 2013, returning to a subject which had marked the
beginning of his presidency in January 2009. In an April 30, 2013 press conference devoted almost entirely
to the Syrian conflict, the
President went out of his way to comment— “emotionally,” as per one journalist; almost
certainly extemporaneously in any case—on
the status of the detainees. The President stated,
“It is critical for us to
understand that Guantánamo is not necessary to keep America safe. It
is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies
on counterterrorism efforts.
It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed.”3
More extensively, President Obama dedicated a
major portion of a May 23 speech at The National
Defense University (NDU) to the subject. Indeed, the New York Times editorial commenting on Obama’s remarks called it “the most important statement on
counterterrorism policy since the 9/11 attacks,” and “a turning
point in post-9/11 America.”4 In his May 23
speech, Obama returned to previous themes, but in stronger terms, saying that, “[Guantánamo] has become a
symbol around the world that America flouts the rule of law.”5 Obama lamented the fact that, “During a time of budget cuts, we spend $150
million each year to imprison 166 people—almost
$1 million per prisoner. And the Department of Defense estimates that we must spend another $200 million to keep GTMO (Guantánamo)
open.”6 Specifically
addressing the status of the detainees, Obama outlined six specific steps:
1. “. . .call on Congress
to lift the restrictions on detainee transfers from GTMO. . .I have
asked the Department of Defense to designate a
site where we can hold
military commissions;”
2. “. . .appointing a new senior envoy at (Departments of
State and Defense) whose sole
responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries;
3. “. . .lifting
the moratorium on detainee transfers
to Yemen, so that we can review them on a case-by-case basis;
4. “. . .to the extent possible, we will transfer detainees
who have been cleared to go
to other countries;
5. “where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice in our courts
and military justice system;
6.
“And we will insist that judicial review be
available for every detainee.”7
The problem is that in one public setting or another, President Obama has voiced those sentiments in the
past—perhaps never in such an environment,
perhaps never as comprehensively, perhaps never with as much determination. Clearly the fate of the hunger strikers
was a factor weighing on Obama’s mind and conscience, impelling him to action, but he was also conscious of the fact that he has been
stymied to date by partisan squab- bling in the United States. I know the politics are hard,” the President said in his NDU speech.
“But history will cast a harsh judgment
on this aspect of our fight against
terrorism, and those of us who fail to end it.”8
Yet in all the recent discussion and
commentary, only rarely is the discrete factoid—that the detainees are being held on soil that is ultimately subject to Cuban sovereignty—ever even
brought up. President Obama alluded to the fact in his May 23 remarks, but he was paying attention
to Guantánamo primarily because of the detainees. The renewed attention to their fate at Guantánamo Bay,
especially in light of the widespread hunger strike,
is understandable: people’s
lives may be at stake.
That atten tion is also a distraction, and
President Obama may be missing a key point. At its core, the question
is not how the United States is treating the 166 detainees. The central issue is
why the U.S. government feels it can
behave exactly as it wishes, on soil that has repeatedly—by legislative as well as judicial branches of the United
States—been affirmed as Cuban territory.9 Supreme Court
decisions over the past decade
have emphasized that the U.S. government cannot treat
individuals differently just because they are located in Guantánamo. Nonetheless, U.S. administrations—both Republican and Democratic—continue to
behave as if Guantánamo were in a separate universe.
To review the basic facts
on the status of Guantánamo: on its surface,
the
issue appears fairly cut and dry. The United States has been installed at Guantánamo Bay since 1898, and has
had so-called treaty rights to the soil
since 1903, under an accord signed with the then-Cuban government of President Tomás Estrada Palma.10 That accord, reached under dubious circumstances in the early years of the twentieth century, was then revised in
The fact is that the United States should not
be in Guantánamo Bay—at least not in
its current profile. Even leaving aside the uneven circumstances of the genesis of the base relationship, the
current treaty, dating from 1934,
leaves practically all initiative to stay or to go with the United
States. The treaty
has no termination clause. It stands as is until the two sides—but really just the United
States—agree(s) to modify its terms. There
is no other agreement governing a U.S. military presence on such lopsided terms anywhere else in the world.
At the same time, the United States
lacks even normal diplomatic relations with Cuba, and the bilateral relationship is among the most acrimonious
that Washington maintains with any country anywhere.
So why, one might legitimately ask, would any U.S. government want to modify
such favorable terms?
More recently, in late July 2013, Cuba again popped up
in the news, seeking to ship missiles
for repair and upkeep . . . to North Korea! One may fairly ask why the United States should make a deal
with Cuba, especially when it doesn’t have to. And back to the proposed
revision of the base’s status,
is it at all possible to make such a modification while still
protecting what are perceived as vital national
interests? This paper
deals with those
two ques tions.
The issue at hand is more than the status of
166 detainees. The fundamental matter is the U.S. Naval
Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and that base’s relationship with the government and the people of Cuba. What is the base used for? Guantánamo Bay was developed in the early years of the last century as a naval and a coaling
station for U.S. warships and to protect
access to the soon-to-be-built trans-isthmus canal. In the 110 years that the United States has occupied the forty-five square miles of base land, its mission
has evolved significantly. Most Americans—and much of the world’s population— primarily associate Guantánamo today with the holding of the
detainees from the anti-terrorist effort.
Most are probably
unaware that the base does anything more than that, even though at least two
other missions, assuring a U.S. naval presence
in the Caribbean, and processing migrant refugees, arguably are at least as important—if not as politically topical—as the first.
It is important, however, to discuss
Guantánamo Bay at this time because the status quo is a historical anomaly.
The reason for the persistence of
The United States retains key interests in its ability to continue to operate out of Guantánamo Bay, and the presence of the GWOT detainees is the most prominent—or certainly most high profile—of them. That will likely remain the case even after the United States returns control over the base to Cuba. Because make no mistake about it: that return will happen, sooner or later. The aim of this paper is to explore whether and how U.S. interests can be reconciled with Cuban operational sovereignty and overall control of the base.
THE ISSUE OF THE STATUS AND POSSIBLE
RETURN OF THE BASE
President Obama, in a January 2, 2013, statement attached
to his signature of the 2013 Defense
Authorization Act, reiterated his desire to close the detainee
facilities at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base.13 His earlier efforts to do so, so publicly proclaimed
on his second day on the job in 2009,
had over his first term run into overwhelming opposition, primarily in both houses of Congress, but also within
his own White House staff.14
However, despite public perceptions to the
contrary, and President Obama’s most recent statements notwithstanding, the
issue of Guantánamo Bay is
about much more than detainee facilities and prisoners from the global effort to combat terrorism. The
history of the Naval Base, with its complex
relations with the Cuban state on the soil of which the base sits, goes far beyond the question of the detainees. Guantánamo Bay Naval Base is not U.S. territory. Cuba is
the ultimate owner. That means that if we want to be truly democratic about the question,
the owners are the Cuban
people. Yet they have never been asked their opinion.
There is
another, fairly recent chapter of U.S. legislative history, dating from the last decade of the twentieth century, which specifically addresses the status
of the base. The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton
Act,15 is
regularly decried by the Cuban
Government as blatant
American interference in Cuban affairs.
At the same time, that piece of legislation acknowledges that the United
Although Fidel Castro
and his brother
Raul—who now governs
the island—have declared that the U.S. possession of Guantánamo Bay is illegal, awareness of Cuba’s limited
capacity to enforce a claim to the base has
been repeatedly stated since Fidel Castro took power on January 1, 1959. Both Castros have affirmed that Cuba
will not use force to recoup the
territory. (There was at least one attempt to pressure the U.S. into leaving, during the Cuban Missile Crisis,
when on October 28, 1962, an angry Fidel insisted—as one of his ‘conditions’ for
‘accepting’ the Kennedy- Khrushchev
Agreement—that “U.S. troops must be withdrawn from the Guantánamo Naval Base,
and that part of Cuban
territory occupied by the United
States must be returned.”17 The world’s relief at an agreement being reached on the
missiles themselves caused the Cuban’s conditions to be overlooked, and the status
quo has prevailed ever since.)
However, leaving aside the history and the politics of
the Guantánamo issue aside for just a moment, it is
useful to examine the logic of the U.S. presence at Guantánamo
Bay.
THE MISSIONS FOR A NAVAL
BASE AT GUANTÁNAMO
Beginning in the late nineteenth century, there were
three fundamental reasons for the United States’ desire to establish a base at Guantánamo Bay.
1. The United States
Navy sought coaling
stations to service
its rapidly expanding fleet, and Guantánamo Bay was a
prime piece of real estate, sitting
astride one of the main thoroughfares in the Caribbean.
2. Strategic American thinkers in the late nineteenth and
first years of the twentieth century
already were looking toward building a trans-
isthmus canal in Central America,
and were determined to have naval bases in the region
to help protect
such a vital facility.
3. The United States,
in the post-Civil War era, showed increasing self- confidence in
world affairs. As part of that evolving mindset, there grew a feeling, especially among naval strategists, that the
United States needed a military presence in the Caribbean.
The United States, wrapping up with the Cuban freedom fighters in 1898, the war to expel the
Spanish
colonial forces, took charge of Guantánamo Bay, and
the rest is history.
History, however, tends to move on. The U.S. Navy no longer runs
1. Detainees in
the Anti-terrorist Effort: Since late
2001, in the wake of the September
11 attacks and the U.S. military operations in Afghanistan which followed in October-December of that year, Guantánamo has been the chosen spot of the
U.S. Department of Defense for
housing and for attempting to conduct judicial procedures against (some
of) the detainees held in the anti-terrorist effort. As of July 2013, there remain
166 detainees.
2. Attempted Migrants: Since the migration crises in Cuba and then in Haiti starting in the early 1980s, Guantánamo Bay—and specifically the Migration Operation Center (MOC), established at the Naval Base in 2002—has served as the intermediate point for processing Cuban and Haitian refugees picked up on the high seas by the U.S. Coast Guard. While the refugee population on the base has risen as high as 45,000 (in 1994) and while the maximum capacity of refugee processing estimated by the U.S. military is 60,000, in recent years there have rarely been more than thirty to forty individuals awaiting U.S. government decision on eventual refugee re-settlement.
3. A
Permanent Naval Presence: Then-Combatant Commander for the U.S. Southern Command, General
Douglas Fraser, stated on March 6,
2012, in Congressional testimony, “(E)ven absent a deten- tion facility and even following the
eventual demise of the Castro regime,” it is important
that the U.S. maintain a physical presence
in the region.18 Inter alia, the rapidly expanding Chinese presence— presently commercial, but also featuring a
growing a diplomatic and strategic
component—in the Caribbean region presents U.S. strategists with a particularly salient imperative with regards to the
U.S. presence in Guantánamo.
THE PLATT AMENDMENT
AND THE CUBAN CONSTITUTION
It is one thing for the United States to examine
its own rationale(s) for maintaining Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. However, there is at least
The U.S. military helped Cuban insurgents
defeat Spanish colonial forces in
1898, and as a result the twentieth century began with a significant American military presence remaining on
the island. As conditions on the island stabilized, the McKinley and Roosevelt administrations proved willing to contemplate the removal of U.S. troops, but
only with fulfillment of certain firm
conditions. Those conditions included, principally, the insertion of the so-called Platt Amendment into the body of
the Cuban Constitution, giving the
United States oversight on Cuban government
actions, especially but not exclusively in the foreign policy area, that affected U.S. national interests. Also
included in the Platt Amendment, as Article VII, was
the following provision:
“To enable the United States
to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect
the people thereof,
as well as for its own defense,
the Government of Cuba will
sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain
specific points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United
States.”19
It would be hard to argue that Cuba arrived
freely at acceptance of the presence
of a U.S. military base on Cuban soil.20 Cuba’s struggle for independence
began in 1868, and led to three separate wars with Spain, each one bloody and destructive, before indigenous Cuban forces, with the help
of U.S. forces in 1898, were able to throw out the Spanish colonialists. The United States
only arrived in the final
months of the third war.
The issue of the Platt Amendment and its
related base agreement followed. In the end, it took three different
votes of the Cuban Constituent Assembly in 1901 to obtain approval of the Platt
Amendment and its Article VII, and, even then, the final vote was
anything but overwhelming. The Platt
Amendment passed in the Assembly by a vote of sixteen to eleven. According to one historian, nine of the
eleven negative votes came from eastern
Cuba, the region where the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base would be located.21 Cubans were never comfortable with the idea of an American base on their island.
U.S. pressure to
be allowed to stay. One explanation
was the willingness of the then-Cuban
leader, Fulgencio Batista, to let the United States keep its base,
in exchange for major U.S. concessions regarding U.S. imports of sugar, Cuba’s
export staple.
Why, the reader might ask, does this history
matter? The answer
is simple: the most common narrative
in the United States today is that the United States cannot return Guantánamo
to the Castros.
Yet opposition among Cubans
to the presence of the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base long predates the arrival of Fidel Castro to power in 1959. Indeed, opposition to the base is much stronger than his rhetoric or mere communist propaganda; it is intimately related to
CUBAN NATIONALISM: A LONG-STANDING SAGA
Numerous writers and historians have written at length
about the extent of Cuban nationalism across the decades
and indeed, centuries. The most in-depth
studies of this phenomenon are by Louis A. Perez of the University of North Carolina. Among Perez’ most extensive
analyses of Cuban nationalism is his classic,
On Becoming Cuban. Identity, Nationality and
Culture.22 Other contemporary writers who
have addressed the subject include
Rafael Rojas23 and Jorge Duany.24
These and other scholars explain that Cuban
nationalism—and the roots of Cuban identity—first formed in the nineteenth century,
primarily in opposition to Spanish colonial rule, especially its ever-harsher manifestations. Duany writes, “The Cuban people had acquired a unique spirit or soul,
The resultant outcome was not always felicitous.
There are numerous
Cuban figures, especially in the nineteenth century, who argued for a solid—and separate—Cuban identity, first vis- à-vis the Spanish colonial rulers, but also over time in relation
to the United States. Felix
Varela and Jose Marti are but two
prominent Cubans who even before the idea of a U.S. base on Cuban soil
was envisioned, argued for keeping
a respectable distance from Cuba’s huge neighbor to the north.26 Those two, often referred to as Founding Fathers of Cuba, would almost certainly have opposed
the presence of a U.S. military base on
Cuban soil.
More contemporaneously, Fidel’s attempts
to monopolize Cuban political
thought have instead given way to an
incipient rebirth of a more wide- spread and popular-based pride of all Cubans in determining their own future.
Pro-American attitudes on the
Admittedly,
the efforts of Fidel Castro
over the past five decades
to capture the nationalist rhetoric in Cuba’s history have met with some success, especially outside of Cuba, but
also on the island, and more powerfully
in the early years of the Castro revolution than as time has moved on. However, as Fidel’s star has
faded in recent years, the power of
Cuban nationalism has persisted. Indeed, some would argue that the sentiment has even strengthened. Rafael Rojas’
recent work, La Maquina del Olvido,28 argues against Fidel’s
monopolization of the nationalist ideal,
and recent evidence
gives power to that narrative. Emblematic figures such as
the recently-deceased activist Oswaldo Paya and former political prisoner Oscar Espinoza Chepe have not only
written their critical analyses from
the island, but they have also insisted that the perspective from the island—as opposed to from overseas—is the
most truly Cuban, the most authentic.
Renowned blogger Yoani Sanchez and her husband Reinaldo Escobar lived overseas but chose to return to Cuba, largely to
engage in the effort to democratize Cuba. Of the 59 political
prisoners released from
jail in 2011 as a result of the intervention of Cardinal Jaime Ortega, a dozen, including the most prominent
dissidents, eschewed the Cuban Government’s pressure to go into exile and instead
insisted on remaining in Cuba. Whatever
the view towards
the current government, there remains a pride
in being Cuban. And whosoever claims “Cuban pride” also makes a case for Guantánamo Bay returning to
Cuba.
The sentiment is perhaps
best incarnated by Yoani Sanchez,
who stated on at least one occasion on her recent world tour that “On Guantánamo, I am
a ‘civilist’, and am a person who wants to see the law respected, thus I cannot
be in agreement with (the existence of) a place that does not respect
the law.”29 Technically, Sanchez is wrong,
since the 1934 agreement gives the base a legal cover. Her point, nonetheless, is well-taken.
GETTING PAST ZERO-SUM
The challenge going forward is to get past a zero-sum situation. That is where
things stand at present. The U.S. government sees itself with
Of the two stakeholders, Cuba has a simpler aim: it wants its land back. Given the virtually non-existent state of bilateral relations, at first glance it appears that the two sides are going nowhere, and thus the United States, as the one holding the cards, gets to keep what it has. Facing the current situation, the U.S. government has two options:
1. Maintain the status quo. After all, that tactic has worked since at least 1959, if not in fact since 1903. The philosophy of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” could serve U.S. purposes for the indefinite future. Certainly the current fragile state of the Cuban economy is likely to restrain any adventurous engagement on the part of Havana to recuperate the base. The frigid state of U.S.-Cuban relations would make an initiative coming from Washington highly unusual. If nothing else, Cuba’s continued imprisonment of USAID contractor Alan Gross, serving a fifteen year sentence for crimes against the Cuban state and not due to be released until 2024, makes any such rapprochement between the two capitals a non-starter, at least for now.
2. Seek to accommodate the American presence in Guantánamo Bay to the evolving reality of the Cuban populace, and plan for the future. The current frozen state of U.S. relations with Cuba will not last indefinitely. At the beginning of President Obama’s second term, there have already been initiatives and proposals, admittedly from outside the Administration but from elements with close ties to the White House, pressing for improved relations. There have even been hints of a possible pardon by Raul Castro of Alan Gross, which could produce a break in the bilateral logjam. An initiative on Guantánamo Bay—one foreseen in the 1996 Helms-Burton legislation—would be one method to respond to such a hypothetical gesture by Raul.
THE PANAMA CANAL TREATIES AS A PRECEDENT
FOR GUANTÁNAMO BAY
Lest the idea of a negotiated return of the Guantánamo Base be seen as a scarcely achievable scenario, it is important to recall that there is a firm precedent for this action in recent American history.
In 1977, the United
There is much to recommend the Panama Canal Treaties as an example for dealing with Guantánamo Bay.
1. In the process of negotiating the Panama Canal Treaties, the United States first formally and explicitly recognized Panama as the “territorial sovereign.”
2. The United States then received back from Panama, “for the dura- tion of this treaty, the rights necessary to regulate the transit of ships through the Panama Canal, and to manage, operate, maintain, improve, protect and defend the Canal.”
3. The core treaty states that “the Republic of Panama guarantees to (the United States) the peaceful use of land and water areas which it has been granted the right to use for such purposes” pursuant to the treaty.
4. The treaty foresees that Panama “shall participate increasingly in the management and protection and defense of the Canal.”
5. Finally, “In view of the special relationship established by this Treaty,” the United States and Panama “shall cooperate to assure the uninterrupted and efficient operation of the Panama Canal.”30
A critical aspect of the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties was its neutrality provisions. Specifically, the Carter-Torrijos Agreements include an entirely separate treaty devoted exclusively to the issue of the neutrality of the waterway. In that adjunct Agreement, Article I declares that the Canal will be “permanently neutral.” Article II adds that the Canal’s neutrality would be maintained “both in time of peace and in time of war” and that the Canal “shall remain secure and open to peaceful transit by vessels of all nations on terms of entire equality.” Article III goes so far as to state that “1.(e) Vessels of war and auxiliary vessels of all nations shall at all times be entitled to transit the Canal, irrespective of their internal operation, means of propulsion, origin, destination or armament, without being subjected, as a condition of transit, to inspection, search or surveillance.”31
The Panama Canal treaties were, however, made by possible by the altogether stronger ties between the United States and Panama. These two countries, after all, have enjoyed long and stable diplomatic relations for over one hundred years—whereas the United States and Cuba have not had diplomatic relations since January 1961. Even at times of bilateral tension, the United States and Panama enjoyed full diplomatic ties.
The United States and Cuba are represented only by “Interest Sections” in the capital of the other, and that arrangement has only prevailed since 1977 when Jimmy Carter entered the White House, determined to try to improve bilateral ties. Panama was virtually created by the United States for the specific purpose of building a Canal across the isthmus of Panama. Cuba was also emerging into independence at that same time, but its citizens had a much more rich tradition, deeper and more extensive roots, anda much clearer sense of themselves as a country and a people. Finally, lest one forget, whereas the Panama Canal is a truly international waterway through which pass the ships of many nations on earth, Guantánamo Bay is merely a port with two small adjoining airstrips. Panama has a vital interest in the Canal staying open, inter alia, to maximize its collection of toll income from ships passing through the waterway. Cuba has no such incentive with respect to Guantánamo Bay.
It thus stands to reason that in negotiating the 1977 Panama Canal Treaties, both sides showed consider- able understanding of the constraints on the other side. The United States worked very hard to maintain the best possible relations with Panama, but the Government of Panama as well acted in recognition of the importance it attached to maintaining these ties. Panama was fully conscious of the importance of keeping the Canal, so vital to world commerce, open to all nations and functioning. It thus had a concrete incentive to seek satisfac tory solutions to problems which arose in the negotiations.
For all the above reasons, a comparable arrangement would be difficult to envision for Guantánamo Bay. If the United States were to give up its current control of the Bay, it should not be to have another country—be it China, Russia, Venezuela or any other nation—take its place. The base would be for Cuba, and Cuba alone, to control.
Nonetheless, there are important positive
parallels between the two situations.
From a strategic perspective, the Panama Canal was an important American asset—like Guantánamo Bay.
In Panama as in Cuba, there was no
necessary condition, such as a sunset clause in the treaty estab- lishing United States possession of the
Canal Zone, forcing the United States
to leave. In both cases—the Panama Canal and Guantánamo—the President
would have to muster considerable political courage, and no small amount of Congressional arm-twisting. However, in both the Presidencies of Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, respect for the sentiments of
other countries and peoples has been
a hallmark. It was a conscious decision of
the U.S. government to hand back the Panama Canal, stretching across two Administrations, Republican and
Democrat. The current partisan tensions
on the Hill ensure that it would be an uphill climb, but it is the thesis of this paper that a similar bold
step, akin to the Panama Canal, is called for regarding Guantánamo.
WHAT AN APPROACH
TO CUBA ON GUANTÁNAMO BAY WOULD LOOK LIKE
This article has identified three American strategic
interests in Guantánamo Bay. In each case, there are
ways the United States could defend
its vital interests even while turning the base over to the Cuban Government.
I. Projecting a U.S. military and strategic presence in the Caribbean region: Negotiate a base rights agreement for continued access of U.S. military assets.
The aim would be to ensure that the Navy
continues to have a facility out of
which to conduct “presence” operations in the Caribbean and beyond. The Pentagon, and in particular, the Department of the Navy,
would need to identify what it believes it requires in terms of military profile.
The presence could be some permanently fixed assets, but keeping in mind budgetary
considerations in the United States,
it might be wiser to leave
a limited core skeleton on a permanent basis, with a supplementary, rotating presence as circumstances dictate. Both the Navy and, in conjunction, the U.S. Coast Guard would be required to identify their manpower and hardware expectations. Data such as
fuel storage capacity and hangar space, as well as expected average
monthly flights and ship visits,
should be developed.
What the U.S. government would need to do is
to sit down and negotiate a standard base agreement32 with the Cuban authorities. The
II. Ensuring a location from which to conduct migrant recuperation and processing activities: Work out a new agreement with the Cuban government, or failing that, find a different location for the Migrant Operations Center.
While the detainee mission at Guantánamo Bay is clearly the most high profile at present, from a juridical perspective, the migrant processing task arguably remains at least as sensitive. In a non-crisis time such as currently prevails, the burden of taking care of an average of some thirty migrants at the base is manageable. However, the legal issues involved with refugee processing are such that even if there were only a handful of intended migrants awaiting reprocessing, that handful technically raises the same issues as if there were 45,000 individuals (the maximum number ever retained at the base) being held.
The key question is this: on a base where operational control had passed to the Government of Cuba, what guarantees could be put in place to ensure that the potential migrants—especially if they were intended Cuban migrants—would not be mistreated by the Cuban authorities while awaiting resettlement?
At the end of the day, for this proposal to work, the genuine cooperation of the two governments would be necessary, and while that is asking for a great deal, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. On the migration issue specifically, the United States already has such an arrangement with the Cuban government. Under the current Migration Accords, dating from 1994, Cuban authorities are committed to ensure humane treatment of Cubans who are picked up by U.S. Coast Guard vessels while attempting to flee the island and returned to the Cuban port of Mariel, to the west of Havana. At a minimum, the returnees are not supposed to suffer any retribution at the hands of Cuban authorities merely for the fact that they attempted to emigrate without Cuban government permission. That is under an agreement at which both sides freely arrived, and which has been in place for almost twenty years.
The United States and Cuba have regularly disagreed on the extent to which the Cuban side has respected the Migration Accords. However, the announcement by Havana in November 2012 of a major modification in the previous requirement for Cubans to obtain an exit visa in order to travel abroad could represent a change in the Cuban government mindset. Taking effect on January 14, 2013, the new Cuban regulations require only that a citizen possess a valid passport and a visa for the country to which that citizen proposes to travel. The Cuban authorities cautioned before the new rules went into effect that there would be some restrictions, such as for certain categories of professions, and national security clauses. The Cuban authorities have still not been fully clear as to the specific provisions of the regulations. Withal, in the months since the new rules took effect, the Cuban government has indicated that even such sensitive professions as doctors would not necessarily be restricted from travel. Other categories, such as dissidents, have been able to travel abroad and then to return to their Cuban homeland. It is conceivable that the day may be coming when Cubans will no longer need to consider taking to the seas in rafts or “fast boats” to leave their country.
At the end of the day, for the purposes of
Guantánamo Bay Naval Base and the Migrant
Operations Center, it is the sentiments of the Cuban people
themselves, not the attitude of the Cuban government that matter the most. If Cubans continue
to feel themselves oppressed by their government,
for whatever reason,
they will continue
to flee, and thus at least some will continue
to be picked up on the high seas by the Coast Guard. At least some of them—those who are found to have
a legitimate fear of persecu tion—will continue
to be brought to Guantánamo Bay’s MOC.
There are two potential solutions to the dilemma.
The United States
could find another
location in the Caribbean region to locate
their migrant operating facilities. Alternatively, it
could negotiate with Cuban authorities
an even more airtight agreement ensuring the rights and wellbeing of Cubans brought back to the island. In the
latter case, the new attitude of the
Cuban authorities, should it persist, could augur well for an eventual solution to the migrant issue.
III. Dealing with the detainees in the worldwide
anti-terrorist effort: Transfer the bulk of the
detainees to U.S.-based prisons for trial or
release, while keeping—on the basis of an agreement with the Cuban government—in a U.S.-run facility
at Guantánamo the forty-six determined to require continued
detention to protect
against a significant threat to the security of the United
States.
As part of a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report issued
on November 28, 2012, a complete review of the 166 Guantánamo detainees was undertaken.33 Using authoritative Department of Defense data, the Report
broke the detainees down into six categories.
n Thirty are detainees for whom the Department of State is in current or planned negotiations with the detainees’ home country or a third country.
n Fifty-six are in conditional detention from Yemen,
and require either
a stabilization of conditions there or relocation to a third country.
n Twenty-four are still facing
possible prosecution.
n Three
have been convicted in military
commissions.
n Seven are facing such prosecution in the foreseeable future.
In a sixth category are what one might call
“the problem cases.” According to the
GAO Report, the forty-six individuals in this category are defined as “Detainees who have been determined to require continued
detention to protect against a significant threat to the security of the United States.” This category is not
necessarily “the worst of the worst.” For example,
Khalid Sheikh Mohamed,
one of the supposed masterminds of the 9/11 attacks, is not in this group, and is already the
subject of full- blown judicial
proceedings. As noted above, three of the “worst of the worst” have already been tried and convicted by military
commissions, while another seven
(including five accused of planning the September 11 attacks) have formal charges pending and face potential trials
by military commissions. No, this
category of forty-six individuals will not, for the foreseeable and even distant future, see the light of day.34 The question is where the forty-six would
be detained, and if necessary, whether they could
be kept in Guantánamo Bay.
First, what to do with the other 120
detainees in Guantánamo? In presenting
the GAO Report on November 28, 2012, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Chairperson of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, excoriated the U.S. government for not making further progress
in bringing the detainees to trial. She went further,
listing the number
of individuals—373, in ninety-eight prisons—who had been tried
and sentenced, and are serving time for terrorist
offenses in the United States. She cited at
least six detention centers—in Virginia, South Carolina, California, Washington, and two in Kansas—with more
than enough capacity to house all the
Guantánamo detainees. Moreover, she noted, Guantánamo Bay detention facilities are costing the U.S. taxpayer $114
million each year to maintain.35 And since Feinstein’s 2012 report, the U.S. Department of Defense has requested from Congress approximately $195.7
million to upgrade the detention
facilities in Guantánamo.36
President Obama, like President Bush before
him, has emphasized the determination of the U.S. government to close the Guantánamo Bay
Many could not be happier if all 166
detainees were to leave the island of
Cuba, which clearly is President Obama’s desire, judging from his words on May 23 at NDU. Regrettably,
that outcome will prove difficult, the President’s wishes
notwithstanding. Obama foresees
the bulk—at least 120—being moved to U.S. prisons,
eventually put on trial, or transferred
either to their home countries or to a third country. In June 2013, Obama announced the nomination of a new
Coordinator at the State Department
to oversee the effort to move the detainees off the island of Cuba and to third countries. Even more
significantly, new legislation has been
introduced in Congress that would ease the tight restrictions on the Obama administration’s ability
to move detainees
off the island of Cuba.37 However, the language in the draft bill currently in
Congress does not differ significantly from that inserted
into the 2013 Defense Authorization Act. In addition, the 120 detainees who are the new
Coordinator’s focus may or may not
have committed acts of terrorism at the time they were detained. In any case, they are not the crux of the problem.
The U.S. government will have to decide what
it wants to do with the 120. President
Obama’s May 23 speech lays out a desired path, but Congress’ acceptance is anything but a foregone conclusion.
There will continue to be a need for
difficult decisions of the Executive Branch,
including possibly acknowledging grave errors—e.g., awareness of other countries’ behavior towards the detainees
prior to their arrival in U.S. custody; acknowledgement of awareness on the part of U.S. personnel of mistreatment and even torture of
those individuals; and U.S. involvement in secret detention centers around the world. The GAO report
cited above foresees
a variety of alternative courses
of action for the bulk of the detainees.
One can only hope that such an outcome is produced at the earliest
possible time.
GUANTÁNAMO BAY
AND THE FORTY-SIX
The problem, when it comes to Guantánamo Bay, remains the forty- six detainees. Whether or not it is those
forty-six individuals who were identified
by the U.S. Congress in 2011, in its authorization to “reaffirm the authority of the Department of Defense
to maintain United States Naval Station,
Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as a location for the detention
of
In mid-2012, there were already over eighty
pieces of legislation introduced in
Congress restricting one aspect or another of the Executive branch’s freedom of movement
of the detainees on and, more importantly, off the base.
By the end of the 112th Congress in late December
2012, the Administration was
able to gain for itself considerable flexibility in terms of transfer
of Guantánamo detainees
to foreign countries
or entities, which would obviously facilitate closing
the detainee facilities. It was able to consolidate (and frankly dilute)
a number of the provisions contained in the National
Defense Authorization Act of 2013.39
Nevertheless, the continued presence of
multiple restrictions on the Administration’s
ability to manage the detainee issue provoked President Obama to lay down a firm marker objecting strenuously to what
the White House saw as a legislative overstepping of constitutional bounds
and treading on executive prerogatives. Even before his May 23 NDU speech,
and in fact in his January 2, 2013, signing statement, Obama stated his firm opposition to the provision
blocking the transfer
of detainees to the
United States. “[Such a provision] substitutes the Congress’s blanket political
determination for careful
and fact-based determinations, made by counterterrorism and law-enforcement professionals of when and where to prosecute Guantánamo detainees.” President Obama’s
statement concluded that
“Congress designed these sections and has here renewed them once more, in order to foreclose my ability to
shut down the Guantánamo Bay detention
facility. I continue to believe that operating the facility weakens our national security
by wasting resources, damaging our relationship with key allies,
and strengthening our enemies. My Administration will interpret these provisions as consistent with existing and future determinations by agencies of the Executive
responsible for detainee
transfers.”40
Would the Obama administration be able to
close the detainee facilities in
Guantánamo Bay and move all 166 detainees to the United States or elsewhere in the world? Such an effort would be an
enormous undertaking, requiring the
physical, and more importantly, the political
decision-making and the moral capacity of the Administration and the Congress combined. Despite President
Obama’s recently re-stated intention of closing the detention facilities, he may not be able to do that. Some of the detainees may simply remain
at Guantánamo Bay for lack of a more conducive political option.
THE ESCAPE CLAUSE
Barring an ability to close Guantánamo Bay detention facilities, could the detainees be kept there? New York Times journalist Dan Klaidman, in his book Kill or Capture,41 wrote that, “At some level, it was widely accepted within the Administration that some form of long-term detention, at least for a subset of Guantánamo prisoners, would be necessary. It was even contemplated in the Guantánamo executive order . . . Some would be transferred to other countries, some would be prosecuted, and still others, like the Uighurs, would be released. But close readers of the document also noticed [then-White House Legal Adviser] Greg Craig’s artful use of the phrase ‘other dispositions,’ which signaled that some number of detainees would almost certainly have to be held indefinitely.”42
One possibility would be to keep a portion, e.g., the forty-six detainees, at Guantánamo Bay. Even if Guantánamo Bay Naval Base were to be turned over to the Cuban Government, it is conceivable that Washington could negotiate with Havana an agreement giving the United States the ability to operate detention facilities on a Cuban base. The author of this paper believes it is worth a try to approach Raul Castro himself, on a discreet basis, to propose that the Cuban government allow the United States to maintain its detainee facilities, with the forty-six detainees, for the indefinite future on what is currently the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base.
What makes such an option conceivable? A single person, Raul Castro.
On January 19, 2002, Raul Castro, then-Cuban Defense
Minister—and as such the second-ranking
official in the Cuban hierarchy—convoked the
Cuban and international press to the hillside overlooking the Guantánamo Bay base facilities. Unlike his older
brother, who had already begun to grumble
publicly about the U.S. detention facilities being set up, Raul evinced surprisingly mild acceptance and
even understanding to the U.S. military
plans. Raul first emphasized to the press an earlier offer from the Cuban government for help with
“eliminating pests, (providing) medical aid
. . . and other services” needed in tending to the detainees.43 However, Raul Castro did not stop there.
He went on in the press conference to recall the “minimum cooperation links to deal
with problems that sprang up,” and described for the journalists the “atmosphere of
cooperation, of mutual respect and collaboration” between the United States and Cuba on the oper- ations
surrounding Guantánamo.44 Finally, Raul concluded, “According to
U.S. authorities’ statements, (the U.S. military) will
follow all the norms established by the International Red Cross [the ICRC] regarding the treat- ment
of prisoners and have invited that
organization to come to the base.
They have declared that the necessary reinforcements do not imply a danger or threat to the zone’s stability. We believe them; we understand that it is logical, if a specific number of prisoners are to be brought to the base—over which, as we have already said here we have no jurisdiction—then they have to bring in more personnel.”45
It is hard to conceive
of Raul repeating
those same assurances today. Certainly the
repeated reports of abuse at U.S facilities, in Guantánamo and elsewhere worldwide, would make the Cubans highly
skeptical of U.S. pledges to respect human rights norms. At the same time, Cuba itself has a long record of human rights abuses, including being
the subject of repeated condemnations
at the highest levels of UN human rights bodies. It might be just the time for the United States
to approach Cuba to explore the subject. Both sides would have an
interest.
If in the end it should prove impossible to move all or even some of the forty-six detainees off the
island, it is the hypothesis of this paper that
Raul Castro, who has spoken out regularly on the topic of terrorism, might be amenable to an approach by U.S.
authorities. The proposal would be
that the United States would retain custody of a sub-set of the 166 detainees, e.g., the forty-six. The
U.S. authorities would maintain the operational
control of the detainees, in an American facility managed by Americans, but on fully Cuban soil, on a
base that has been handed back to
Cuba.
Even more than with the first two strategic
missions mentioned heretofore, there
would be the most stringent of requirements necessary in order to carry off the detainee mission. As mentioned above,
Cuba is a country that has never had a decent human rights record.
Certainly before the current regime came to power, but
even more so since 1959, Cuba’s human
rights record has been lamentable. It is not just successive United States governments that have criticized
Cuba’s behavior. Independent sources such as Human Rights Watch,
as well as official UN bodies, have repeatedly denounced Cuba’s
treatment of its own citizens. In one more
demonstration of the heightened sensitivity of Cuban nationalism, the ICRC has no permanent presence in
Cuba, primarily because of the absence
of an agreement allowing ICRC access to Cuban jails. Ironically, the only permanent ICRC presence on the
island is at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base.
At the same time, the United States
is hardly perceived as having a stellar record when it comes to its
respect for human rights within the Guantánamo base. The United
States, because of the way it is perceived to have behaved
since 2001, has also left a lasting
impression, one that will be
What would help would be a presence
at the facility—and better yet, two presences—that would advertise
to the world that something significant had changed. That visibility could consist of a reinforced ICRC presence, teamed with the presence of a team from the
Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). The
latter is a highly political body. Its High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, has been harshly critical of the United
States and of Cuba for the perfor- mance
of each, especially (in the case of Guantánamo Bay) of the United States. The level of teaming up of the
ICRC and OHCHR would tell the world
that both countries—the United States and Cuba—have been put on their guard.
Because of the factor mentioned above, of the
ICRC having no formal agreement with
the Cuban Government, at least three preliminary steps would be necessary. First, the ICRC would need to conclude a bilateral agreement with the Government of
Cuba normalizing the relations between
those two parties.
Second, the ICRC and OHCHR need to formalize their relations with Cuba on protocols regarding
access to the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facilities. Third, both international bodies would then need to fortify their presences, in order to
be able to credibly pass judgment
on—and then to tell the world—how the U.S. is
performing and to render its views on how Cuba itself is behaving. The ICRC in particular might initially be uncomfortable with such a public and highly political role. However, the
benefit—in terms of removing what is
perceived as one of the world’s biggest human rights eyesores— should be the positive incentive to the
International Committee of the Red Cross.
How long would such a protocol be expected to
last? Certainly at least until all the detainees had evacuated the Guantánamo Facilities. If the sources reporting on the current trials
underway in Guantánamo Bay are any indication, it may be years, and in some cases possibly
decades. That is the price one is obliged to pay.
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND CONCLUSION
What this article proposes, then, is for the U.S.
government to approach its Cuban
counterpart to engage a negotiation on the future status of the base, of all forty-five square miles of it. This
article does not take issue with any
of the current three main missions of the base. All three of those missions—keeping detainees
from the anti-terrorist efforts; preserving
a migrant processing facility; and maintaining a base to ensure long-term
U.S. Navy presence
in the Caribbean—would remain intact,
ad ref. The one thing that
would change would be the treaty basis for the
United States to conduct those same missions. The negotiations proposed
would not be simple, easy or brief.
Neither are they impossible.
Some have argued that such a bold step is likely only to follow a gradual improvement in bilateral U.S.-Cuban ties, whenever that may occur. Others certainly would make the case that Guantánamo is an important U.S. asset that should only be relinquished in exchange from some significant concession on the part of the Cuban government. Still others would posit that in the sharply divided political environment that defines Washington at the present time, it is simply unrealistic to envision such a step. Since it always “takes two to tango,” there will also be reluctance on the part of many in Cuba’s government to engage with the long-hostile U.S. government. Finally, there is no guarantee that the traditionally fractious Cuban opposition would unanimously welcome such a move, which can easily be portrayed as a gift to Raul Castro.
Those are all sound, logical arguments. They are also short-sighted. Most importantly, such arguments ignore the imperatives for the United States to build a long-term relationship not just with a specific government, but with a people who have always been close to the United States, but who also want their own “space” to evolve on the world stage.
The United States in the past has not always shown
appropriate sensi
At the present time, to almost everyone around the world, evoking the name “Guantánamo” triggers an anti-American diatribe. Following the path outlined in this paper could start to convert that negativity into an asset. It would underline U.S. respect for the identity of other countries and peoples.
ENDNOTES
1
See Charlie Savage, “Despair Drives Guantánamo Detainees to Revolt,” The New York Times,
April 25, 2013, A1. See also Samir Naji and Hasan Moqbel, “Gitmo Is Killing Me,” The New York Times, April 15, 2013, A19. For a sample
of reporting, see The New York Times, April 22, 2013; April 28, 2013; May 2, 2013.
2
See Luis Lema, “Guantanamo, Le Boulet d’Obama,”
Le Temps, April 17, 2013.
3
Barack
Obama, Press Conference, April 30, 2013,
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/ photos-and-video/video/2013/04/30/president-obama-holds-news-conference> (accessed April 30, 2013).
4
Barack
Obama, Remarks made at National
Defense University, May 23, 2013, <www. whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-barack-obama> (accessed August 1, 2013).
5
Ibid.
6
Ibid.
7
Ibid.
8
Ibid.
9
See The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity
Act of 1996, H.R. 927, Title II, Section 201 (12).
10
See “Agreement Between the United States
and Cuba for the Lease of Lands for Coaling
and Naval stations,” February 23, 1903, TS no. 418, <http://avalon.law. yale.edu/20th_century/dip_cuba002.asp>.
See also “Lease to the United States by the
Government of Cuba of Certain Areas of Land and Water for Naval or Coaling Stations in Guantanamo and Bahia Honda,”
July 2, 1903, <http://avalon.law.yale. edu/20th_century/dip_cuba003.asp>.
11
See U.S. Department
of State, “Relations,” May 29, 1934, TS no. 866.
12
Fidel Castro, Guantánamo:
Why the Illegal
US Base Should
Be Returned to Cuba
(Melbourne: Ocean Press, 2011
13
Barack
Obama, “Statement by the President on H.R. 4310,”
January 3, 2013, <http:// www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/03/statement-president-hr-4310>.
14
See
Dan Klaidman, To Kill or
Capture: The War on Terror and
the Soul
of the
Obama Presidency, (Boston/New York: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt, 2012).
15
The Cuban Liberty and Democratic
Solidarity Act of 1996, H.R. 927, Title II, Section 201 (12).
16
Ibid.
17 Julio Garcia Luis, ed, Cuban Revolutionary Reader: A Documentary
History of Fidel Castro’s Revolution, Garcia (Melbourne: Ocean
Press, 2008), 164.
18 U.S. House of Representatives, Armed
Services Committee, Hearing on the National
Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 before the Committee on
Armed Services, 112th Cong.,
2nd sess., March
6, 2012, 105.
19
“The Platt
Amendment,” Article VII, Available at <https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/ intrel/platt.htm>.
20
For differing historical accounts of the
period, see Foreign Relations of the
United States 1902, No. 298, p. 361;
Stephen Schwab, Guantánamo, USA: The Untold History of America’s Cuban Outpost, (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas,
2009), 82-88; Hugh Thomas, Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom, (New York, Harper and Row: 1971), 450-454.
21
Schwab, 88.
22
Louis A. Perez, On Becoming Cuban: Identity, Nationality and
Culture, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina
Press, 2008).
23 Rafael Rojas,
La Maquina del Olvido:
Mito, historia y poder en Cuba, Santillana Ediciones Generales, Mexico DF, 2012
24
Jorge Duany, “Cuban Thought and Cultural Identity. Populism, Nationalism, and Cubania,” in Encyclopedia of Cuba: People,
History, Culture, Luis
Martínez Fernández, ed., (Greenwood Press, 2003).
25
Ibid, 109, 116.
26
Regarding Marti, see Jose Marti, “Obras
Completas, Vol I”, pp. 271-273. See also Thomas,
p. 298, 310, 317. Regarding Varela, the following quote is telling: “I am the first one who is against
the union of (Cuba) to any foreign
Government. I wish Cuba to be as much an island politically as
it is by nature.” Cited by Rafael Abislaiman,
Padre Felix Varela Foundation, Miami, leaflet, 2012, p. 3.
27
Perez, 13.
28 Rafael
Rojas, “La Maquina del Olvido: Mito, Historia
y Poder en Cuba,” Editorial
Taurus, Mexico City, 2012.
29
Yoani Sanchez, quoted on “El Blog de Yohandry,” May 1, 2013, <www.yohandry. com>.
30
“Texts of the Panama Canal Treaties with United States Senate Modifications,” Library of Congress, Available at < http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/panama/pa_appnb.html>.
31
“Treaty Concerning the Permanent Neutrality and Operation of the Panama Canal,”
The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Jan., 1978), 238-241.
32
One need only look as far as the
political difficulties of negotiating agreements regarding the presence of U.S. military forces with Japan, over
Okinawa; or with Tajikistan, over the
use of military facilities in Manas, to appreciate how complicated negotiating agreements -- even with
allies and partners -- can be. While this would certainly be the case with Cuba, for military use accords, the
Japanese and Tajikistan examples are
probably the most useful. For more on Japan and Okinawa, see: Treaty of Mutual Co-operation Security,
US-Japan, Jan. 19, 1960, 373 U.N.T.S. I-5320
http://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20373/v373.pdf For more on Kyrgyzstan and Manas, see: “Agreement Between the United States
of America and the Kyrgyz
Republic: Defense Cooperation,” May 13, 2009, <http://www.state.gov/ documents/organization/184115.pdf>.
33
“Guantánamo Bay Detainees: Facilities
and Factors for Consideration if Detainees Were Brought to the United States,” Government Accountability Office Report, November
28, 2012.
34
Ibid.
35
Senator
Dianne Feinstein, Press Release, November
28, 2012, “Feinstein Releases GAO Report on U.S. Alternatives to Guantanamo Bay Prison,” <http://www.fein- stein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=617e2735-349d-447c-8fc6- 78d2a3a00bc5>.
36
Charlie Savage, “Funds Sought for New
Guantanamo Jail,” The New York Times, March 21, 2013, sec. U.S., http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/22/us/funds-sought- for-new-guantanamo-jail.html.
37
Charlie
Savage, “Bill to Ease Transfers
of Guantanamo Detainees
Moves Through Senate,” The New York Times, June 24, 2013, sec. U.S. /Politics, http://www.nytimes. com/2013/06/25/us/bill-allowing-guantanamo-detainees-to-be-moved-advances. html.
38
Detaining Terrorists to Secure America Act of 2011 (Introduced in Senate), S.944.IS,
112th Cong. (2011).
http://thomas.loc.gov./cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.944.IS
39
See Section
1022, National Defense Authorization Act of 2013,
HR 4310, available
at < http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr4310enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr4310enr. pdf>.
40
Barack
Obama, “Statement by the President on H.R. 4310,”
January 3, 2013, <http:// www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/01/03/statement-president-hr-4310>.
41
See Klaidman, 2012.
42 Ibid., 127.
43
“Interview with Raul Castro,” Granma (English), January 19, 2002, <http://www. granma.cu/documento/ingles02/002.html>.
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid.
46
Senate draft bill 1046, “To require the
detention at United States Naval Station, Guantánamo
Bay, Cuba, of high value enemy combatants who will be detained long- term”,
introduced in the U.S. Senate on May 23, 2011, sub-paragragh (7), Available at < http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:S.1046.IS:>.
Ben Rhodes and Alejandro Castro applied theory to practice https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2021/06/ben-rhodes-and-alejandro-castro-on.html