Vigorous
Rejection of Use of Prison at Guantánamo Bay
to
Incarcerate
Migrants
Cuba Rejects U.S. Decision
More
than 50,000 Cubans gathered and raised high the Cuban flag in
Guantánamo, February 26, 2025, demanding the U.S. relinquish
its
occupation and leave the Cuban territory it seized in 1903.
The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued the following statement on January 29.
Cuba rejects the decision announced by the President of the United States to use the Guantánamo Naval Base to imprison tens of thousands of migrants he has proposed to forcibly expel. It is a demonstration of the brutality with which that government is acting to supposedly correct problems created by the economic and social conditions of that country, the government's own management and its foreign policy, including hostility towards countries of origin.
Many of the people that the United States is expelling or intends to expel are victims of the government's own plundering policies and meet the labor needs that have historically existed in agriculture, construction, industry, services and various sectors of the U.S. economy. Others are the result of facilities at the border to enter the country, of selective, politically motivated regulations that welcome them as refugees, and also of the socioeconomic damage caused by unilateral coercive measures.
A significant portion contribute and have contributed to the economy of that country. They are employed, have homes, have created families and have planned their respective lives in the United States.
The territory where it is proposed to confine them does not belong to the United States. It is a portion of Cuban territory in the eastern province of Guantánamo, which remains militarily occupied illegally and against the will of the Cuban nation. This military installation is internationally identified, among other reasons, for housing a torture and indefinite detention center, outside the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, where people have been held for up to 20 years who have never been judicially processed or convicted of any crime.
Its irresponsible use would generate a scenario of risk and insecurity in that illegal enclave and its surroundings; it would threaten peace and would lend itself to errors, accidents and misinterpretations that could alter stability and provoke serious consequences.
Cuban President Addresses Brutal U.S. Persecution and
Humiliating
Deportations
Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic of Cuba, spoke at the closing ceremony of the Sixth International Conference for the Balance of the World held in Havana from January 25 to 31, 2025. In his speech, Díaz-Canel spoke eloquently about important matters, including the brutal persecution and humiliating deportations being conducted under the aegis of U.S. President Donald Trump's despicable program of deportations which egregiously violate human rights and the international rule of law. He also spoke about criminal U.S. plans to open a detention camp for deportees on the Cuban territory it seized 100 years ago to establish a naval base.
Addressing "the current of barbarism today visible in the apogee of greed and in the infinite pain caused by the greedy for their absolute disregard for human suffering," Díaz-Canel said:
"I speak first of all of the Palestinian holocaust at the hands of the Israeli government and those who feed that desire to kill, but also of the brutal persecution and humiliating deportation, handcuffed and chained, of thousands of migrants who have broken their backs under the whip of the economic imbalance that forced them to emigrate. From here, we demand that Palestine be free!
"And I speak, of course, of Cuba, hundreds of times a victim of terrorism, whose noble name has been included and re-included in an infamous list of alleged sponsors of terrorism, so that the obedient international banks close their doors to any commercial or financial management that contributes to the basic needs of the Cuban people.
"I am talking about Cuba, from which the United States stole a piece of land in the name of a friendship it never honoured by using that territory, illegally occupied for more than a century, as a military base and prison where people the empire declares enemies and guilty, most of the time without a single piece of evidence of their crime, are tortured and locked up in a legal limbo.
"As if this infamy, which has been condemned hundreds of times by international tribunals, were not enough, now we are told that 30,000 deportees will be sent to the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo. Once again the illegality, the disregard of international treaties, and the unacceptable idea that there are countries and people superior to the rest of humanity.
"In spite of all the sorrows, as we say here, and the presidential orders of the masters of the world, we will not remain silent in the face of infamy, nor will we lose confidence and faith in human betterment, future life and the usefulness of virtue."
(Granma International. Translations of quotations edited slightly for style and grammar by TML. Photos: Granma, Estudios Revolucion)
This article was published in
Volume 55 Number 2 - February 2025
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2025/Articles/M550029.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca