Where Is Guantánamo Bay?
Where is Bahía de Guantánamo?
Guantánamo Bay is located in the Guantánamo Province in the south-east of Cuba. Although it is in Cuba, the area is run by the United States. The US leased the area in 1903 but has not left it since. The Cuban government’s complaints regarding this “illegal control” have fallen on deaf ears. The bay is famous internationally, because of a US-run detention camp there where people are held unlawfully by the US government.
The natives already called the place Guantánamo when the Spaniards arrived. Then the British took possession of the bay and renamed it Cumberland Bay. The new name could not survive; it was used only for a brief period. Later the Americans attacked the bay and captured it in 1898. The first president of Cuba leased the bay to the Americans in 1903 with the condition that the lease would continue until the government decided to end it . Things were peaceful until the Cuban revolution of the 1950s when the new president Fidel Castro told the Americans to leave, but they bluntly refused. It is a major cause of dispute between the two nations.
There are three officially declared detention camps in the area: Camp Delta, Camp Iguana and Camp X-Ray. The detainees at the camp are not entitled to any of the protection of the Geneva Conventions, which demand of a state to respect human rights. The detentions camps show the hypocrisy of the government which attacks other nations in the name of spreading democracy and a respect for human rights. Quoted figure of prisoners in camps in January, 2010 was 191 and what becomes of them remains uncertain.
Category: Geography