Why do we keep prisoners of war in cuba?

Question

US citizens are not allowed to travel to cuba, and we have and embargo on cuba, then why do we have a prisoner of war camp there? And are we friendly with the cuban government?

Answer 1

U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay has a unique posture in the Western Hemisphere in that it is the oldest U.S. base outside the continental United States, and the only one in a country that does not enjoy an open political relationship with the United States.



Located in the Oriente Province on the southeast corner of Cuba, the base is about 400 air miles from Miami, Fla.



In February 1903, the United States leased 45 square miles of land and water at Guantanamo Bay for use as a coaling (fueling) station. The treaty was finalized and the document was ratified by both governments and signed in Havana in December of that same year.



A 1934 treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 U.S. Treasury dollars, and added a requirement that termination of the lease requires the consent of both the U.S. and Cuba governments, or the abandonment of the base property by the U.S.



Base relations with Cuba remained stable through two world wars and the periods between and did not significantly change until the Cuban revolution of the late 1950's. That revolution led by Fidel Castro, began in the hills of Oriente province, not far from the base.



On June 27, 1958, 29 Sailors and Marines returning from liberty outside the base gates were kidnapped by Cuban rebel forces headed by Raul Castro, brother of Fidel, and detained in the hills as hostages until they were finally released 22 days later.

United States and Cuban relations steadily declined as Fidel Castro openly declared himself in favor of the Marxist line, and began mass jailing and executions of the Cuban people. Cuban territory outside the confines of the base limits was declared off limits to U. S. servicemen and civilians on Jan. 1, 1959.



Official diplomatic relations with Cuba were severed in January 1961 by President Dwight Eisenhower just prior to the inauguration of President John F. Kennedy. At this time, many Cubans sought refuge on the base and many still live and work here today.



In October 1962, family members of service people stationed here and many base employees were evacuated to the United States as President Kennedy announced the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba. This was the start of the Cuban Missile Crisis which resulted in a naval quarantine of the island until the Soviet Union removed the missiles. The evacuees were allowed to return to the base by that Christmas.



Another crisis arose just 14 months later on Feb. 6, 1964, when Castro cut off water and supply avenues to the base in retaliation for several incidents in which Cuban fishermen were being fined by the U.S. government for fishing in Florida waters.



For the past 40 years, Guantanamo Bay has been totally self-sufficient with its own power and water sources.



In 1991, the naval base's mission was expanded as some 34,000 Haitian refugees passed through Guantanamo Bay. The refugees fled Haiti after a violent coup brought on by political and social upheaval in their country. The naval base received the Navy Unit Commendation and Joint Meritorious Unit Award for its effort.



In May 1994, Operation Sea Signal began and the naval base was tasked to support Joint Task Force 160, providing humanitarian assistance to thousands of Haitian and Cuban migrants. In late August and early September 1994, 2,200 family members and civilian employees were evacuated from the base as the migrant population climbed to more than 45,000 and the Pentagon began preparing to house up to 60,000 migrants on the base.



The last Haitian migrants departed here Nov. 1, 1995. The last of the Cuban migrants left the base Jan. 31, 1996. Family members were authorized to return in October 1995, marking an end to family separations. An immediate effort began to restore base facilities for family use, including reopening the child development center, youth center, two schools and Sunday school. Additionally, the revitalization of Boy and Girl Scout Camps and the Guantanamo Bay Youth Activities (a sports program for children) were initiated.



Since Sea Signal, Guantanamo Bay has retained its migrant operations assistance mission with a migrant population of less than 30. The base has also been involved in two contingency migrant operations: Operation Marathon in October 1996, and Present Haven in February 1997. Both of these short-fused events involved the interception of Chinese migrants being smuggled into the United States.



After 52 years of service, Guantanamo's largest tenant command, Fleet Training Group, relocated to Mayport, Florida, in July 1995. One month later, the naval base lost another major tenant command when the base's Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity disestablished after 92 years of service here.



Tenant commands of the U.S. Naval Base include the U.S. Naval Hospital and Branch Dental Clinic, detachments of the Personnel Support Activity, Naval Atlantic Meteorology and Oceanography Command, Naval Media Center, Naval Communications Station, Department of Defense Dependent Schools, Navy Brig, and Fleet and Industrial Supply Center (FISC), Det GTMO.



Directly supporting the base are offices of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, Resident Officer in Charge of Construction, Human Resources Office, Fleet and Family Support Center, Red Cross, and the Navy Exchange and Commissary.



The most recent addition to the base is the Southern Command Joint Task Force Guantanamo. Following the attacks on New York and Washington on September 11, 2001, Joint Task Force Guantanamo was tasked to stand up the War on Terrorism detainee mission

Answer 2

No, we are most certainly NOT friendly with the Cuban government. We signed a perpetual lease on the military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after the Spanish-American War. So, the land on which the naval base and prison is effectively American so long as the United States pays the lease. Castro's government doesn't recognize the validity of the lease (and has not cashed the check since he took office), but taking it by force would require war.

Answer 3

According to the Bush administration, the detainees are not POWs, but "enemy combatants." This is a misguided attempt to skirt the Geneva Conventions protecting the rights of prisoners of war. Keeping them inside U.S. borders would raise the obvious issue of violating habeas corpus. Of course, holding them in Cuba doesn't make this less so. It just keeps the prisoners out of the public eye.

Answer 4

Quit-mo is American soil without being near America, on one side there is the ocean and on the other there is Cuba. If any of the prisoners do make it out they will probably go for the ocean where they will drown as no one in his right mind escapes into Cuba.

Answer 5

Under any articles of the Geneva Convention they are not Prisoners of War. The Geneva Convention clearly states that the rights apply to uniformed military members fighting under the flag of a nation. Since those being held in Cuba were not members of a uniformed military, and not fighting for a nation they are terrorists. They are being treated in the spirit of the Geneva convention. They are being treated better than they would be in their own country. 3 meals a day, free medical, dental treatment. The guards are under strict orders to treat them properly. The guards have to treat them with respect and honorably. Any guard that gets out of line it taken to either article 15 hearings, or court martial (no they aren't the same). Guards have to endure the abuse of being spit on, urine, semen, feces, blood thrown at them, kicked, punched, bitten, head butted, and other forms of violence against the guards. There are people in our own country that don't get to eat 3 meals a day, have medical or dental treatment for free. There are children that their only meal is what they get at school from the reduced or free meal program. How many families don't have insurance for medical or dental treatment in our own country. So who is really abused, Terrorists being detained in Cuba, or our own citizens living in poverty?

Answer 6

Because torture in the United States is illegal, even as a military action, since it violates the Geneva Conventions and is not considered an act of civilized warfare.

In Cuba, the rules are very different.

Answer 7

Because it is still illegal to torture people in the USA. There for the US government uses it as a torture camp. Meanwhile, the US government has exercised an extremely tight control over news media, which went to the extreme during the 2003U.S.-led war against Iraq. During the war, the US government had tried every means to prevent the press from getting timely and true information and had wielded its hegemony to override the journalistic principle of "faithful and unbiased reporting". PeterArnett, a veteran reporter with the US National Broadcasting Company (NBC), was fired simply because he voiced some of his personal views on the Iraq war. News coverage by international media in Iraq also often fell prey to US restrictions and crackdown. Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has accused US troops in Iraq of frequent "obstruction of journalists trying to do their jobs in Iraq" and described the number of attacks on press freedom there as "alarming" (see Reuters story on Oct. 20, 2003).

Answer 8

Study your history to why the USA has a milltary base on Cuba, and by have the prisoner of war camp there they don't have hundreds on protesters camped outside it keeping the prisoners awake.

Answer 9

it is NOT because we can torture prisoners because that happened already and look what happened... the prisoners are fed with good food and mostly treated like decent human beings... the US bought that land from Cuba i think after the cuban missile crisis. we are not as friendly with the cuban government as we were before... go research it online try wikipedia or google guantanimo bay

Answer 10

We are so not friendly with Cuba. We keep them there so if they escape the worse they could is kill fidel and that wouldn't be so bad anyway. WE kind of tookt hat part of Cuba form Cuba and declared it American soil. It is a very sore subject with the government in Cuba I am sure.

Answer 11

We do not have a prisoner of war camp in Cuba. You are thinking about GITMO and the terrorists there are
not prisoners of war, they are detainees.