Guantanamo

Guantanamo is a city in southeast Cuba, capital of the province of Guantanamo. It has housed the U.S base at Guantanamo since 1903.  Most people live due to the production of sugar cane and coffee.

Geography

There is a 965km distance between Guantanamo and the main Habana.  Economic production is focused on the production of sugar and coffee planting.  Its population is 243,808 inhabitants (2008).   30km from the city is the U.S naval base Guantanamo Bay.  It covers an area of 117.6km² (49.4 from the mainland and the rest of water and wetlands) and delimits a shoreline of 17.5 kilometers.

The bay has good characteristics in terms of depth, security and capacity.  There are prison camps of alleged unlawful combatants captured in the “war on terror” that holds the current U.S administration.  It proclaims that extraterritoriality prevents prisoners having access to the courts, but some of them, including the Supreme Court have rejected this interpretation.  The principle was based on land leased from Cuba by the U.S.
History
On arrival of the Spanish, the region was inhabited by the Taino Indians. The Taino were characterized by potters and agriculture.  The town was founded in 1796 under the name of Santa Catalina in Guantanamo in the middle of the Guantanamo Valley, a fertile region in which numerous mills and sugar mills are present.

There are three economically important rivers: the Bano; the Jaibo and Guaso.  During the Ten Years War troops under General Maximo Gomez, tried unsuccessfully to invade the Valley twice.  On December 4th, 1870 it reached the category of town and began a comprehensive development thanks to its strategic position in relation to trade coffee grown in the nearby mountains, sugar and other agricultural products.
On February 24^th 1895 Guantanamo joined the war of independence when Pedro Agustin Perez organized the uprising in the “La Confidence” on the outskirts of the city.  During the U.S intervention from 1898 to 1902 the bay close to the city began to call attention to the interventionist government for its great potential strategic military control of the western Caribbean.

The Platt Amendment, Act of Congress was first imposed on the Cuban Constitution in the early twentieth century, under the threat of not accepting the remaining militarily which occupied the island, and established the obligation to cede portions of territory to the United States military facilities.  They quickly implemented this requirement.
In December 1903 the U.S took Guantanamo Bay over “until it was needed” by treaty.  The government of Cuba considers the enclave since 1960 to be illegal and refuses to accept the symbolic annual lease payment of $ 5,000.