07 November 2003

- Cuban government term for the Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay

I heard someone say that at one time there were more landmines around the Naval Reservation than in any other equivalent area in the world. I don't know about that. Mine clearing in the DMZ in Korea was a springtime activity and it was always hard to find them, even if you knew where they had been placed. The troops said they would swim around under the ground as though they were under water. Cubans had run across the mine belt to the Naval Base, seeking to escape, and had made it unscathed. So I guess I don't know about the density and number of the mines, but I do know that they are there.

I also know that the U.S. Marines glare from their towers over the minefield across no-man's land at the elite Cuban Frontier Brigade. The tensions of the Cold War were sometimes palpable in this small reservation that straddles the est and west sides of the Bahia de Gauntanamo. Aircraft taking off have to break immediately to seaward or they will penetrate the Cuban Air Defense Zone. There is no potable water, or at least not enough to speak of. The U.S. Government had to send down a distillation plant on a barge when the Cubans turned off the water.

There was a queer, almost surreal aspect to the arrangement. It is like Berlin was before the Wall came down. A little island of America on another big island. A time capsule. Cuban nationals were permitted to keep their jobs on the base, those that had worked there before the Fidelistas seized power. They walked to work through the minefield to the small landward gate. The sign on the Cuban side says "Republica de Cuba, Terrirotio Libre de America." There is no sign on the U.S. side, just a low one-story building with an American flag painted on the side.

Soviet Block merchant ships transited the bay headed north to the Cuban cities on the river. I looked out the window, peering forward as best I could from the back of the cabin. The flight path would have taken us south of the Air Defense Zone on the southern coast, and then we would turn abruptly north in a narrow corridor to fly up to the Base. Any deviation could get us intercepted by MiGs or even shot down. The Cubans are sensitive, as I suppose I would be if I had been proxy invaded before. They did not want to provoke us, not necessarily, but we had operated this place as the major Fleet Training area for the East Coast. More than one young officer of the deck had steamed into the wrong Bay, thinking he was bringing his ship in for the night from REFTRA- refresher training- only to find the Frontier Brigade turning the searchlights on the bridge of his ship.....

But we don't do a lot of refresher training there these days. The Navy looked at closing the place after the Cold War fell apart. The place is an expensive gesture. It costs real money to send ships there, and fuel is a major cost factor. But there is a fair amount of real estate at Guantánamo. Some one got too thinking about that part of the equations, and the fact that it would be useful to have the base when it comes time for Fidel to join the ash-heap of history. And there was something else the base could do, something just emerging. A mission to consider.

The Naval Reservation is a trapezoid of land sitting astride the outer Guantánamo Bay. Windward point is the high ground for navigation coming into the Bay. The Mainside Base is clustered around the high ground overlooking old MCCalla Field, now closed to fixed wing aircraft. It was short and it was oriented north and south, cross to the winds. Fisherman's point is the inner point of navigation, where the channel curves to the northeast. On the westward shore is Leeward Point airfield, where the jets come in. It is built parallel to the beach, enabling the aircraft to take off and land into the prevailing wind.

There is not much on the western portion of the reservation except for the airfield. The Guantánamo River drains into the marshes north of the field. But there wasn't much other flat land and that is just where the facility had to go. It was a matter of operational necessity.

North of the Reservation is the inner bay, and salt flats and a few moderate-sized towns. They are in Communist Cuba, and merchant ships have the right of transit through the base to reach them.

It is a thoroughly strange place that runs with a certain internal consistency. It was mid-morning when the T-39's wheels chirped onto the runway and we rolled out on the Leeward Field. We were to perform an inspection of the Reservations, courtesy of the Base Public Affairs Officer and helped out by the Charlie Oscar himself, the Commanding Officer. I had no speakingpart in this. My hob was to string the pearls together on the necklace of the trip and hope that nobody let me- or us- down when we got there.

Base Ops is behind the ramp and we taxied up and shut down. Our Petty Officer unlatched the hatch and dropped the door, letting down the little ladder. The Members emerged right after him, then Calvin and finally me. The pilots let us clear the area as a little knot of the official party advanced towards us for the formal welcome to Cuba. It was humid, the air oppressively thick. The Commanding Officer was an imposing figure in wash khakis and a surface warfare pin. He had thick black hair cropped short and an infectious grin. He gave us the introduction to the base.

The Ops complex is rectangular and vintage, purely functional U.S. military of the 1950s. It holds the Tower, mission planning and the Snack Bar. We went in to get a cup of coffee while the vehicles were pulled around. You can purchase a Zippo lighter, t-shirt or ball cap to prove you were there. Some of the Ball caps have the traditional block letters and the "U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo" and others are a bit more fanciful. They have the letters swirled around a rampant lizard. It is an Iguana, says the cashier. There are a lot of them here. They are sort of the mascot of the naval station. The sign next to the quick-order menu board over the grill says "Guantánamo: Crossroads of the Caribbean."

"We are going to do my favorite version of the windshield tour," he said. We got in a white Navy van and headed down to the pier where a speedboat waited. "This is mine," he said. "There is also a ferry to carry regular traffic." He smiled and when the lines were put over the coxswain pulled us smartly away and we blasted across the waves toward Fisherman's Point. I could see the bulk of Hospital Cay in the channel. It was too noisy to talk.

There is an unofficial history of the Reservation that is available, and it is probably the best history from the Navy's side. It was compiled and edited by a long-ago Commander and bears the date "1953." The disclaimer says that the United States Government and the Department of the Navy bear no responsibility for it. It also apologizes for any characterization or use of language that might offend. We are such limp chumps these days. But the account is still around and it is written in the vernacular of the Service that built the place. It starts with startling bluntness:

Well, clearly you can scratch the last sentence. Fidel has wanted us gone since he marched into Havana. For our part, the base is a marker for the billions worth of U.S. assets which were confiscated by the new Communist State. But there is a lot more to it than that, since of course we almost made this one of the Southern Slave States. Imagine two Confederate Senators from Havana!

Christopher Columbus was here, too. He came to this grand harbor on the southeastern shore of the big island on his second voyage and spent the night of 30 April, 1494 at anchor off what the Yanqui residents now call Fisherman's Point, . He was looking for gold, and finding none on the arid shore, named the place "Puerto Grande" and shoved off. There was not a great deal to make him want to stay. Guantánamo is semi-arid, with reported annual rainfall of 25 to 30 inches. Sometimes there is a lot less.

The British liked the port, too. The Royal Navy arrived at Guantánamo Bay on 18 July 1741. They called it "Walthenham Harbor," and later "Cumberland Harbor." They landed troops with the intent of seizing the major population center of Santiago from the east, but they lost their offensive spirit and remained in camp, beset by tropical fevers. They withdrew after four months and did not return for a hundred years. Fever broke out on Her Majesty's ships on Caribbean Station, a bane of sailors, and the ships dropped anchor and to set up a quarantine hospital ashore.

Historical accounts suggest that Guantánamo remote location and barren landscape had made it a natural haven for Pirates in the days of the wild lawlessness on the Spanish Main. Three Pirates of the Caribbean- Naum, Sores, and Rosillo- made this excellent harbor their operating base for forays against shipping in the Windward Passage. Another Norteamericano named Rosario from New Orleans was pursued far up the Bay and into the Guantánamo River where the Soviet Block freighters steamed in the days of the Great Communist alliance.

The only thing that flourished here were horses and cattle that could graze on the eastern side of the bay. There was a well dug in the 1870s that supported a small ranching operation. It is still there but the water is brackish and of no use for supporting a population. Accordingly, the Bay was largely uninhabited until the Spanish-American War, or what the Cubans now call Hispano-Cuba-Norteamericano Guerro, when its strategic location made the Spanish post troops to the Bay.

America always had interests in Cuba despite Spanish rule. Filibustering, that marvelous little device of private imperialism had always been a possibility, as some Americans dreamed of venturing south and establishing themselves are Warlords. Outright annexation was also considered, along with every step in between.

Cuba was in turmoil in 1898. With some encouragement from the North, the Cubans had been in rebellion against their Spanish masters since 1895. Two of the most renowned, José Marti and General Máximo Gomez had dramatically returned to the island, landing at the little beach of Cajobabo, between Guantánamo Bay and Cape Maisi. By 1898, though, after three years of fighting, the rebels had the upper hand in only the eastern provinces of Oriente and Camaguey.

There were rebels in the Bay, but there were thousands of Spanish regulars at Guantánamo City, fortifications along the railroad to the port of Caimanera and a gunboat was stationed on the inner bay. At today's naval base, Guantánamo, a Spanish strongpoint dominated the little pilot's village on Fisherman's Point near the entrance to the Bay, and gun positions commanded the narrow channel leading from outer to inner bay. The Rebels had only outposts on the coast east of the Bay, to a point fifteen miles west of Santiago, and were in only undisputed possession of the western (Leeward) point at the entrance to the Bay.

In that year the United States declared war on Spain, taking up Kipling's imperial burden against the declining Spanish. William Randolph Hearst made a hobby of stirring up war fever and many suggested it was his war. The Yellow Press of New York (so-named after the first modern cartoon character The Yellow Kid) was at war with Spain long before the Government. Diplomatic relations were broken after the sinking of the Maine in Havana harbor in February, though the cause of the blast has never been fixed with any certainty. The U. S. declaration of war was immediately followed by a blockade of Havana harbor and a pursuit of the Spanish fleet around the island that finally pinned it down in Santiago Bay, forty miles west of Guantánamo.

Not having had a major military force in the field since the Civil War, the United States Army needed to recruit one. Future President Teddy Roosevelt took applications for his U.S. Volunteer Calvary in the bar of the Menger Hotel, across the alley from the Alamo.

The cockpit of action in this theater of a global war on an old empire shifted to the southern coast of Cuba. The Armored Cruiser Marblehead, attended by the auxiliary St. Louis called at Guantánamo Bay in early June with an eye towards establishing a permanent presence there. The skipper of the St. Louis was instructed to put a landing party ashore and cut the submarine cables linking Cuba and Haiti.

Marine Privates William Dumphy and James McColgan were the first Americans to die in the war. They died right at Guantánamo on 11 June 1898. Their battalion had camped there the day before, marking the first U.S. presence on the Bay. The over the next few months the fighting was sharper perhaps than the Americans had expected, but none the less conclusive in outcome.

On January 1,1899, the Spanish administration retired from Cuba, and that same day General John R. Brooke installed a military government on the island. This was the beginning of the United States occupation of Cuba. However, the United States government was bound by the Teller Amendment, which placed Cuba in a category different from the other areas previously controlled by Spain. He was replaced by General Leonard Wood in December of that year. Wood was a muscular specimen of the American Military officer, and a former United States surgeon general. Utilizing the superb epidemiologic skills of Major Walter Reed he set out to conquer malaria and Yellow Fever. Schools were built and students were enrolled. Public works programs were commenced to improve railroads, roads, and bridges.

America did not intend to rule as a colonial power, at least not formally. There was a sharp difference in the view of the Cuban versus the Pilipino in terms of the capacity for self-governance. The road to Cuban self-determination was predicated on protections of American interests. Adoption of a constitution providing universal suffrage, a two-chamber legislature and a directly-elected president was contingent on the acceptance of a series of clauses appended to the constitution. They were drafted by Secretary of War Elihu Root and came to be known as the Platt

Amendment, similar language being attached to the arms appropriation bill of 1901. Among other terms, the United States was permitted to purchase or lease lands for coaling and naval stations. On June 12, 1901, Cuba ratified the amendment as a permanent addendum to the Cuban Constitution of 1901. It had been bluntly presented as the only alternative to permanent military occupation.

The United States acquired rights in perpetuity to lease a naval coaling station at Guantánamo Bay on February 23, 1903. The deal was signed by President Roosevelt, late of the Roughriders who charged up San Juan Hill (or perhaps it was dismounted and covered by U.S. colored Troops.) The Bay was to be leased for 2,000 gold coins per year. Under the terms of the May 1903 Treaty of Relations and the Lease of Agreement of July 1903, the agreement could only be abrogated by the agreement of both parties. Which is to say, the U.S. was going to stay until it didn't want to anymore.

The Cubans annulled the Platt Amendment in 1934, but a new lease on the naval reservation was negotiated between the Roosevelt administration and a Cuban government favorably disposed to the United States. One of the troika of signators was future strongman Fulgencio Batista as one of three signatories. When the Revolution triumphed in 1959, the U.S. put the mainland off limits. Only the Cuban employees on the base were permitted to cross the fence-line. Legally speaking, the Cubans reason, that Guantánamo should have been returned to Cuba at this time.

The United States seemed to think that the billions confiscated by Fidel complicated the issue. And there was a vocal constituency in Miami that permitted no deviation from the hard line. There the matter sat for nearly forty years, Frontier Troops looking down from their observation post on the high ground at Mirador Malones and the Marines looking back over the wire. Ronald Reagan was perfectly candid about the motivation. He told Soviet Journalists in October 1985 that Guantánamo had a political mission: to impose a U.S. presence, even if the Cuban Government didn't like it. Fidel claims the agreement was coercion, pure and simple, that the Cuban government of the time was headed by an American-citizen, and that the agreement is null and void.

The United States maintains that the agreement is legitimate and that the terms are "perpetual." Every year the U.S. sends a check for the lease amount, but the Cuban government has never cashed them.

Jack Nicholson was even more blunt in the movie "A few Good Men," which was set in Guantánamo. "The truth?" he asked Tom Cruise. "You can't handle the truth!"

We drove down to the Headquarters where the station UH-1 Huey helicopter was turning. "I'll let the crew chief give you the safety brief on the aircraft but I want to see if I can get you oriented before we launch. We are on Leeward Point Field, which is on the western Come on! Let's go for a spin!" One of his petty officers handed out Mickey Mouse helmets, cranial devices with earphones and boom microphones. We boarded the Station UH-1 helicopter, an unarmed version of the utility bird that dominated the skies of Southeast Asia. We were going to take a look at Guantánamo's new mission, a place that is American without being America.

We plugged the headsets first and showed "thumbs up" that we were in contact. Then we got the brief on how to strap ourselves in. The Members got special attention, since the Captain did not want to scatter members of the delegation across the barren hills. The doors were going to stay wide open, so we wouldn't miss a thing.

"We are in a unique place" he said. "It is sort of ironic that the Military presence here has had a profound affect on the environment. It essentially has created a wildlife refuge. We live in harmony with the surroundings. We are a unique preserve of the Cuban ecosystem. Take the iguana" he said, waving his hands against the roar of the engines. We lurched into the air, nose slightly down, gaining speed. The breeze was welcome and the Captain's voice boomed and crackled through the earphones.

"The Iguana was one of the most common animals on this island. They were everywhere! Today, this is the only place they exist." I looked at the Captain with a quizzical look, not wanting to key my mike. "The Cubans have eaten them all. They are all gone except for the ones we have right here."

Our flight path took us over a series of camps, some with buildings, a few with people living in them. Others seemed to be just surveyed places on the dusty soil.

"I have been instructed to set up facilities that can accommodate 10,000 people, in case the situation demands it. We made some progress on migrant exchange with the Cubans last year, but we still have some families here that are being processed for Emigration. We are keeping the Cubans separate from the Haitians and anyone else who shows up. Policy stuff. Not our job to figure that out down here. That is a Washington issue."

We wheeled over Camps Alpha and Bravo, and saw areas where other camps might be placed. There seemed to be plenty of room in cse we need it. The pilot put the helo in tight turns that let us look out the door, straight down. A group of people who might have been Cuban looked up at us from one of the camps. I like helicopters. I just don't know why they fly. I also don't know why we didn't just fly back to the airfield. Maybe it was for theatrical purposes.

Then we were back on the ground and then back on the speedboat and then I was in the back of the little T-39 with Mr. Dixon's artwork and by ten o'clock that night we were wheels down at Andrews and I had the Congressmen on their way. My Boss seemed happy and I didn't have to be at work until 0700 the next morning. I drove off the airbase, turned up the radio and got on the Beltway headed toward Virginia. I was tired.

It was pretty clear the United States has to stay in Guantánamo. If only for the sake of the lizards.

Copyright 2003 Vic Socotra