Fidel Castro observes the landscape during a tour of Caujerí in the eastern province of


Guantánamo, July 1, 1977. Photo: Liborio Noval / Sitio Fidel Soldado de las Ideas

The presence of the Guantánamo Naval Base since February 23, 1903 in Cuba became a great concern for the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz.

On dissimilar occasions he explained very clearly Cuba's position regarding the naval base. 

In November 1960, due to the high revolutionary spirit of the workers at the Caimanera Naval Base, Fidel Castro went to talk with them and asked them not to give him any pretext, not to encourage any act on the part of the United States Marines. that would make possible an aggression against our homeland.

At night, at the premises of the Secondary Education Institute of Guantanamo, at the beginning of his speech, Fidel affirmed:

“For a long time I had the idea of ​​holding a meeting with you, the workers of the Caimanera Naval Base.

Actually, since we have a lot of work, the months had passed and I had not been able to come to fulfill this purpose.

Finally today, making an effort and at the same time asking for an excuse for the time we arrived, we decided to make the trip here and discreetly organize this meeting”.

During the meeting reflect with them:

“First of all, the government believes in an obligation to act on this whole base-related issue very carefully.

In the first place, everyone has already had the opportunity to listen to our pronouncements, in the sense of noticing that continuously... -even in the United Nations we raised it, I imagine that a part of you would also be listening-, our concern

that They wanted to take the base as a pretext to create conflicts for the Revolutionary Government, and also, even, a point that worried us, as a place where a self-provocation could be propitiated.

I am going to tell you with complete frankness that I believe that the reactionary, retrograde elements that govern the United States are nothing more than powerful economic interests that control the entire life of the nation there, from the newspapers to the banks, going through all the big enterprises. 

A handful of gentlemen there are the ones who dominate the whole life of that country

, and they have always been characterized by being unscrupulous people.

And we, honestly, have always been concerned with the possibility that one day they want to fabricate a self-provocation ".

(…)

“This is a very important military base, which is obviously by force

.

With the Platt Amendment they arrived at it by contradicting their own determination by the US Congress that Cuba should be an independent country;

After 30 years of fighting, the Cubans, the parents of all of you, since most of you are probably from the East and come from this area, and this area, well, gave rise to tens of thousands of patriots.

Then, everyone must have encountered that sad thing that their country was not totally independent, we had an ambassador there who was the one in command, we had,

the Platt Amendment, with the right to intervene. 

In other words, they decapitated the dream of our people to be an independent people, which is a right of all peoples;

we had to put up, or they had to put up with, first they disarmed them, after they were disarmed they presented the Platt Amendment, and then with the Platt Amendment they curtailed our independence, having the power to exercise their political control, and they being the ones who controlled the life of our people”.

(...) So we feel confident in the ability of our people to resist, and we simply see this grassroots problem as a delicate problem, as a neuralgic point, and above all a point where we have to act with

the increased intelligence;

a legal problem, a problem of law, a moral problem, not a problem of force

.

And that we are sure that in the long run this right of ours, that moral reason, that, will triumph.

But, above all,

we have to be very careful about the policy we must follow, so that they cannot be given the path of self-provocation and a pretext for aggression against our country

.

In this policy there must be a very straight line and a very patriotic position on the part of the base workers, the Cuban workers, in the sense of cooperating with the Revolutionary Government to follow a policy like the one it should follow in relation to the Caimanera base.

(1)

During an interview with Barbara Walters, a journalist for ABC North American Television on the Guantánamo Naval Base, she asks: Guantánamo.

Is this something that constitutes a very important part of your conditions for the normalization of relations with us or is it a secondary matter?

To which Fidel Castro responds: “Guantánamo is of no use to the United States militarily today

.

They maintain it as an act of force and arrogance

, occupying a part of our national territory, which today in the nuclear era has no strategic value.

They have no right to be there, since they are against our will;

and I believe that you cannot have a military base in the territory of any country against the will of the country.

Let's say

the United States is there by force.

We have never wanted to turn Guantánamo into a special problem, to raise the flag, to demand Guantánamo, to avoid creating a feeling of permanent irritation among our people.

That is why we have left it aside.

Do you want to be there?

Well, one day they will have to get out of there, the day they start to react sanely.

The world is much wider and bigger than Guantanamo.

Guantanamo is a little piece of land.

If one day we sit down to discuss to normalize relations, of course, one of the points that cannot be missing from that discussion is the question of Guantanamo.

Agree to see what day they leave Guantánamo or what year they leave Guantánamo.

Because they imposed an agreement on the Republic for an indefinite period.

It is assumed that when a legal contract speaks of an indefinite period of time it is 100 years, and soon, in 20 years it will be 100 years of that agreement.

What right does the United States have to be in Guantánamo against the will of our people?

What right do you have to occupy a piece of our territory against the will of our people?

Guantanamo is an act of force.

They are there by force

.

Now, we have not used and will never use force to recover Guantánamo, because we are not going to wage war against the United States over Guantánamo.

  And the world is wide, it's wide.

(2)

In the interview with Tomás Borge for the book Un grano de Maíz he expresses:

“I believe that an element that could never be absent from negotiations with the United States, in addition to the problems of the economic blockade and all that, is related to the Guantánamo Naval Base, a piece of our territory occupied by force and that must

be be returned to our country.

Apart from that, you can discuss all the things you want if they are within the principles and if they are within the respect for the independence and sovereignty of Cuba”.

(3)

Grades:

  • Speech before the workers of the Caimanera Naval Base, at the premises of the Secondary Education Institute of that city, in Guantánamo, November 13, 1960

  • Interview of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Councils of State and Ministers, with Bárbara Walters, journalist of the North American Television ABC about the relations between Cuba and the United States carried out on May 19, 1977.

  • Book: A grain of corn.

    Conversation with Tomás Borge