120 years of illegal occupation of Guantanamo Naval Base

Havana, Feb 16 (RHC) Through his Twitter account, the Cuban president recalled the 120 years since the signing of the agreement that allowed the illegal establishment in Cuba of the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo.

 Díaz-Canel wrote, "Our sovereignty was severed, this day in 1903, when Tomás Estrada Palma signed the cession of the territory that remains illegally occupied by the United States against the will of the Cuban people. #CubaLivesInHistory."

The fact had as antecedent the Platt Amendment, imposed on Cubans in their first republican Constitution during the U.S. military occupation.

Using this document, the United States could establish coaling or naval stations, the first of them in Guantanamo Bay, at the southeastern end of the island, which is currently maintained against the will of the Cuban State and its people.

The agreement was made under the U.S. threat of military intervention on the island, which is why experts consider it illegal, in light of the United Nations Declaration on Military, Political or Economic Coercion in the Conclusion of Treaties.

This agreement granted Washington complete jurisdiction over the leased lands, which violates the principle of territorial integrity enshrined in Cuban constitutions from 1901 to the present.

Since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the base was the starting point for provocative actions, which even involved the death of Cuban combatants and workers, as in the case of the young soldier Ramón López Peña.

Cuba reiterates its just claim for the return of that territory, whose use currently constitutes a violation of national sovereignty, an affront to the principles upheld by the Cuban State and its people.

Since 2002, the U.S. base has been a prison and a torture center (Source: PL).