Guantánamo

Guantánamo, city (1994 est. pop. 200,000), capital of Guantánamo prov., SE Cuba, on the Guaso River. It is the processing center for a rich sugar- and coffee-producing region and has road and rail connections with Santiago de Cuba. Founded in the early 19th cent. by French colonists fleeing the slave rebellion in Haiti, Guantánamo retains many vestiges of French architecture. The city is c.20 mi (30 km) inland from its port, Caimanera, on landlocked Guantánamo Bay, where the United States maintains an important naval station. Often called the Pearl Harbor of the Atlantic, the base has naval installations covering c.45 sq mi (116 sq km). Its site was leased to the United States in 1903 by a treaty that was renewed in 1934; consent of both governments is needed to revoke the agreement. Since 1960 the Cuban government has refused to accept the token annual rent ($5,000) from the United States and has pressured for the surrender of the base. In the mid-1990s thousands of refugees fleeing Cuba and Haiti were temporarily housed at the base. A prison camp for several hundred persons accused of having Taliban or Al Qaeda ties was established there during the Bush administration, beginning in 2002. Guantánamo was chosen because the Bush administration believed that federal constitutional protections should not apply to the base, which legally is not part of the United States; that argument was rejected by the Supreme Court in 2004. There have been accusations, some based on FBI e-mail, that prisoners there have been abused; several prisoners have committed suicide. In 2009 President Obama ordered the closure of the prison camp within a year, but various difficulties associated with the process made the timetable unachievable.

Guantánamo is a municipality and city in southeast Cuba and capital of Guantánamo Province.

Guantanamo is served by the Caimanera port. Producing sugarcane and cotton wool are traditional parts of the economy.

Geography

The municipality is mountainous in the north, where it overlays the Sierra Maestra (mountains), and borders the Windward Passage of the Caribbean Sea in the south. It is crossed by the Guantánamo, Yateras, Guaso, San Andrés and Sabanalamar rivers. The Guantánamo Bay is a natural harbour south of the city.

The municipality is divided into the barrios of Arroyo Hondo, Baitiquirí, Bano, Bayate, Caimanera, Camarones, Caridad, Corralillo, Cuatro Caminos, Filipinas, Glorieta, Gobierno, Guaso, Hospital, Indios, Isleta, Jaibo Abajo, Las Lajas, Macurijes, Mercado, Ocujal, Parroquia, Palma de San Juan, Rastro, Tiguabos and Vínculo.

US naval base

About 15 km away from the city lies the Guantánamo Bay, a superior natural harbour which has been controlled by the United States as the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base since 1902, following a controversial unlimited lease of the harbour to the US.

The military base contains detention centers, currently used for "unlawful combatants" captured in the War on Terrorism. The detention centers consist of the temporary Camp X-Ray, which is now closed, and the permanent Camp Delta.

Demographics

In 2004, the municipality of Guantánamo had a population of 244,603. With a total area of , it has a population density of .

Famous Guantanamerans

Notable natives of Guantánamo include athletes Joel Casamayor, Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez, Yumileidi Cumbá, Jaime Jefferson, Yargelis Savigne, Dayron Robles, Luis Delís, and Cuban-American gymnast Annia Hatch.

See also

• "Guantanamera" ("The girl from Guantánamo") is perhaps the best known Cuban song and that country's most noted patriotic song.
• Guantanamo Bay detention camp

References

External links

• Complete guide to Guantanamo City
• Detailed information about Zoologico de Piedra (Stone Zoo)
• Article about the prison history
• City webpage