R44137.pdf

Excellent summary on GITMO...I am talking about a Naval Base, not a camp located on a Naval Base. I sure wish people would use the correct language when saying closing Gitmo... it was stupid. Is anyone else stationed in GTMO? This report briefly outlines the history of the establishment of the U.S. naval station at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during the first decade of the twentieth century, its changing relationship
to the community around it, and its heightened importance with military operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq. It also explains in detail the legal status of the lease of the land on which
the naval station stands, the statutory and treaty authorities granted to the President with regard to
any potential closure of the naval station, and the second-order effects on such a closure that
Cuba sanctions laws might have. A short list of additional readings ends the report.
At the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Spanish colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico,
Guam, and the Philippines transitioned to administration by the United States. Of these four
territories, only Cuba quickly became an independent republic. As a condition of relinquishing
administration, though, the Cuban government agreed to lease three parcels of land to the United
States for use as naval or coaling stations. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was the sole
installation established under that agreement. The two subsequent lease agreements, one signed in
1903 and a second in 1934, acknowledged Cuban sovereignty, but granted to the United States
“complete jurisdiction and control over” the property so long as it remained occupied.
Relations between the naval station and its surrounding communities remained stable until the
Cuban revolution of the late 1950s. As Cuban-American relations deteriorated in the aftermath of
the 1959 Cuban revolution, the naval station found itself more and more isolated. When the
Cuban government began shutting off the supply of potable water during the early 1960s, the
United States took measures to render the naval station self-sufficient in both water supply and
electrical power generation. It has remained so ever since.
The prominence of Naval Station Guantanamo Bay rose briefly during the Haitian refugee and
Cuban migrant crises of the early 1990s. At one point in late 1994, the migrant population of the
naval station approached 45,000. However, by the end of January 1996, the last of these
temporary residents had departed.
The naval station’s return to prominence arose due to the establishment of facilities to house a
number of wartime detainees captured during military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This
practice began in early 2002 with the refurbishment of some of the property formerly used to
house refugees. It later expanded to more substantial housing that is operated by Joint Task ForceGuantanamo,
a tenant for which the naval station provides logistical support. Additional
temporary facilities were eventually constructed on a disused naval station airfield for use by the
military commissions created to try detainees.
The 1903 lease agreements between the governments of Cuba and the United States are
controlled by the language of a 1934 treaty stipulating that the lease can only be modified or
abrogated pursuant to an agreement between the United States and Cuba. The territorial limits of
the naval station remain as they were in 1934, unless the United States abandons Guantanamo
Bay or the two governments reach an agreement to modify its boundaries. While there appears to
be no consensus on whether the President can modify the agreement alone, Congress is
empowered to alter by statute the effect of the underlying 1934 treaty. There is no current law that
would expressly prohibit the negotiation of lease modifications with the existing government of
Cuba, but the House of Representatives passed a prohibition on carrying out such a modification
without congressional approval as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for FY2017
(H.R. 4909/S. 2943).
As for “abandoning” the naval station, it appears that there are no statutory prohibitions aga