CUBA: RESIDENTS AROUND U.S. MILITARY BASE IN GUANTANAMO REACT COLDLY TO WASHINGTON'S PLANS TO HOLD AL-QAEDA AND TALIBAN PRISONS OF WAR THERE
Record ID:
858839
CUBA: RESIDENTS AROUND U.S. MILITARY BASE IN GUANTANAMO REACT COLDLY TO WASHINGTON'S PLANS TO HOLD AL-QAEDA AND TALIBAN PRISONS OF WAR THERE
- Title: CUBA: RESIDENTS AROUND U.S. MILITARY BASE IN GUANTANAMO REACT COLDLY TO WASHINGTON'S PLANS TO HOLD AL-QAEDA AND TALIBAN PRISONS OF WAR THERE
- Date: 9th January 2002
- Summary: (W8)GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA (FILE) (REUTERS) GV: U.S. MILITARY BASE AT GUANTANAMO BAY SEEN FROM THE OCEAN
- Embargoed: 24th January 2002 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA
- City:
- Country: Cuba
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVAEAFGF4P7FDVJI6LY5FMKB4ZHM
- Aspect Ratio:
- Story Text: Residents around the United States military base in Guantanamo, Cuba have reacted coldly to Washington's plans to hold al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners of war at a prison there.
The first shipments of prisoners captured in Afghanistan could begin arriving within a matter of days say U.S. military sources.
Military work crews and civilian contractors were on Wednesday (January 9) building cells with chain-link fencing and wooden roofs, open to the elements on scrubland at the Caribbean U.S. base for fighters captured in the four-month Afghan war.
A U.S. official in Washington said the first C-17 planeload of al Qaeda and Taliban "detainees," among 368 under U.S. military control, could leave within days for the facilities being prepared at Guantanamo.
One of the final frontiers of the Cold War, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, a 45-square-mile (117-square-km) U.S.
facility in a corner of southeast Cuba, was used to house thousands of Cuban and Haitian refugees in the mid-1990s.
Founded after U.S. Marines landed at Guantanamo Bay in 1898 during the Spanish-American War, the base has been virtually sealed since soon after Cuban President Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, with U.S. Marines and Cuban guards facing each other across barbed-wire lines.
Castro has called the base "a dagger plunged into Cuba's heart." The United States pays a rent of US$4,085 per year under a 1934 treaty, although Castro refuses to cash them.
Castro had been expected to object to Washington's decision to build a jail at the base, but two senators who recently visited there said he raised no objection.
The first Guantanamo arrivals from Afghanistan were expected to number a few dozen, officials said.
The base is prepared to house about 100 prisoners immediately, military officials plan to build a more permanent prison to house up to 2,000.
Cubans living near the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay have condemned the imminent arrival of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners of war.
"There are other places they can take the Taliban prisoners. There was no need to bring them to Cuban territory that is illegally occupied by the Americans," carpenter Julio Palacios, 63, said in an opinion common in the town of Guantanamo.
"I don't think they (the prisoners) can launch any type of aggression against our country, but they shouldn't be here.
They should be.... I don't know where... but not in our country," Guarione Aguirre, another local resident said.
President Fidel Castro's government -- which bitterly opposes the century-old U.S. military presence on the island's south-eastern tip -- has, however, kept a discreet silence, even as U.S. soldiers began turning the base into a jail this week.
Because most people expected Castro to protest, his silence so far has led to speculation in diplomatic circles that Washington perhaps consulted Havana privately before announcing the plan, or that Cuba does not want to rock the boat now.
Cuba's official state media have only briefly mentioned the U.S. decision to use Guantanamo Bay for prisoners and some residents were ignorant of the move. - Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
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