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Castro: Cuba not cashing U.S. Guantanamo rent checks
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070817/ts_nm/cuba_castro_usa_dc ^

Posted on 08/17/2007 3:40:28 PM PDT by Hi Heels

Castro: Cuba not cashing U.S. Guantanamo rent checks By Anthony Boadle 2 hours, 23 minutes ago

HAVANA (Reuters) - The United States pays Cuba $4,085 a month in rent for the controversial Guantanamo naval base, but Cuba has only once cashed a check in almost half a century and then only by mistake, Fidel Castro wrote in an essay published on Friday.

The ailing Cuban leader, who has not appeared in public for more than a year, said he had refused to cash the checks to protest the "illegal" U.S. occupation of the land which he said was now used for "dirty work."

"The base is needed to humiliate and to do the dirty work that occurs there," he said of the detention camp where some 355 terrorism suspects are still being held with no legal rights despite international criticism.

Castro, who turned 81 on Monday out of public sight, said the U.S. checks are made out to the "Treasurer General of the Republic," a position that ceased to exist after Cuba's 1959 revolution.

He said only one U.S. check was ever cashed -- in 1959 due to "confusion" in the heady early days of the leftist revolution.

Castro's refusal to cash the checks to protest the "illegal" occupation has been long known. In a television interview years ago, he showed the checks stuffed into a desk drawer in his office.

The final installment of Castro's long historical essay on Cuba's hostile relations with the United States -- written for future generations -- was published by the ruling Communist Party newspaper Granma.

The essay entitled "The Empire and the Independent Island" recounted Castro's view of U.S. efforts to control Cuba since U.S. troops landed on the island in the Spanish-American War that secured Cuban independence from Spain in 1898.

The United States retained 46.8 square miles (121 square kilometers) at the entrance to Guantanamo Bay in eastern Cuba for a naval base, which has been used as a prison camp for Taliban and al Qaeda terrorism suspects since the Afghanistan war following the September 11 attacks in 2001.

The base was initially a coaling station for the U.S. Navy to protect the approaches to the Panama Canal.

Castro said the enclave was "illegally usurped" by the United States, adding that the base no longer had any strategic military purpose in the age of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers packed with fast fighter-bombers.

"If we have to wait for the collapse of the (capitalist) system, we will wait," Castro wrote. He said Cuba was always on alert to the threat of a U.S. invasion.

Castro handed over power to his brother Raul on July 26 last year after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery. His health is a state secret, but few Cubans expect him to return to office.

The Cuban leader, the last of the major Cold War figures still alive, is seen as a Stalinist tyrant by his enemies but is widely admired in the Third World for standing up to the United States, a David-versus-Goliath role he has relished.


TOPICS: Cuba; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: castro; checks; cuba; gitmo
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To: wastedyears
Years ago in a college history class I remember the prof talking about the Spanish-American War and Guantanamo. IIRC, the treaty signed with the new Cuban government gives the US the naval base in perpetuity as long as we make the payments.

If that is correct, to stop making the payments means we would be giving up the base. I think that some time in the future when Cuba is no longer under a communist dictatorship we will leave Guantanamo.

41 posted on 08/17/2007 5:08:48 PM PDT by ops33 (Retired USAF Senior Master Sergeant)
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To: Hi Heels

Maybe someone who knows a lot about Guantanamo Bay can answer me this... Are we actually leasing this naval base from Cuba? If so, how much longer is the lease?


42 posted on 08/17/2007 5:13:50 PM PDT by John123 ("What good fortune for the governments that the people do not think" -- Adolf Hitler)
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To: Hi Heels
“If we have to wait for the collapse of the (capitalist) system, we will wait,” Castro wrote.

SNORK!!! Bwahahahahaaha!!!!

Whoa * * *

I think I pissed my pants from laughing so hard!

43 posted on 08/17/2007 5:17:57 PM PDT by Grizzled Bear ("Does not play well with others.")
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To: John123

From wikipedia (of course, not always the most reliable internet source):

By the war’s end, the U.S. government had obtained control of all of Cuba from Spain. A perpetual lease for the area around Guantánamo Bay was offered February 23, 1903, from Tomás Estrada Palma, an American citizen, who became the first President of Cuba. The Cuban-American Treaty gave, among other things, the Republic of Cuba ultimate sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay while granting the United States “complete jurisdiction and control” of the area for coaling and naval stations.

A 1934 treaty reaffirming the lease granted Cuba and her trading partners free access through the bay, modified the lease payment from $2,000 in U.S. gold coins per year, to the 1934 equivalent value of $4,085 in U.S. dollars, and made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it or the U.S. abandoned the base property.


44 posted on 08/17/2007 5:25:33 PM PDT by samson1097
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To: samson1097
made the lease permanent unless both governments agreed to break it or the U.S. abandoned the base property.

Thanks man. Castro is screwed... :)

45 posted on 08/17/2007 5:29:46 PM PDT by John123 ("What good fortune for the governments that the people do not think" -- Adolf Hitler)
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To: Squantos; shield; Eaker; hiredhand; Joe Brower; ExSoldier
I fail to understand why the putrid chunk of flesh with the scraggly beard is still breathing perfectly good air down there on that patch of dirt in the ocean. ...and for that matter why the American flag isn't flying over the island as well.

Call me old fashioned, but he's got nothing down there that the 1st Marine Battalion can't take care of. But you know how it goes with us being governed by a bunch of asshat spineless globalist panty-waist cowards and all. They're having enough problems just letting Marines BE Marines in Iraq now!...so I suppose a good ole BFI overthrow is just plain out of the question. I can always hope though. :-)
46 posted on 08/17/2007 5:30:49 PM PDT by hiredhand (My kitty disappeared. NOT the rifle!)
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To: Hi Heels

“The Cuban leader, the last of the major Cold War figures still alive, is seen as a Stalinist tyrant by his enemies but is widely admired in the Third World for standing up to the United States, a David-versus-Goliath role he has relished.”

Margaret Thatcher? Mikhail Gorbachev? LOL.


47 posted on 08/17/2007 5:39:16 PM PDT by Constantine XIII
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To: Constantine XIII

What about Helmut Kohl?


48 posted on 08/17/2007 5:48:49 PM PDT by dfwgator (The University of Florida - Still Championship U)
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To: hiredhand
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1882807/posts?page=66#66
49 posted on 08/17/2007 5:48:52 PM PDT by shield (A wise man's heart is at his RIGHT hand;but a fool's heart at his LEFT. Ecc 10:2)
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To: dfwgator

He went into the slaw business. *rimshot*


50 posted on 08/17/2007 5:53:53 PM PDT by Constantine XIII
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To: hiredhand
I fail to understand why the American flag isn't flying over the island as well.

We took the island entirely in the Spanish American War and decided the island had nothing we wanted in the way of natural resources. Sugarcane didn't count. Be glad we decided to give it back and that we never decided to invade after Fidel took control. Imagine the strain on our welfare system! One thing we wouldn't have to mess with is the educational system. They're already exactly alike. In fact where it concerns public education, I think we copied them.

51 posted on 08/17/2007 6:01:24 PM PDT by ExSoldier (Democracy is 2 wolves and a lamb voting on dinner. Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.)
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To: Hi Heels

Methinks pretty soon Fidel is going to be “cashing in” all right.


52 posted on 08/17/2007 6:02:31 PM PDT by dfwgator (The University of Florida - Still Championship U)
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