The United States base in the territory it illegally occupies in Guantánamo, Cuba, stands as living testimony to the persistence of imperial power, the violation of principles of International Law, and sovereignty, affirmed Mafa Kwanisai, Coordinator of the Fidel Castro Chair at Midlands State University in Zimbabwe.

In an article titled "The Illegality of Empire: Guantánamo Bay, Sovereignty, and a System of Global Bases," the professor recalled that for more than a century, the foreign power's usurpation has been an affront to the self-determination of the island's people.

The global system of military intrusion endangers the peace and autonomy of nations, Kwanisai indicates, according to publications in The Panafrikanist and Modern Ghana, on the occasion of days of action against Washington's military presence in Guantánamo and U.S. and NATO foreign bases, convened by the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples.

This enclave and the infamous detention camp it houses—he adds—was imposed in 1903 without an expiration date under evident asymmetry and coercion, rather than mutual consent.

International legal principles affirm that sovereignty cannot be renounced under coercion nor maintained in perpetuity against the unequivocal will of the people in whose territory the military base is located, he emphasized.

According to the professor from the important Zimbabwean university, this situation is not isolated and forms part of a broad pattern of military overreach, exemplified by a vast network of foreign bases spread throughout the world.

The United States alone maintains some 877 military enclaves with political, economic, and cultural effects in 90 countries, employed—the author warns—for interventions from the Middle East to East Asia, positioning NATO near the borders of Russia, China, and key energy corridors.

In the opinion of the Coordinator of the Fidel Castro Chair, host countries cede jurisdictional controls and erode national legal authority.

Empirical analysis suggests that foreign bases facilitate interventions rather than prevent conflicts, with financial and human costs outweighing any supposed benefits.

In addition to environmental and social impacts—he continues—this pattern reinforces a form of contemporary neocolonialism whereby powerful states exercise disproportionate influence over weaker ones, under the pretext of security cooperation.

The crusade against the illegal occupation of part of the eastern bay resonates beyond Cuba's borders as it challenges the architecture of global militarization that privileges hegemony over human dignity.

Peace movements, jurists, academics, human rights defenders, and journalists have a responsibility to connect the dots between the injustice of Guantánamo and the broader network of military outposts that threaten collective sovereignty and peace.

The struggle for the return of Guantánamo to Cuba is inseparable from the battle to dismantle the structures of domination under the fundamental principle that peace is sustained not through occupation, but through respect for sovereignty, International Law, and self-determination, concludes the article published in regional media.