Cuban president condemns US announcement on Guantanamo naval base

President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Wednesday described as an act of brutality the announcement made by the United States to send deported migrants to the Guantanamo naval base, an illegally occupied Cuban territory. 
 
“In an act of brutality, the new US government announces the imprisonment at the Guantanamo Naval Base, located in an illegally occupied Cuban territory, of thousands of migrants whom it forcibly expels and who will be placed next to the well-known prisons of torture and illegal detention,” the president denounced on his X profile.

On that platform, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez also condemned the decision by the US administration and pointed out that sending migrants to the enclave where the US created torture and indefinite detention centers shows contempt for the human condition and international law.

He stressed that the naval base is located in Cuban territory, illegally occupied, outside the jurisdiction of the United States courts.

US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem revealed on Wednesday the government’s plans to send deported migrants who are rejected by their countries of origin to Guantanamo.

In an interview with the Fox News network, the US official said that the government of Donald Trump is “assessing and debating it at this moment” before determining “how we can use all our resources to keep the United States safe.”

Under then President George W. Bush (2001-2009), a prison was opened in the enclave in 2002 to hold those accused of terrorism, and has been the target of complaints about human rights violations.