Migrants in Guantanamo, a provocation and an affront to sovereignty

Cubans on Wednesday described the presence of more than 30,000 migrants at the US naval base here as provocation and an affront to its sovereignty, and held that government responsible for possible events in the enclave. 

The denunciation was made on Wednesday morning, before more than 50,000 people who gathered at the Mariana Grajales Revolution Square in Guantanamo, during an Anti-Imperialist Open Forum, headed by the first secretary of the Communist Party (PCC) and president of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and other officials.

At the event, Cubans once again rejected the illegal presence of US troops for more than 120 years in a portion of the country’s easternmost territory, and its use as a concentration camp for illegal persons.

Speakers and artists from Guantanamo, some 1,000 kilometers east of Havana, denounced the effects of the blockade against Cuba by the US Government, whose hostility continues to escalate today after numerous coercive measures taken by the Donald Trump administration against the Caribbean nation.

In this context, PCC First Secretary in Guantanamo Yoel Perez highlighted the tradition of struggle of the local people who in the past defeated the Spanish empire on their lands and resolutely faced the subsequent US occupation.

He recalled that José Martí, Máximo Gómez and other patriots landed in Guantanamo in 1895 to restart the war for Cuba’s independence from Spanish colonialism, an objective that would have been achieved had it not been for the intervention of the United States in that conflict.

In this regard, Pérez stated that the use of the illegal military enclave to concentrate migrants considered by Washington as “dangerous criminals” is a provocation against Cuba and an affront to its sovereignty.

He stressed that the White House will be responsible “for what happens within the perimeter of that enclave,” from where the United States supported armed bands against the revolutionary government, imprisoned alleged terrorists of Arab origin and now Latin American migrants.

The top leader of the Communist Party in the province demanded the lifting of the US blockade against Cuba, because it is a high price for its people and deprives them of financial resources, supplies, parts and pieces, fuel and essential food.

The blockade has been described as an act of genocide that is intended to kill innocent people in an effort to overthrow the Cuban Revolution, just for defending their conviction of being independent, working and living in peace, he stressed.

Workers from 15 unions, students, members of various non-governmental organizations and representatives of the municipalities of Caimanera, El Salvador and Manuel Tames participated in the mobilization in Guantanamo.