Guantanamo Bay Naval Base

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Guantanamo Bay is a bay in the south of the island of Cuba. Part of it is controlled by the United States. They took control of it in 1903, under a treaty between the United States and Cuba. The current government of Cuba does not see this treaty as legal. They say it violates International law (more specifically, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969).

The southern part of the bay is surrounded by a navy station of the United States. The name of the station (or base) is sometimes shortened to GTMO, called "Gitmo". The mission of this station is to act to prevent terrorism, help people who are fleeing Cuba and stop drug crime.^[1]

This base is also now used as a place to keep people captured by American forces from Afghanistan and Iraq. Also some prisoners were taken from other countries, like Britain and France. Some people say that these people do not get the rights that they should get as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. One reason that they are there may be that the laws of the United States do not apply to them. According to some well-known human rights groups, some prisoners have been tortured ^[2] and others may have been badly treated according the FBI Inquiry.^[3] This has also been reported by some Europeans who were taken by CIA "torture flights" and have now been released.^[4]

1. ↑ "US Navy Base GTMO Mission". Archived from the original on 2007-02-05. Retrieved 2007-02-21.
2. ↑ "Amnesy International: Guantánamo Bay - a human rights scandal". Archived from the original on 2006-02-06. Retrieved 2007-02-21.
3. ↑ Federal Bureau of Investigation Guantanamo Bay Inquiry
4. ↑ "The Independent reports on CIA torture flights and Guantanamo bay". Archived from the original on 2006-05-24. Retrieved 2007-02-16.