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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 1962)
3 B TUESDAY. OCTOBER 23. 1962 MEDFOHD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD. OREGON Cuba lopes To Get United States Out of Guantanamo By Legal Eeans guantAnamo " Editor's note; For mote than half a century U.S. war hipi have iwepl proudly in and out oi Guantanamo bay, helpina to auarantee the free dom of both Cuba and the United States. Now Fidel Ca tro has vowed a legal battle to throw thit country off the bate. The following diipatch telle why U.S. officiali are confident he will fail. By NORMAN RUNNION Washington -IUPH- Once again, Cuba has staked out a claim' for the big US. naval base at Guantanamo bay. And once again, the Cubans hie said they will gel the United States out by legal means. It has happened before arid undoubtedly will happen again. Whenever U.S.-Cuban relations heat up towards the boiling point, as they have In recent weeks, Guantanamo in variably comes to the fore The latest demand for "Git mo" was made in a communi que Issued last Wednesday af ter the Havana visit of Alger ian Premier Ahmed Ben Bel la. It said both he and Fidel Castro had agreed on "the im mediate need for the evacua tion of troops and the disman tling of foreign military bases in other countries, including the naval base al Guantana mo." Earlier in the month, on Oct. 8, Cuban President Os valdo Dorticos presented a claim to the United, Nations general assembly. "We have stated more than once and we repeat nur right to recover that territory," he said. "That region was torn from us following an Ameri can incursion." 'In Due Time' Cuba, he said, would exer cise Its right in due time, but "shall not do so by means of armed force. We shall exercise that right when we deem it appropriate, through the pro cedural channels of interna' tional law and before the in. ternational bodies competent to deal with such a claim In the past, Premier Fidel Castro has said these "proce dural channels" would be the International Court al The Hague. The strategy would be to try to overthrow the treat ies under which Cuba orig inally granted the base to the United States. Guantanamo bay, a 28-00(1-acre enclave on the southeast ern lip of Cuba, has been U.S. property since 1003. On three sides it is surrounded by Cu ban territory. In the distance loom the Sierra Maestra mountains where Castro launched his career as a guer illa fighter. The south side is the water, a fine natural harbor. In the words of the Defense department, this oldest of all U.S. overseas naval bases JvT: :! V'r JVA fMCU . 7, lijtli, 4 Caribbean SK- Tl Mv r v r WW.'.H I , , yrr. HAVANA Q.-r-W fyi&$ ? I . ; CUBA ssM&W lrr- . 1 I I ' UAttfANAMO j ' J CASTRO VOWS LEGAL BATTLE For more than a half a century U.S. warships have swept proudly in and out of Guantanamo Bay. Now Fidel Castro has vowed a legal battle to throw this country off the base. An accompanying dispatch by UPI's Norman Runnion tells why U. S. of ficials are confident Castro will fail. (UP!) "provides an excellent base in support of essential fleet operational training." Best Training Area Excellent year-round cli mate, uncongested sea and air space and close proximity to the United States ail combine to provide a training area which has no equal in the At lantic. For this reason the ma jority of the Atlantic fleet ships visit Guantanamo annu ally for shakedown or refresh er training. The United Stales has no in tention of surrendering Guan tanamo. It has given the base enough firepower to ward off any military threat. Rein forcements are being landed in support of President Ken nedy's blocade of Cuba, or dered Monday. Furthermore. 11 is confident Castro has no legal' case. The "incursion" cited' by Dorticos was the Spanish American war, fought on Cu ban soil. American public opinion, aroused by the sink ing of the battleship Maine in Havana harbor ("Remember the Maine") demanded the campaign which liberated the island. The Spaniards, under the treaty of Paris signed on Dec. 10, 1898, relinquished Cuba lo U.S. control. Bui Ihcre was no desire lo make the island part of the . ' , "J 1 Life can bloom after fifty Your eavings invested with us can help make life bloom later (or you, too. Here, your sav ings earn excellent returns, safe from market fluctuations and insured by tha Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. and LOAN ASSOCIATION 201 West 6th Free Customer Parking in Our lot Robert F. Kyle, Mgr. United States. The so-called Teller Amendment, passed by Congress on April 19, 1898, promised to leave the govern ment in the hands of the Cu ban people. Interim Occupation There was an interim Amer ican occupation, however. The military governor was Gen. Leonard Wood, who had fought in the war. He was authorized to have the Cubans meet in convention and draw up a constitution. The assembly opened Nov. 5, 1900. Ultimately it adopted a constitution patterned after this country s. But the stick ler, from the U. S. viewpoint, was that it contained no pro vision for continuing future relations with the United Stales. Wood was authorized to tell the convention that America's withdrawal of control in the island was conditional on the adoption of such a provision. The end result was the "Piatt Amendment." Added to the Army money bill of March 2, 1901, the amendment was named for Connecticut Sen. Orville H. Piatt. Actually the author was Elihu Root, the secretary of war. Viewed from today's van tage point, when "colonial ism" is. a nasty word, the amendment contained some bald provisions. One section gave the United States au thority to intervene in Cuba to preserve the country's in dependence and maintain law and order. The "Guantanamo" section said: "To enable the United States to maintain the inde pendence of Cuba, and to pro tect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points to be agreed upon with the Presi dent of the United States." , Familiar Territory Guantanamo already was familiar territory. During the Spanish-American War, the bay was seized by 100 Ma rines to provide a base for the U. S. Navy, which was blockading the Spanish Fleet in Santiago Harbor 40 miles away. The Marines establish ed a camp there Camp Mc-Calla-and engaged in the first U. S. fighting on Cuban soil to ward off attacking Span ish troops. The Piatt Amendment was duly incorporated in the Cu ban constitution. On May 20, 1902, the United States turned over control of the island to the Cubans. Tomas Estrada Palma became the first pres ident of the new republic. A year later, the Piatt Amendment was incorporated in a U.S. Cuban treaty of re lations, signed on May 22, 1903. A month earlier, a lease agreement had been signed providing U.S. right to use Guantanamo Harbor for a naval base. This agreement recognized that Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the area. But Cuba granted the United States complete jurisdiction and control during the time it used the base. In 1934, the Piatt Amend ment was abrogated by the United States and Cuba. This was at the start of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Good Neigh bor" policy. The objective was to remove the language giving the United States the right to intervene. Retain 'Gilmo' Section But the section affecting Guantanamo Bay was retain ed in a new treaty. It said "the stipulations of that agree ment with regard to the nav al station at Guantanamo shall continue in effect" unless re vised or abrogated by the United States and Cuba. Furthermore, it said: "So long as the United States of America shall not abandon the said naval station at Guantanamo or the two gov ernments shall not agree to a modification of its presents limits, the station shall con tinue' to have the territorial area that it now has, with the limits that it has on the date of the signature of the present treaty." This, in the U.S. view, is the key language involved when the Castro regime threatens to take its case to the world court. The 1903 lease agreements were signed by the presidents j of the two countries - Theo-1 dore Roosevelt for the United ' States - without being sub mitted to the U.S. or Cuban congress. But the 1934 treaty was rat- j ified in accordance with the constitutional provisions of both countries, the Defense ; Department says. It adds: j "Since this treaty reaffirm-1 ed the provisions ot tne or iginal two lease agreements, the question as to whether these agreements were legal and binding prior to 1934 is purely academic." Red Fishing Port The Castro regime, while trying to get out from under its Guantanamo treaty obli gations has just signed a treaty with the Soviet Union to build a "fishing port" in Havana Bay. The agreement, according to the Soviet Tass news agen cy, provides "Soviet techni cal assistance to Cuba in the construction of a port, in cluding the building of wharves, freezers, storage warehouses, repair shops with a floating dock, oil storage facilities, a radio station and other auxiliary installations." Both the Cubans and the Russians claim the port will be headquarters for a joint Atlantic fishing fleet. The idea would be that Soviet trawlers, operating in north ern waters off the United States, could go to Cuba rath er than return across the At-' lantic to their home ports. But concern has been ex pressed here that the facili ties may be used to support Soviet submarines or trawl ers observing U.S. military and missile operations in the Caribbean. Because of Guantanamo's position, however, the Cu bans - and the Russians -can now watch U.S. naval man euvers without even bother ing to go to sea. When the USS Enterprise, the great nuclear - powered aircraft carrier, conducted its shakedown operations last spring it cruised off the Cu ban coast. It couid easily ba seen from land; and one day it was observed by a Russian freighter. "a? Builders Supply QUALITY BLOCKS Chimneyt J y5 f : I Prejlrtiied 3 Jry t. 727 W. McAnduwi PHONE 773-4575 Complete Heating Oil Service STANDARD HEATING OILS Metered Deliveries Factory Trained Mechanic Equipment Parts in Stock At Your Service 24 Hours a Day Valley Fuel Co. Since 1931 11 West McAndrews lkm a kppr smtchr Ml pur mother I ' ' " i;' " v '''' ' '" ' V- . ' f 1" " i ' " " - - " , ' j - , . , ','.' 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