On 25 February 2025, over 50,000 Cubans took to the streets in Guantánamo, demanding the immediate withdrawal of US forces from the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base. For over six decades, socialist Cuba has demanded the return of Guantánamo, yet Washington refuses to relinquish its colonial grip. The base has been used to facilitate US invasions, back right-wing paramilitary groups, torture prisoners of war, and once again under the new Trump administration, imprison migrants fleeing the devastation caused by United States’ policies. The struggle to shut down Guantánamo is not just about closing a prison – it is a fight against US imperialism.
The colonial occupation of Guantánamo
The US seized Guantánamo Bay in 1898 during the Spanish-American War and later imposed a treaty, the Platt Amendment, on its puppet Cuban government to retain control. Since the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Washington has refused to return the land, using it instead as a staging post for military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean such as the US invasion of Panama (1989).
The US base in the municipality of Caimanera is not just a symbol of imperialist occupation but also an ecological and economic disaster for the Cuban people. Decades of military exercises, bombing drills, and weapons testing have poisoned the land and waters, leaving behind toxic waste that devastates local biodiversity. The Guantánamo River, once a vital source of life for the people of Caimanera, is now contaminated with pollutants that threaten both the environment and the health of those who rely on it.
Beyond the ecological damage, the naval base stifles economic opportunities. The presence of the military base severely restricts tourism, a key economic driver for Cuba. Some of the most pristine beaches in southern Guantánamo, ideal for tourism and water sports, are within the occupied territory, making them inaccessible to Cuban development. The bay, which could otherwise be a hub for eco-tourism and maritime activities, remains off-limits due to US military control.
An emblem of imperialism
Guantánamo Bay has long been a site of US imperialist violence. In the 1990s, it was used to detain over 30,000 Haitian migrants fleeing a US-backed coup against progressive President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In the early 2000s, under the presidency of George W Bush, it became a torture chamber for the so-called ‘War on Terror’, where (with the collusion of British agents) detainees were subjected to waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and brutal beatings – without trial or charges, beyond the reach of US or international law.
Guantánamo has been used to detain migrants over many decades, with both Republican and Democratic administrations overseeing its operation. The Biden administration (2020-2024) continued this legacy. Instead of shutting the base down, as he pledged during his campaign, Joe Biden’s government funnelled $4m into expanding its courtroom facilities, and awarded a $163.4m contract to enlarge the migrant detention centre. Before leaving office, Biden pumped millions into its expansion, proving that the Democratic Party is no alternative to Trump’s racist policies.
In March 2023, all detained migrants were temporarily transferred back to the US in response to legal challenges. But by 20 March 2025, the Trump administration had fully resumed operations, sending a fresh wave of Venezuelan migrants to Guantánamo – this time branding them ‘gang-affiliated’ without a shred of evidence.
Torture and state terror
In a blatant display of imperialist aggression, President Donald Trump has escalated his racist migration policies. Just weeks after his inauguration in January 2025, Trump ordered its expansion to hold up to 30,000 migrants. This move is part of a broader strategy to dehumanise and vilify migrants, many of whom flee their homelands due to criminal US policies of interventionism and economic destabilisation. The migrants currently being hunted down and subjected to brutal treatment by the Trump administration are being held in a facility synonymous with imperialist terror.
The horror inside Guantánamo Migrant Operations Centre (GMOC) is undeniable. By 4 February 2025, the US had already transferred 178 Venezuelan migrants there, holding 127 in Camp 6, the same facility once used for so-called ‘enemy combatants’ supposedly linked to Al Qaeda or other jihadist groups. Under Trump’s orders, 185 tents and temporary structures were built on the base to expand the facilities – under the false pretence of detaining ‘the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people’. This racist rhetoric serves to justify mass deportation and collective punishment of the oppressed communities.
Despite claims that these were ‘dangerous criminals’, by 20 February the US admitted that at least 50 detainees had no criminal record beyond entering the country unlawfully. One was an asylum seeker who had passed his preliminary screening but lost his case while representing himself. His sister only discovered his detention when the administration released photos of newly arrived migrants at Guantánamo.
Internal reports and testimonies expose the cruel conditions at the GMOC. Detainees describe being transported with blacked-out goggles, monitored during legal calls, and subjected to inhumane treatment. A report from the International Refugee Assistance Project detailed overflowing sewage, rat-infested sleeping areas, and deliberately unsanitary conditions—meant to break the will of those imprisoned and deter others from crossing into the US.
Shut down Guantánamo
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel joined the protest in Guantánamo on 25 February, denouncing the base’s economic, environmental, and human rights abuses. When referring to Trump’s current criminal campaign against migrants, Díaz-Canel warned of the backwardness of ‘the dominant political forces that embrace fascist ideas that humanity has sought to eliminate since the last century,’ and correctly identified that these ‘currents are a product of capitalism’. Cubans, alongside their President, made one thing clear: Guantánamo is not just a detention site – it is an imperialist outpost, and they demand its closure.
Destinie Sánchez
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 305 April/May 2025
