TUCUMAN, Argentina — The U.S. Senate decision allowing terror suspects held at the U.S. Navy's Guantanamo Bay facility to be brought to the United States for trial is a significant development toward resolving the human rights issue surrounding their detention.
If this facility is finally closed, the next logical step is to return Guantanamo to its rightful owners, the Cuban people. More than almost any other, this measure would assuage the climate of antagonism that now exists between the U.S. and Latin American countries.
Guantanamo has a convoluted history. Initially, the U.S. government obtained a 99-year lease on the 120-square-km area in 1903. The resulting Cuban-American Treaty established, among other things, U.S. jurisdiction and control of the area for the purpose of operating naval and coaling stations at Guantanamo. It was also recognized that the Republic of Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty of the area.