Opponents of President Obama’s steps to normalize relations with Cuba seized on news that Cuban President Raul Castro is demanding the return of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay as more evidence that it was a bad deal from the start.
Cuban-American Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., a staunch opponent of Obama’s new detente with the Cuban government, accused Fidel and Raul Castro of pushing the deal as far as they could without offering human-rights concessions or reparations for property the Cuban government has seized over the years.
The Cuban government has not offered any concrete plan to stop supporting anti-U.S. regimes such as Russia and harboring terrorism suspects and other U.S. fugitives, she said.
“The Castro brothers, once again, have made their intent toward the United States clear: They plan to use the Iranian playbook in an attempt to extort concessions from the Obama administration in exchange for nothing,” she said Wednesday evening.
The Associated Press reported late Wednesday afternoon that the Cuban president demanded that the U.S. return the base at Guantanamo, lift the half-century trade embargo and compensate the island country for damages as a pre-condition to moving forward with re-establishing diplomatic relations.
Castro reportedly told a summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States that the U.S. and Cuba are moving forward in their talks but diplomatic re-engagement wouldn’t make sense “if these problems aren’t resolved.”
Republicans on Capitol Hill are likely to fight any attempt to hand over the base on Guantanamo Bay and the detainee prison facility to the Castro regime. Some already have accused Obama of working with the Cuban government to normalize relations at least partly to fulfill his campaign promise to close the Gitmo prison facility.
That tall order has eluded Obama throughout his two terms as president as Republicans in Congress and unrest in terrorist hot spots in the Middle East and elsewhere have thwarted his plans to transfer detainees from the prison to other countries.
As president and commander-in-chief, Obama has the power to unilaterally change the decades-long agreement with Cuba giving U.S. control over Guantanamo Bay, but the GOP-controlled Congress likely will try to use its power of the purse to prevent any efforts to hand the base back and shutter the prison.
The legally binding agreement between the U.S. and Cuba regarding Guantanamo Bay provides that “so long as the United States of America shall not abandon the said naval station of Guantanamo or the two governments shall not agree to a modification of its present limits, the station shall continue to have the territorial area that it now has.”
Ros-Lehtinen called on Obama not to allow Castro to extort “this strategic asset” from the U.S. “at any cost.”
“Naval Station Guantanamo Bay is strategically important for U.S. national security, and as our own military personnel have said, also plays a key role as a logistical hub in support of a variety of U.S. priority efforts in the region,” she said.
Just weeks after announcing the changed Cuba policy last month, Obama loosened the trade embargo and eased sanctions on a range of travel and business practices aimed at increasing economic ties with Cuba.
The Obama administration argues that opening up Cuba to U.S. business and goods, and vice versa, will further its goal of reforming Cuba’s oppressive government.
The Castro regime has given no sign that it plans to make any changes to its Communist one-party system or way of governing. In fact, it has demanded an end to U.S. government support for Cuban dissidents, as well as the removal of Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
