Cuba denounces USSR'S unilateral withdrawal of motorized brigade Why doesn't U.S. pull out of Guantanamo Base, Cubans ask

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U.S. Marines on alert at Guantanamo Base during 1962 Missile Crisis.

"It is clear that concessions were negotiated and concretized with the United States in relation to Cuba, acceding to its demands without even a single word spoken to our country."

The unilateral announcement by Gorbachev in early September that the USSR was removing its military contingent from Cuba was a blow to the defense of Cuba in face of the unbridled hostility of Washington.

An editorial in the Sept. 22 issue of Granma, the newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, replied to the Soviet move, bluntly stating that it "has serious political connotations which compromise our security."

The editorial concludes: "The unilateral and unconditional decision by the USSR without consulting Cuba to withdraw its military unit gives the United States the green light to carry out its plans of aggression against Cuba. That would be the moral symbolism of the withdrawal of that symbolic military contingent. Any other explanation or interpretation is meaningless.

"Cuba will never let itself be turned over or sold out to the United States, and in order not to be enslaved again, we are willing to struggle to the death."

The editorial says the Soviet move should not "surprise those of us who experienced the outcome of the "Missile Crisis" of 1962, when the Soviet government made another deal with Washington behind the backs of Cuba. At that time the Kennedy administration threatened nuclear war if the USSR did not remove nuclear missiles that had been stationed in Cuba even though Washington had ringed the USSR and China with thousands of nuclear missiles in foreign lands.

The editorial says the Missile Crisis was "a painful and unforgettable experience for our young Revolution in which the withdrawal of the nuclear missiles was decided without consulting Cuba. This was done despite the fact that our country, for the sake of strengthening the defensive capacity of the socialist community- above all the defensive capacity of the Soviet Union—had risked nuclear extermination. The enormous dangers we faced for the sake of everyone's security and the agreements which were violated in those days gave us the right to demand at least a minimal Soviet presence, which was accepted.

"Much has been said since then and much more has yet to be said, but no one can deny the drama, the speed of those events, the enormous and unprecedented tensions to which the Soviet leadership was submitted and the gigantic responsibilities entailed in those crucial hours which overwhelmed Khrushchev and despite his good faith exceeded his capacity as a statesman.

"If at least the point on the withdrawal of the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo. one of the five conditions set by our Party and government as a solution to the crisis-had been defended with the vigor and intelligence demanded by the situation, there would be no U.S. or Soviet troops in Cuba today."

Granma also points out that the Soviet military unit now being withdrawn was stationed in Cuba following the Missile the idea of denying the presence of the Brigade, but that the Kremlin brushed the Cubans off and "yielded to public pressure from the United States" and claimed that the Brigade wasn't a military unit at all but "a supposedly inoffensive study center." This undercut the stated purpose of the Brigade's presence, which was to act as a deterrent to U.S. aggression.

The editorial states that the Brigade is to be unilaterally withdrawn this year "because its symbolic presence, it was said, belongs to another epoch. To us, 'symbolic'—a word we were the first to use-has two meanings: that its forces are not numerically significant in terms of Cuba's military defense, but that at the same time they had deep significance as an expression of friendship and solidarity in the face of U.S. threats."

The editorial asks "what is happening under the present circumstances, when the East-West conflict is considered over with the disappearance of one of the blocs and when in the name of new thinking in international relations, regrettable practices used in some very ble hypocrisy, at defeating it through hunger?

"What symbolism is involved and to what epoch belongs the illegal occupation of Cuban territory, on which the United States maintains against the express will of our people a military base which is totally obsolete for its strategic defense? What purpose does that base serve if not to humiliate and threaten Cuba?

"Should we define the anti-Cuba policy of the United States, sick with hatred, arrogance and impotence, as 'de-ideologized'?

"Is the crusade against the Cuban Revolution launched by George Bush and his emissaries-—who have reached the limit by conditioning their aid and cooperation with the Soviet Union on breaking Soviet-Cuban ties and have demanded it with unbridled hysteria, at the top of their lungs, constantly, everywhere, on the most ridiculous pretext exempt of any ideological contamination?"

The Granma editorial goes on to docuofficials consummated their deal with the United States.

"The revelation, during the joint press conference [of Gorbachev and Secretary of State Baker] at the end of the bilateral negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States, of the decision to withdraw the military contingent stationed in our country left international public opinion with the clear understanding of an unconditional concession. In announcing the decision, President Gorbachev omitted any reference to the U.S. military presence in Cuba, as did Secretary of State Baker, who having heard the news prior to the announcement had time to find the right words to use when it was his turn to speak. Among the reactions of our people to the news was the bitter intuition of a surprising concession, especially after seeing a few days earlier how the president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, had dealt capably with the subject of Soviet relations with Cuba while on U.S. television.

"On Sept. 12, a few hours after the Cuban ambassador in Moscow had delivered to President Gorbachev's office an official note regarding the announced withdrawal, Soviet Foreign Minister Boris D. Pankin gave a press conference. In his initial statement and the responses to the journalists' questions, Pankin offered enough additional elements for us to establish the Cuban position on the principled question at hand and to announce it publicly, in the same style chosen by Soviet authorities. At this moment, the so-called complementary measures of confidence toward Cuba alluded to by the Soviet foreign minister are secondary and undeserving of any comment.

"Pankin explained that giving the information about the withdrawal of the instruction Brigade in advance to the United States-even before the Cuban government learned of it through the wire services-was in response to the perception that that decision entailed an exhortation of the United States and the expectation that it would respond with its own measures.

"In the understanding of Foreign Minister Pankin and therefore of Soviet authorities, Soviet actions are based on expectations which, judging by the inventory of steps which the United States could hypothetically take it those expectations were not unfounded, are extremely modest, such as the reduction of military personnel at Guantanamo and other equally significant measures.

"Such expectations would be subject to the decision of the United States and could be rejected at any moment, as is traditional in the United States' conduct, especially now that it considers itself the master of the world, while the steps the USSR has declared itself ready to take would be irreversible and unconditional. It is clear that concessions were negotiated and concretized with the United States in relation to Cuba, acceding to its demands without even a single word spoken to our country.

"Fortunately, in many senses we are not in October 1962 and almost not in 1991. Cuba's defense rests solidly on a doctrine and over 10 years of preparation which completely excluded any hypothesis which does not depend solely on our own lives and the unyielding determination to never again be enslaved by the United States....