Guantanamo Naval Base, more than 120 years of illegal US occupation of Cuba. Photo: Taken from PL

The farce of normality: The Pentagon’s publicity stunt in Cuba

The recent visit of US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to the illegal naval base at Guantanamo Bay.  It constitutes a crude act of political provocation by the Pentagon. Disguised as a supposed routine that deliberately seeks to diminish the solemnity. The importance of the historic conflict that Cuban sovereignty maintains against US imperialism.

This trip by the high-ranking official of the Trump administration is not accidental. It is a coldly calculated gesture to fabricate and sell to the world a false image of “calm and routine control.” With this, Washington intends to minimize the legitimate claim of the Cuban people and government to a piece of national soil. That has remained usurped since 1903 against the will of this island.

Behind the salutes to the troops and the poses for the cameras, the empire is symbolically reinforcing the power imbalance. Acting with such ease and nonchalance amidst escalating diplomatic tensions and economic strangulation is the classic tactic of the international bully. To present themselves as immune to international law.

With this performance, the White House seeks to perpetuate the status quo. Portraying the base not as the permanent focus of aggression and flagrant violation of our territorial integrity that it truly is, but as a simple, routine operational facility.

Also the real objective of this maneuver is purely ideological. The Pentagon is attempting to symbolically defuse Cuban denunciations in the international arena. Trying to avoid any spark that might reignite the global debate. On the absolute illegitimacy of its presence in Cuba’s eastern province.

In essence, this hardline emissary’s visit boils down to a purely publicity-driven political act. It lacks direct military operational value and has no real deterrent effect on a people who have amply demonstrated their capacity for resistance. However, this public relations spectacle on our occupied soil does, with good reason, suggest the existence of an agenda. As irregular as it is dangerous on the part of the most radical sectors in Washington.

Cuba, firm in its historical principles, is not fooled by media pyrotechnics. The territory of Guantanamo Bay belongs, by irrevocable right, to the Republic of Cuba.

By: Daimy Peña Guillén

Radio Angulo
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