Guantanamera

The poem 'Guantanamera' was written in the late 1800s by José Martí, the Cuban leader, thinker, teacher, poet, and freedom fighter. Today the song is better known as a dance tune than a freedom song, but in fact the lyrics speak to a desire for liberation of the Cuban people. Marti wrote Guantanamera in the context of Spanish colonial rule over Cuba. He died in battle during the war for independence against Spain in 1895. Cuba gained independence in 1901 albeit only through the intervention and now falling prey to the USA, the Collosso del Norte, as Martí had warned. In a bitter turn of irony and within a few years of Martis death, the Americans imposed a treaty (the so called Patt amendments) on Cuba that turned Guantánamo Bay, in the region for which the song is named, into a U.S. naval base. This base remains occupied by the US-Army until this day and, of course it has been Cubas demand ever since that the Americans leave and Guantánamo Bay be handed back to Cuba. The Guantanamo prison camp is now known and despised the world over as a symbol of extra-legal detention and torture by the Bush administration. It is maybe worthwhile remembering that the newly elected President Obama, while deciding to close down the prison, still wants to cling onto Guantanamo on Cuba as a US Naval Base.