|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Welcome to Guantanamo Bay
“Let me take you to an island in the sun, razor wire, security, its so much fun.
Welcome to the official website of the Guantanamo Bay EP. We, The Inevitable, have written and recorded this EP in protest to the appalling abuse of human rights behind the walls of Guantanamo Bay and other United States prison camps around the world. As activists for peace and humans rights, we are disgusted by terrorism and are equally disappointed in the Western Worlds immature approach to dealing with it.
There is never any justification for denying a human their rights as declared by the United Nations:
“Article 1.
“Article 2.
“Article 5.
“Article 10.
No part of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights supports the United States conduct in regard to the Guantanamo Bay Prison. The Guantanamo Bay EP is a bid to remind us all that we have rights as humans and also have a responsibility to treat all other humans according to their rights, which are exactly the same as our own. Under no circumstances should these rights ever be denied a person...
The Inevitable
The Guantanamo Bay EP is a musical protest to the injustice and disregard for human rights that Guantanamo Bay represents. The six track album explores various human rights abuses, including those within Australia's own history in the opening track "Lucky Cuntry". All the songs tie back to Guantanamo Bay and the central theme of human rights abuse, and in a sense this is a concept album that we feel can have various interpretations. The goal of the EP is to raise human rights awareness, not just about the Guantanamo prison, but also a myriad of other abuses of human rights around the world. We chose Guantanamo Bay as the title track and central theme because we feel that it has become an icon of human rights abuse in the world today. The EP will be released on the 1st of December.
*NEW: You can now download a complete version of Guantanamo Bay and War is Hell from the EP. We have decided to release the Guantanamo Bay song for free because we feel it is a song which is relevant to now and should be heard by as many people as possible. Enjoy the download and if you like it support us and buy the whole EP.
The Guantanamo Bay EP is now on sale, you can purchase your copy here or from the Official Band Website (www.theinevitable.com.au).
We make no claim to be historians or that the following information is 100% correct. We have tried to collect a decent amount of information about Guantanamo Bay Cuba and the development of the naval base and prison there by the United States. We make our views about the prison and its unarguable abuse of human rights clear above, but nonetheless we have done our best to make this short historical article as un-biased as possible.
The Inevitable
Guantanamo Bay is located at the south-eastern end of Cuba. It is the largest bay on that side of the island and is surrounded by steep hills, which creates an enclave that is cut off from its immediate hinterland. Guantanamo Bay is significant because it is the oldest overseas US outpost and was also of strategic significance in America’s victory over the Spanish in the Spanish-American war in 1898. The name, Guantanamo, comes from the Taino who were the original inhabitants of the area. When Christopher Columbus landed there in 1494 he named the bay, Puerto Grande. Later on when Spanish settlers took over Cuba, the bay became an important harbour on the south side of the island. During the days of the Spanish Main, Guantanamo Bay became known as a pirate haven as it was an ideal place for pirates to prey on ships passing through the Windward Passage. In 1741 Guantanamo Bay became a strategic point in the war between the Spanish and British after the British took over the undefended port on July 18 1741. They named the port “Cumberland Harbor” and used it as a strategic point to attack Santiago from the east, marching troops overland from Guantanamo. This military campaign and others that the British launched from Guantanamo Bay proved to be failures and in November they called off the expedition and so ended the four month occupation of the area by the British. Until the later Spanish-American war the area remained relatively unpopulated, this was largely due to how dry the land around Guantanamo Bay is, making it uninhabitable by a large population. United States first presence on Guantanamo Bay was in June 1898, during the Spanish-American war. At the time the east side of the bay and some of the surrounding area were under the control of the Cuban rebels. The Cubans had been in rebellion against Spain since 1895 and in 1898 the United States joined forces with the Cubans, after relations between Spain and the US had fallen away, due to American public discontent with the oppression of Cubans by the Spanish. The United States seized control of Guantanamo Bay quite easily on the 6th June when the cruiser “Marblehead” took the bay without much challenge from the Spanish. A Marine Battalion camped there on the 9th of June and the first casualties of the Spanish-American war were killed there next day. The Spanish-American war ended that same year, Guantanamo Bay, now established as a United States Naval base having played an important strategic role in the success of the war. Cuba was handed over to the Cubans after the war, the first president being an American citizen, Tomas Estrada Palma. Five years on from the war, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the Cuban Government signed an agreement, allowing America to lease Guantanamo Bay for 2,000 gold coins a year. The Cuban Government had no choice in this agreement as it was forced on them through the Platt Amendment. The Platt Amendment authorized the United States to interfere with Cuban affairs. The exact terms of this lease, which is contained in two agreements and a treaty are not very well known. It was even officially reported in 1936 that the Naval Station at Guantanamo did not even posses an original copy of the lease. The lease was to last 99 years from the time that it began, February 23 1903. In 1934 a new treaty was made, reaffirming the lease and granting Cuba free access through the bay. At this time the cost of the lease was also upgraded from $2000 gold pieces per year to the equivalent of $4,085 US dollars. After the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Fidel Castro was brought to power in Cuba and requested that the Guantanamo Bay territory controlled by the United States be returned to Cuba. The US president at the time, Dwight Eisenhower, refused to comply with this request and insisted that the area remained under US control. Since 1959 the Cuban Government has refused to recognize the United States occupation of Guantanamo Bay as legal and though the US still sends a cheque for the lease amount every year the Cuban Government has never cashed any of them except for one. The United States insists that the cashing of this single cheque signifies Havana's ratification of the lease. Because there were a large number of Cubans seeking refuge at the Guantanamo Base after the revolution Castro had his troops plant a 13km barrier of cactus around the north-eastern section of the Guantanamo Bay fence in 1961. They called this the “Cactus Curtain”, which was an allusion to the Iron Curtain in Europe. America also laid 75,000 land mines between the base and the Cuban border. This minefield was the second largest in the world and the biggest in the whole western hemisphere. In 1996 US president Bill Clinton ordered that the minefield be removed and replaced with motion and sound sensors. In 1964 Cuba cut the water supply from the Yateras River to the base. Water was then imported from Jamaica, while desalination plants were built for the base. The United States ended up removing the water pipeline when the Cuban Government accused them of stealing water. During the later part of the 20th century the Guantanamo military base was used to hold Cuban and Haitian refugees. In the early 1990s it held refugees who had fled Haiti where the military had overthrown the Government. The refugees were held at Camp Bulkeley. On June 8, 1993 the United States District Court Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. declared the camp unconstitutional. The last refugees held at Guantanamo departed on November 1, 1995. The United States official 99 year lease of Guantanamo Bay ran out in 2002. On June 12 2002 at the United Nations General Assembly, Cuba demanded that the territory be returned. On the grounds of an agreement made in 1934 when the lease was renewed, United States could refuse this request. The agreement states: "Until the two Contracting Parties agree to the modification or abrogation of the stipulations of the agreement in regard to the lease to the United States of America of lands in Cuba for coaling and naval stations… the stipulations of that Agreement with regard to the naval station of Guantanamo shall continue in effect." This agreement means that the United States can occupy Guantanamo Bay for an open ended duration.
In 2002 the first detainees were transferred to the Guantanamo Bay and imprisoned at Camp Delta, Echo, Camp Iguana, and the now-closed Camp X-Ray. These detainees were classified as “enemy combatants”. Since the Afghanistan war more than 750 detainees have been placed in detention at Guantanamo, 420 of these have since been released. 355 detainees remain in Guantanamo, of these the United States only intends to place 60 to 80 on trial.
Bibliography:
Cuban Information Archives
Cuba Today
History of Cuba
Naval Station Guantanamo Bay
Amnesty International
Wikipedia
Since we are an Australian band and David Hicks is an Australian who was detained at Guantanamo, we consider that it is probably important that we add a note of some sort about the matter. David Hicks is a significant part of the Guantanamo Bay story because there has been widespread controversy over his detention by the US and he was also the first detainee to be convicted under the U.S. Military Commissions Act of 2006. A basic summary of the events surrounding David Hicks detention at Guantanamo Bay, finds that David Hicks did undertake training in al Qaeda-linked camps so that he could serve under the Taliban in Afghanistan, whereby he was captured by the Northern Alliance in December 2001 trying to exit the Country when the recent/ongoing Afghanistan war began. He was then turned over to US Special Forces for a bounty of $1000. As a result of his capture David Hicks was taken to Guantanamo Bay where he was held for five years without charge. David Hicks was accused of being an “unlawful combatant”, even though it seems that he was unarmed and not anywhere near a battlefield when he was “captured”. Being an unlawful combatant meant that David was immediately stripped of the rights a POW (prisoner of war) would normally have. Conveniently the status of “unlawful combatant” meant that Hicks could be tried by the United States. In connection with Guantanamo Bay the US administration decided to use a new term “illegal enemy combatant” to justify further removal of the basic civil rights of Detainees. As a result David Hicks and others were able to be held without any contact to the outside world and without legal representation. David Hicks has alleged that he was badly mistreated during his time in detention. In an August 2004 affidavit, not released until December 2004, David claims he was beaten while restrained and blindfolded, deprived of sleep, forced to take unidentified medication, sedated and also struck while sedated, forced to witness dogs brutalising and injuring other detainees and also subjected to a number of other abuses. Even though the Australian Government could have brought David Hicks home for a trial in his own country, they were happy to accept U.S. assurance that Hicks would be treated according to International Law. David Hicks first trial was set for 10 January 2005, but was delayed because the U.S. Federal Court ruled that the military commission concerned were not competent or lawful. In July of 2005 the U.S. appeals court ruled that Unlawful Combatants did not need to be tried under the Geneva Convention and that instead they could be tried by a military tribunal. Australia was the only country that seemed to think somebody, in particular an Australian Citizen, being tried under such a process was reasonable. Because British Government had already negotiated the release of nine British detainees, Hicks, who was eligible, applied for a British Citizenship in late 2005. After a certain amount of rigmarole David Hicks was awarded British citizenship in mid 2006, but the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office would not lobby for his release as they had for the other British detainees on the grounds that Hicks had been an Australian citizen when detained. In February 2007 the US Military Commission brought new charges against Hicks. Charges included attempted murder and providing material support for terrorism. These were retrospective charges which were only possible under new law introduced in 2006. It was alleged that if found guilty Hicks could be sentenced to life imprisonment. After more controversy the trial finally got underway in March 2007, whereby Hicks entered a guilty plea in regard to the charge of material support to terrorism on March 26. This plea-bargain resulted in a short 9 month sentence which could be served in Australia. David Hicks returned to Australia in May and is set to be released on 29 December 2007.
Our EP, Guantanamo Bay, is all about Human Rights and has been written/recorded with a primary goal to raise awareness about Human Rights and yes, undeniably also benefit the band, as music is our profession. When we say Human Rights we are referring to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as adopted and proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948. This document dictates the rights and fundamental freedoms that everyone should have and is "a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations". Within the declaration there is nothing that any sane, moral person could disagree with or any right that you yourself would accept being denied. Because the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is very hard to disagree with, no matter who you are (unless insane), we feel that we have a right, along with others, to point out shortfalls and promote improvement for a better world long term. While acts of terrorism are shocking violations of Human Rights, so too is the United States and its allies (including our home country Australia) approach to dealing with terrorism. Invading a country (Afghanistan), dropping bombs on innocent civilians and detaining people (no matter what the crime) without fair and public trial are all violations of Human Rights. Such actions and many more obvious violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have formed a major part of the conduct of Bush's "Coalition of the Willing" over the past few years. In addition to their disregard to the rights of people from other countries our Governments have also used the recent "War on Terror" to aid the gradual removal of our own rights and freedoms. Within the United States security has been tightened and private information of everyday people is now more readily available to Government and Intelligence organizations. In Australia new sedition laws have been introduced and to some degree freedom of speech and information limited. There have been similar changes made in other countries, such as Great Britain. These are actions that do more to limit our own rights than catch potential terrorists. We ask a simple question, do you want rights? If you do, then it is your duty to support the right for everyone else to share the same rights that you expect to be bestowed upon yourself. If you have not read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights you can read it in full on the Official UN Human Rights Page
If you have read this far or skipped all the other stuff, you might be beginning to wonder just who The Inevitable are. We are an Australian based rock band, who among the many other things that rock bands do, have also decided to take up the Human Rights banner because we feel that it is an issue in the world today that is not looked at nearly enough and also an issue that should not be argued about. We formed in 2004, under the name ISM as a very raw sounding trash punk outfit, we have since evolved into the unique and somewhat more sophisticated entity that we call The Inevitable. The Band consists of three members, Chris(Guitar & Vocals), Jim(Bass) and Joel(Drums). We have a massive repertoire of over 100 songs, most of which are waiting to be recorded and heard by the world. Many of these songs are Human Rights based, others political and many just straight rock songs, which the World can never have enough of. The Guantanamo Bay EP is our first real foray into the world, which we hope will prove to be a big splash and better both Human Rights and our existence as a band supporting the future Human Rights and Rock n Roll in the world. As a band we have a diverse range of influences from various genres of music, some of those that have influenced us significantly are artists such as Frank Zappa, Dead Kennedys, NoFx, Pennywise, Iron Maiden, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Nirvana and Jimi Hendrix. You can find out more about us at our Official Website. Visit www.theinevitable.com.au.
Following are some links to websites that we think are worthwhile checking out if you are interested in finding out more about Guantanamo Bay or Human Rights.
United Nations Official Website:
Amnesty International:
United Nations Foundation:
Fair Go For David:
Are there any other links that you feel should be placed here, if so please do not hesitate to Contact Us and we will consider them.
If there is anyone(s) out there who would like to challenge the existence of this page, our right to support and promote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the shutdown of Guantanamo Bay and an end to other violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the world today, we would like to refer them to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as quoted below: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Nonetheless feel free to Contact Us with an opinions you have. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
