What is Guantanamo Bay?
Q: What is Guantanamo Bay?
A: Guantanamo Bay is a bay in the south of the island of Cuba. Part of it is controlled by the United States.
Q: How did the US gain control of Guantanamo Bay?
A: The United States took control of it in 1903, under a treaty between the United States and Cuba. The current government of Cuba does not see this treaty as legal. They say it violates International law (more specifically, the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969).
Q: What is GTMO?
A: GTMO stands for "Guantanamo" and is sometimes used as shorthand for "Gitmo", which refers to the navy station that surrounds part of southern bay.
Q: What is the mission at Gitmo?
A: The mission at Gitmo includes preventing terrorism, helping people who are fleeing Cuba, and stopping drug crime. It has also been used to detain people captured by American forces from Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as some prisoners taken from other countries like Britain and France.
Q: Do prisoners held at Gitmo have rights according to international law?
A: Some people say that these people do not get the rights that they should get as prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions due to laws in place within the United States not applying to them.
Q: Has there been any reports about mistreatment or torture at Gitmo?
A: According to some well-known human rights groups, some prisoners have been tortured and others may have been badly treated according an FBI Inquiry. This has also been reported by some Europeans who were taken by CIA "torture flights" and have now been released.
