Friday, 28 December, 2001, 13:20 GMT.
BBC News
The Cold War may be a receding memory for most of the world, but it remains
a daily reality for US forces in Guantanamo Bay, a naval base in Cuba which the
US leases from the island's communist government.
US Marines maintain a daily vigil behind a sealed perimeter fence, watching
Cuban frontier guards doing the same.
Quite what the Cubans will make of Islamic militants captured in Afghanistan
that Washington plans to detain there, is anyone's guess.
The announcement by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Afghan and
Arab prisoners-of-war will be held there could anger Cuban President Fidel
Castro.
But after decades as one of the world's most dangerous military
flash-points, tension and mutual suspicion are a way of life there.
Status unchanged
"Gitmo", as the base is known to US servicemen, was established
under a treaty signed in 1903 by President Theodore Roosevelt.
The Americans had wanted the bay, one of Cuba's best natural harbours, since
the first battalion of Marines landed there in 1898 during the Spanish-American
War.
After Fidel Castro's revolution brought the Communists to power in 1959,
then-President Dwight Eisenhower insisted the status of the base remained
unchanged, despite Cuban objections.
Washington still pays the rent, set a century ago at 2,000 gold coins a year
and now worth just over $4,000, even though Mr Castro refuses to cash the
cheques.
Nevertheless, tensions have eased dramatically since the Cuban missile
crisis of 1962, when John F Kennedy blockaded Cuba to force the withdrawal of
Soviet nuclear missiles.
The base had already been placed on the highest alert a year previously,
when the abortive US-backed Bay of Pigs invasion ended in fiasco.
Easing tensions
These days the 28-kilometre perimeter fence is a calmer place.
Guantanamo Bay
1898 - Battalion of US Marines lands during Spanish-American War
1903 -
President Theodore Roosevelt signs lease
1939 - Anticipating US involvement
in World War II, President Franklin D Roosevelt orders expansion of base
1959 - Fidel Castro's revolution
1961 - President Eisenhower declares
status of the base unchanged
1961 - High alert during Bay of Pigs fiasco
1962 - More troops arrive during Cuban missile crisis
1990s - Base used to
house Cuban and Haitian refugees
"There's always a little harassment and taunting by the Cubans, but
nothing serious for quite some time," base spokesman Chief Petty Officer
Richard Evans told the Reuters news agency.
The Cuban Frontier Battalion, set up to confront US troops in the base, no
longer expects imminent US invasion and the US military no longer sees the Cuban
army as a threat.
For the past decade the battalion has spent more time stopping Cubans trying
to get into Guantanamo - as thousands did in 1995 with many dying in the mine
fields.
The US side has even cleared its minefields, but the Cubans have not.
In one of the few areas of formal co-operation between the two countries,
those attempting to get to the US via the base are now sent back.
Tensions at the line have diminished to the extent that the Cubans are
expanding tourist facilities around the base. A restaurant and bar are being
built on a lookout high above it.
New arrivals
Former President Bill Clinton considered housing thousands of refugees from
Kosovo at Guantanamo, but abandoned the plan.
If Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters are shipped there from Afghanistan, they
will have to do some readjusting.
Under the Caribbean sun, they will find a McDonald's restaurant, a cinema
and a golf course, a far cry from the dusty battlefields of Kandahar and
Mazar-e-Sharif.
In the unlikely event they ever meet the few remaining Cuban workers on the
base, they will hear stories of daily hardships and the mass exodus of refugees
during the mid-1990s.
Whatever the social complications, Washington has decided that the base is
its best option for the detainees.
"I would characterize Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as the least worst place we
could have selected," Mr Rumsfeld said.
"Its disadvantages...seem to be modest relative to the alternatives."
The new inmates will certainly have to get used to close scrutiny during
their incarceration, not only from their US jailers, but also from the Cubans
across the wire. | 
