NEAR GUANTANAMO BAY

By Reinaldo Cedeño Pineda

The way is arid up to coming to Caimanera. The rain hides. The thorny tangle are all over. The nake rocks stick to the land while the sea devours them.

Caimanera is a municipality of Guantanamo, the most oriental of the provinces of Cuba.

Caimanera is the salt mine of Cuba. The Sun is reflected in the mountains of salt. They say that up to the dead men they enter here brine … but this they are not Wieliczka's mines.

To come to Caimanera a special permission is needed. Guantanamo is the unique terrestrial border of the Island.

In a piece, in an enormous piece of her bay, the Naval Base of the United States is. They did not choose it at random, it is one of the biggest bays of bag of the world.

More than one hundred of square kilometres started to Cuba in a leonine agreement, with the gunboats on having turned. An agreement imposed in 1902.

Guantanamo is the Vieques, the Okinawa of Cuba. It is still our Canal of Panama, before Torrijos's heart was sailing along it.

Guantanamo is in mouth of all, not neither for the generous salt of the nature, nor for her waters; but for the torture.

I narrow to my seat when I listen and see Gitmo, Erik Gandini y Tarik Saleh's documentary. I have seen others, terrible.

From the Malones´s Hill, of this side of the dividing fence, more here of the band that is known as "land of nobody ", I cannot reach the cells; but from The Base, this way, to droughts, since we say to him the Cuban … another thing has not come that pain.

But they ask him to the family of Ramon Lopez Peña, a soldier murdered in the prime of life, and to different so many people.

In the Malones´s Hill there is a viewing-point towards The Base. A wall of stones saves of the abyss and supports a visor. If you prefer it, there are the prismatic ones.

-That one is the beach, they make clear to us. Beautiful sand that is opened to the Caribbean Sea. Sand forbidden the guantanameros.

-This, the pier of the ships … the buildings, the cemetery of old cars … a patrol who moves.

I moved the lens following the path. My visual line filled with stars. The voice of the welded guide began to come to me like passed by several filters, already distant …

Instinctively I began backward. The mast of the flag fixed me in the chest as a poison. Walker's flag, not that of Whitman, the venerable poet of East River.

I lived in Guantanamo, in the city of Guantanamo, hard times in my professional beginnings. They were difficult times; but … there I stopped friends forever, and unmentionable tendernesses.

As he said to me once the critic of art, Jorge Núñez Motes, Guantanamo guards marvels doors in. I swear that more of once there opened I, that I can name.

I write this chronicle, because Guantanamo, this province of any more than six thousand square kilometres, is not the Naval Base.

That is not so, Guantanamo, a name for the evilness.

Guantanamo is a guajira. “The Guajira Guantanamera” that the world sings, inspired by the beautiful physiognomy of a woman of these homes.

Guantanamo is the cradle of the nake son (cuban´s rhythm), of these original and rural rhythms: the “changuí”, the “nengón” and the “quiribá”.

It is The Fame, the sculpture of the Italian Chini, announcing the good news from the dome of the Palace Salcines.

Guantanamo is the Zoo of Stone that the sculptor Ángel Íñigo extracted between the stone and Yateras's bananas.

Guantanamo is Regino Boti, the poet who loved " her Catalan parsimony and her straight streets ". It is the village that sang between the sea and the mountain".

Guantanamo is the villa of the Guaso river, rebellious river.

Guantanamo is the park Martí, where friends and loves are gained.

Guantanamo is the “French Holy Tomb Catalina De Riccis”, with her kings' suits, with the unmistakable sound of the “catá”, hollow trunk of the tradition.

It is “Tusi”, legendary teacher of choirs and her “Little Voices of Crystal”.

Guantanamo is Mireya Piñeiro, weaving verses in kept silent of her bonfire.

Guantanamo is Ana Luz García's novel.

The Black Bridge and his legends.

She is the Society The Luz, the Cultural club where it entered to Cuban land “The Age of Gold”, Jose Martí's magazine for the children of America.

Guantanamo is Rafael Inciarte's baton and his band.


Guantanamo they are his blacks of Jamaican and Haitian ancestry. And her honest and poor people … people of all the colors.

Guantanamo they are the “monitongos”, caprice of the nature worked in the stone for the wind.

Guantanamo they are her mountains as knives, as women, or as anvils.

It is Playitas, between the sea and the crags, where it landed Martí, with the oar of prow.

And Duaba, where the titan Antonio Maceo anchored the Mother land.

Guantanamo is the general Pedro Agustín Perez.

It is a February 24, 1895 and the rebelion in The Confidence.

Guantanamo is Christopher Colón's cross guarded in the church “Our Lady of Baracoa's Asuncion”.

Guantanamo is “The Lamppost”, enormous viaduct extracted to the mountain.

She is the North American Elfriede Mahler, who fallen in love with the cuban sensuality, gave to the city the company Free Dance.

It is Lilí Martínez with his piano.

And Axel Rodríguez's flute.

Guantanamo is the singing gestual of Fragmented Dance putting in scene the drama of the Aguilera's bridge.

Guantanamo is the force of the river Toa and the “cayucas”, barges woven by men's hands. And the “tibaracón”, band of sand between the river mouth and the sea.

Guantanamo is Félix Savón and his fists.

It is Yumiledis Cumbá, in the very same Athens, stimulating the bullet up to the Olympic glory.

It is the land of Yargelis Savigne and Dayron Robles, first between jumps and fences.

Guantanamo is a world with his names of settlements: Jamaica, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Paraguay … up to Egypt.

Guantanamo is Maisí's Top, where it finishes Cuba and begins Yemayá's empire; from where the coast of Haiti appears, misty and extensive.

It is “The Machine”, settlement extracted of the same West, of earthy appearance and human face.

Guantanamo is a challenge.

The time has passed … but those stars do not resign me near Guantanamo Bay; not even that lizard that passed across, ignoring the fences.

Because all this land, everything these waters of Guantanamo Bay, they will be ours.

Or better …. The bay of Guantanamo, as it is said in Spanish.

(La versión hispana de este artículo se llama "Cerca de Guantánamo Bay" y puede buscarse en este propio blog)