Nine Britons were released, but Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna are still in the detention camp in Cuba after more than three years. They are demanding their freedom with another man, Omar Deghayes. They won permission to seek a High Court order requiring the UK to petition for their release.

Mr al-Rawi and Mr el-Banna claim they were asked by MI5 to work for them, but were later handed to the CIA for "rendition". Neither of the men were picked up in Afghanistan, but were associates of the Muslim cleric Abu Qatada in London.

Their lawyer, George B Mickum, a partner in a respected Washington law firm who had access to classified evidence, reported in The Independent yesterday that they were arrested in the African state of Gambia in November 2002. They were flown by the CIA to Afghanistan, where they were manacled, interrogated and imprisoned underground before being transferred to Guantanamo.

They claimed that while in Kabul they were beaten, kicked and hit with blunt objects, as well as being held in solitary confinement and kept in freezing conditions to induce hypothermia.

The Prime Minister in the past has said holding the detainees in the camp in Cuba outside the normal rules of war or criminal courts was an "anomaly" which had to be ended.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, recently went further by calling for the camp to be closed, but Mr Blair had been reluctant to do so to avoid allowing a diplomatic breach with the US President, George Bush, over Guantanamo

But, questioned yesterday about the claims, Mr Blair said: "I can't comment on individual cases. I think they are the subject of a court action. I have said that I think it would be better if it [Guantanamo] was closed for all the reasons that we have given over a long period of time."

He added: "The only thing I always do to balance it out is remind people that it arose out of the circumstances of 9/11. In fairness to the Americans, they dispute many of these claims that are made. And there are things, certainly, that I have read about the circumstances of some of the British who were in Guantanamo that are strongly disputed in certain quarters."

The Prime Minister's call for Guantanamo to be closed was welcomed last night by Andrew MacKinlay, a Labour member of the Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, which is conducting an inquiry into the war on terrorism.

But he said Mr Blair had been a "wimp" in failing to make stronger protests to President Bush in the past after a UN report last month found that some of the treatment of prisoners amounted to torture.

"Guantanamo Bay is wholly unacceptable and its legal status makes it even more dreadful," he said. "The injustice of holding these people without charge for so long, contrary to Western norms, is compounded by each day they spend in custody. They should either be brought to trial or they should be freed," he said.

The judge who gave Mr al-Rawi, Mr el-Banna and Mr Deghayes leave to apply for a High Court order to demand their release, Mr Justice Collins, said during their hearing that America's idea of torture "doesn't appear to coincide with that of most civilised countries".

In an earlier report, the Foreign Affairs Committee said: "We find that the Government's position on the detentions at Guantanamo Bay does not sit easily with its pledge to 'respect, and urge others to respect, those human rights laid down in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that can never be compromised, even in states of emergency'."

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

Less noticeably, strong resistance has also taken root in Latin America, and since the election of Hugo Chavez as president in 1998, above all in Venezuela. Chavez's anti-US stance is not only having a measurable affect in other Latin American countries -- the victory of Evo Morales in Bolivia being the most notable -- but also among poor, ethnic minority communities in the US itself. For example, the black actor and political campaigner Harry Belafonte, member of a delegation of Americans that met Chavez in January of this year, made the following astonishing assault upon George Bush: "No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W Bush says, we're here to tell you not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution. We respect you, admire you, and we are expressing our full solidarity with the Venezuelan people and your revolution."

Outside the confines of Muslim communities in the West no such brave -- some might say reckless -- support has been proffered by anyone to any Middle Eastern regime or resistance movement. The reason for this seems clear: that the kind resistance, ideology, and political nous offered by Chavez is far more appealing to the American poor and oppressed -- and will doubtless soon be to the dispossessed in other parts of the globe -- than that of his Middle Eastern counterparts.

A key plank to Chavez's politics is the attempt to use Venezuela's oil exports for the benefit of the poor and the avowed rejection of IMF-style neo-liberal structural adjustment programmes. In an extremely astute move, Chavez devised a programme to provide discounted oil to poor Americans. Under the plan Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA), and its Houston-based affiliate Citgo, will set aside up to 10 per cent of refined oil products to be sold directly to poor communities and institutions. Note that this initiative coincides with the making of record profits by US oil giants and Bush-supporters such as Exxon.

This is the root of Chavez's popularity -- he seems to be putting into practice what he preaches. Like Middle East regimes Hugo Chavez is not part of the West but his ideology, integrity and commitment to social justice -- particularly the use of burgeoning oil revenues for social programmes -- is being adopted now by, in the words of Belafonte, perhaps millions of poor urban Americans. This is one reason why the Bush government is so hostile to the Chavez regime and fervently hopes for its removal.

In stark contrast, the politics, ideology and means of resistance of the Middle Eastern countermovement attract very little support beyond Muslim circles in the West. On the country they -- and their supporters residing in the West -- have increasingly become part of the 'Other'. Rather than viewing this as a manifestation of 'Islamophobia', it should be seen in the context of the effective curtailing of rights and liberties to which the resistance continues to pay lip service.

The resistance in Afghanistan and Iraq -- though entirely explicable and expected -- contains deeply reactionary elements. For example, many of the bombings -- including suicide bombings -- in Iraq have been directed explicitly against civilians on sectarian grounds, explicitly so in recent weeks. In contrast, sectarianism and the systematic targeting of civilians was never the policy of, say, the resistance to US troops in Vietnam.

And what of Arab leaders? Whereas Chavez denounces Bush and Blair in the most unrelenting of terms Arab leaders offer barely a whisper of criticism. In practice these leaders have been ineffectual in giving real solidarity to their fellow Arabs or Muslims. Take, for example, the threat by the US and the EU to withdraw funding from the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, and by Israel to withhold customs duties. A Chavez equivalent in the Middle East, or the wider Islamic world, would immediately have stepped in to offer replacement aid; yet there has been silence and pusillanimity though the Iranian regime has now promised some funds. There has certainly not been any action on the part of oil- rich Gulf states to offer help to the Arab poor -- let alone to the poor of the US.

So, though we have in formation a countermovement to the abuse of US power and Washington's myriad breaches of international law and convention, resistance in the Middle East can learn much from the resistance now emanating from Latin America, above all from Venezuela -- not least because it is based on a vision of liberation in its full sense of the word, and not solely from the yoke of US imperialism.

* The writer is a senior lecturer at the University of Sussex, UK.

Mr Chavez, a man with his own signature tune and six-hour weekly television show, is a figure of fear and loathing in Washington.

He is a left-wing leader who has declared war on American imperialism, and his views in turn have prompted an extreme response among some Republicans, including the television evangelist Pat Robertson who said: "We have the ability to take him out and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability."

That war of words is now being fought out here in New England.

'Pumping goodwill'

There is snow on the ground in Maine and the temperatures are plummeting. This is where Mr Chavez is launching his latest front in his cold war against the president of the United States.

An oil tanker reverses into the driveway of a modest clapperboard home, a sign that the Hugo Chavez road show has arrived in New England.

It is delivering cut-price heating fuel from Citgo, a company wholly owned by the Venezuelan government.

Mr Chavez is pumping goodwill as well as the oil into the homes of thousands of needy Americans.

And he has even enlisted the help of US politicians like Maine's Democratic Governor John Baldacci, whose own involvement is proving controversial.

This testy exchange illustrates the point:

Me: "Do you admire Hugo Chavez for what he's done?"

John Baldacci: "I don't get into the politics, you know..."

Me: "But it's his decision. I mean, you have got into the politics whether you like it or not."

John Baldacci: "Well, I haven't."

Me: "But he has given this oil to the people of Maine, the poor people..."

John Baldacci: "That's right. And we appreciate and thank him for that very much and we thank Citgo Venezuela for that."

'Anti-democratic'

Among those people who are directly benefiting - like pensioners Malcolm and Mary Lyons - there is no doubting their appreciation for President Chavez.

Without his help, Mary Lyons says they simply would not be able to afford to heat their home.

"It's very comforting," she says. "I think it's a wonderful gesture. Thanks to the Venezuelan people to make this all happen to us."

But it's a very public gesture being witnessed by the world's media, raising the question: is this a programme genuinely designed to help the poor or more for the publicity?

Ricardo Hausman, a former minister in the Venezuelan government, is a professor at Harvard University.

"I think that from the point of view of his cash flow it is peanuts. From the point of view of his political agenda, it is gold.

"It is an incredible investment in political visibility out of something that doesn't really make much sense except in the context of that political agenda."

It is President Chavez's agenda that worries Washington. He is seen as an increasingly anti-democratic and destabilising force throughout Latin America. But it is proving hard to bite the hand that feeds.

Public relations war

Venezuelan oil helps keep the American economy running and Citgo operates 15,000 gas stations right across the country.

Overall, Venezuela is the fifth largest exporter of oil to the United States, selling 1.5 million barrels of oil every day.

But President Bush can do little to halt the Chavez road show which has now moved on to Rhode Island. Here he's getting the support from the Kennedy clan.

Former Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy says the Bush administration should be backing, not criticising the Venezuelan president.

"Why isn't anybody criticising the Kuwaitis or the Saudis or any of the others who are out there raking it in and not providing any assistance to anybody?

"And here's one guy who provides a little bit of help and assistance to the poor and he's under unbelievable criticism. It's politics, it's not the reality of what he's doing - it's the politics of it."

Here in New England it is President Chavez not President Bush who appears to be winning this public relations war.

And whatever Hugo Chavez's motives are for providing cheap heating fuel for the poor - to many Americans actions speak louder than words.

It's the latest in a series of extraordinary counterrevolutionary actions spanning several years that includes a coup attempt, a strike against the state-owned oil company and a boycott of parliamentary elections.

On March 5 the Caracas daily El Nacional reported on plans of the Zulian group Our Own Path to initiate a plebiscite there on Oct. 24. Voters would vote on a "statute on autonomy" to "guarantee their individual rights and their own free enterprise economic system."

Responding within hours on television, President Hugo Chávez accused the U.S. government of plotting "to take control of the great oil wealth there … and break the country into pieces."

"North American imperialists are reverting to old ways with a lunatic, proxy fifth column with a mentality that is programmed, colonized and traitorous," he said.

The separatists reportedly have ties with paramilitaries in Colombia, adjacent to Zulia.

Chávez recalled that separatism is a recurring theme in Zulian politics, beginning with the era of Simon Bolivar. A British observer noted that secessionists and their U.S. backers devised plans in 1935 to convert Zulia into a U.S. dependency.

Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez reported on a criminal investigation of the secessionist movement but admitted that his department lacks hard evidence of U.S. involvement. Homeland for All, a left political party, organized demonstrations outside Rodriguez's office on March 7 in favor of stepped-up investigations. Rodriguez later announced the appointment of a judge and hinted at "other action in addition to a criminal investigation."

Freddy Bernal, president of the Association of Bolivarian Mayors of Venezuela, has called for a national mobilization against the separatists. On March 7, National Assembly President Nicolas Maduro complained to reporters of "the conspiratorial silence of the Venezuelan opposition [to Chávez]. … With this silence, they are confirming their complicity."

Zulian Gov. Manuel Rosales is one of only two state governors who oppose Chávez. Giancarlo di Martino, mayor of Maracaibo, the state capital, accuses Rosales of secessionist leanings. William Lara, national coordinator of Chávez's political party, claims that Rosales is a confidant of U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield, the two of them meeting 17 times last year, according to one source. Reportedly Rosales crosses the border to meet with Colombian paramilitaries.

A multimillion-dollar publicity campaign for the separatist plebiscite is under way, its onset timed with the reopening of the U.S. Consulate in Maracaibo after years of inactivity.

According to one report, NATO and U.S. commanders staged a war game invasion of Venezuela in Madrid five years ago. "Operation Balboa," as it was called, was situated in Zulia.

Spokespersons for Our Own Path call for Zulian autonomy and "liberal capitalism." They envision a president and senate instead of governor and state legislature. Their model for Venezuela and Zulia is China and Hong Kong: "one country, two systems." They look admiringly upon Taiwan and Singapore.

The parallel situation of separatist agitation riling the eastern Bolivian state of Santa Cruz, rich in natural gas, comes to mind.

Alberto Mansueti, one of the secessionist leaders, explains, "What we want is a statute ... that will allow us to move from socialism to free market norms." Secessionist ideologue Néstor Suárez argues that Zulians "instinctively reject and resist against socialism" of any variety.

Meanwhile, 500,000 civilian reservists in Venezuela will soon embark upon a four-month weekend training course that emphasizes tactics for "asymmetric war," the term military planners apply to defense against a powerful foreign force. Chávez predicted on March 5 that "If someday a group of invaders comes looking for me, they will never take me alive."

Communist leader Figuera condemned attempts "to split the country, converting this region into a beachhead for fratricidal confrontations among Venezuelans, to create international conditions that provide justification for the gringo invasion plan for Venezuela." His party calls for "the broadest possible national mobilization. … The Venezuelan people are not disposed to accept any action that threatens the integrity of the national territory."

atwhit@megalink.net

Maybe it's not surprising, then, that an increasingly progressive Latin America is starting to say good riddance.

In recent months, major countries in the region have moved to pay off their loans to the IMF ahead of schedule and free themselves of direct oversight from the Fund. Announcements in December from Argentina and Brazil, which are paying off $9.8 billion and $15.5 billion respectively, inaugurated the trend in the region. In addition, Bolivia was relieved of its outstanding obligations to the IMF by last year's debt relief agreement at the G8. The country's newly elected president, Evo Morales, has indicated that he may let his standby agreement with the IMF expire at the end of the month.

The motivation for cutting ties has been explicitly political. The Latin American electorate is fed up with policies like privatization and curtailed social spending; these policies, hallmarks of IMF "neoliberalism," have hit the countries' poor majorities hardest.

It would be one thing if the Fund's prescriptions worked in creating economies that served their people. But in country after country, neoliberal economic mandates have produced lackluster growth at best and often have resulted in catastrophe. Argentina was once a poster child of IMF economics; that is, until its economy collapsed in 2001 under neoliberal guidance. As voters throughout the region demand change and put left-of-center governments into power, leaders like Argentinean President Néstor Kirchner proclaim that throwing off the chains of IMF debt constitutes an overdue victory-a move toward "political sovereignty and economic independence."

Interestingly, within the domestic political debates of Argentina and Brazil, the left has been critical of the decision to repay. Social movement activists argue that the debts, some of which had been accumulated by past military governments, were unjust and should be renounced outright. In Argentina, critics contend that the IMF should have to pay for a crisis it was largely responsible for creating. Instead, billions of dollars that could have been used for needed social programs are going back into the Fund's coffers.

The activists may have had a solid argument. But now that the deals are going forward, it's time to assess their impact: Will freedom from the IMF lead to a truly independent economic path?

On the face of it, distance from the IMF will provide poor and middle-income countries with room to chart a more autonomous course. Still, there are complicating factors. Remaining debts to institutions like the Inter-American Development Bank and the World Bank can be used to leverage governments to impose neoliberal policies. In Brazil, where Lula da Silva's ostensibly progressive government has mostly adhered to the orthodox economic prescriptions of corporate globalization, political will to change may be lacking. Finally, the IMF will be able to continue giving its recommendations to other creditors.

The power of such advice, however, is not what it once was. The IMF has lost a lot of clout in recent years, due in no small part to Argentina. Since taking power in the wake of the country's economic crisis, Kirchner has played hardball in negotiations with the IMF and private creditors. The strategy worked, allowing his government to negotiate a very favorable restructuring of its loans. Argentina standing up to the IMF was like an underdog knocking down the schoolyard bully. The aura of invincibility surrounding the Fund was dispelled, and the institution will likely never again inspire the same begrudging awe. Furthermore, as the failures of neoliberalism grow increasingly evident, creditors like the World Bank have been compelled to moderate their once-stringent conditions on loans.

In a final critical development, the oil-rich government of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has stepped forward to provide other Latin American leaders with financing they might otherwise have needed to beg from Washington. Venezuela already bought up $2.4 billion worth of Argentina's debt to help the country break free of the IMF, and Chávez has expressed a willingness to do more. This source of backup funds makes the governments of the Latin American New Left considerably less susceptible than before to threats of capital flight.

Cutting ties with the IMF is not just a regional phenomenon. Russia and Thailand have pursued strategies of early debt repayment, and Indonesia and Pakistan are among those now contemplating the move. Asian countries that were burned by the region's neoliberal financial crisis in 1997 are building up large cash reserves so that they will not have to go back to the Fund in times of economic downturn.

These policy trends are producing funding shortfalls for the IMF. Since Argentina, Brazil, and Indonesia represent three of the Fund's four largest clients, a lack of interest payments from these countries will make a serious dent in the institution's operating budget. Currently, the IMF expects to be $116 million short in fiscal 2006. Not that the Fund is going broke. Among other assets, the institution sits on more than $56 billion worth of gold. Nevertheless, Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato has initiated a strategic review of the IMF's activity, and the institution is contemplating a future of reduced global influence.

The bigger trial may be for the United States. As the administration's command over its Southern neighbors declines, its rhetoric will be put to the test. The White House has long proclaimed that promoting democracy and reducing poverty are key foreign policy goals, even while it has limited its support to governments willing to toe the neoliberal line. Democratically elected leaders in Latin America are calling the bluff. They are refusing to defer to self-serving U.S. prerogatives, and instead they are seeking economic policies that can reverse the failures of corporate globalization.

Washington now has a choice: It can redefine its sense of national interest, cheer democratic renewal in the region, and acknowledge that the rigid economic program once forced into place by the IMF cannot fit all countries. Or it can become an ever-more-despised adversary for citizens throughout the Americas.

Mark Engler, an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus, can be reached via the web site http://www.DemocracyUprising.com. Research assistance for this article provided by Kate Griffiths.

ON February 7, 1901, [Cuban] President Tomás Estrada Palma signed the agreement ceding Cuban territory to the United States in order for it to construct a naval base in Guantanamo.

Guantanamo Bay is one of the country's deepest and largest bays. Christopher Columbus discovered it during his second voyage to the New World on April 30, 1494. It has some very special natural characteristics: it is extremely deep, it is secure and it has the capacity to receive large ships.

For centuries, it was virtually abandoned, as the Spanish colonizers were incapable of appreciating its virtues.

After an attempt by the British to occupy the Bay in July, 1741, in the hope of establishing a base of operations there, the colonial government finally understood the site's strategic importance.

U.S. REFOCUSSES ON CUBA

In the early 19th century, when it realized the value of the island's geographic location, natural resources, its historical, economic and social characteristics, as well as those of its population, the United States publicly expressed its interest in taking over Cuba.

Attempts to buy the island from Spain were made in 1805, 1807 and 1808, but according to the Central Report of the First Congress of the Communist Party, "if Spanish obstinacy ever served Cuba's cause, it was in its systematic refusal to agree to the buying and selling that the United States had repeatedly proposed during the last century."

In 1823, John Quincy Adams, the U.S. secretary of state, articulated the "ripe fruit" thesis, holding that Cuba would inevitably fall into U.S. hands as soon as it was no longer a Spanish colony. And that same year, President James Monroe developed the doctrine that bears his name, warning the European powers that America was reserved solely and exclusively "for the Americans." At the same time, for years his country obstructed and discouraged attempts by the Cuban people to achieve independence.

In 1895, U.S. investments on the island totaled some 50 million pesos, particularly in the sugar and tobacco industries, along with iron, chrome and manganese deposits.

Thus, in 1898, the Americans understood that the imminent end of Spanish colonial rule and before the unstoppable advance of the Liberation Army was a propitious time to intervene in the Spanish-Cuban war.

Taking advantage of the growing sympathy among North Americans for Cuba's cause, the U.S. Congress in April 1898 approved a Joint Resolution that brought about the Northern giant's intervention in the conflict.

The Spanish-Cuban-U.S. War, described as the first imperialist war of pillage, was centered primarily in the eastern provinces of Cuba and the Guantanamo region. On July 16, 1898, the terms of surrender were signed, and on December 10 of that same year, the Treaty of Paris was signed. The United States took control of Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam; Cuba remained as "special territory," from which the Americans were to withdraw after the "appeasement."

The administrative government, with General Leonard Wood at the head, convened a Constituent Assembly charged with drawing up the Constitution for the future republic. But in order to firmly establish relations between Cuba and the United States, the occupying forces brought heavy pressure to bear and imposed the notorious Platt Amendment, with two clauses that atrociously encroached on Cuba's national sovereignty and which had serious implications for the nascent republic's self-determination.

Clause 3 of the Amendment reserved the right of the United States to intervene for the preservation of Cuba's independence and the support of a government appropriate to its interests, while Clause 7 forced Cuba to cede part of its territory for the establishment of naval bases or coaling stations [for the loading of coal into rail cars].

Historian Miguel D'Estéfano Pissani, in his book Derecho de Tratados (Treaty Law), explains: "The Platt Amendment became a Sword of Damocles, whose edges were the naval and coaling concessions. The strength of the Constitutional appendix was based, precisely, on the military base clause."

On November 8, 1902, the U.S. government asked for a permanent lease of land in the bays of Nipe, Honda, Cienfuegos and Guantanamo. But due to the violent reaction of the people, it was limited to the Honda and Guantanamo Bays.

One of the most outstanding individuals of our independence struggle, Juan Gualberto Gómez, made his voice heard, warning that Articles 3 and 7 of the Platt Amendment "... were the same as handing the keys of our house over to the Americans, so that they could come in at any hour ... day or night, with good or bad intentions ..." and that "... its purpose is none other than to reduce the power of future Cuban governments and the sovereignty of our Republic."

Finally, after a series of negotiations, on December 10, 1903, the United States took possession of the territory for its naval base in Guantanamo. Via a supplementary agreement signed on July 2, 1903, the U.S. government promised to pay 2,000 pesos per year in U.S. gold (about $4,085 at today's prices), a laughable sum that Washington would continue to deposit, but which Cuba has refused to accept or cash since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959.

According to Doctor Fernando Alvarez Tabío, in his article "La Base Naval de Guantanamo y el derecho Internacional" (The Guantanamo Naval Base and International Law"), the leasing contract for the naval base lacks legality and juridical validity because it is marred in its essential elements: ... due to the inability of the Cuban government to cede a piece of its national territory in perpetuity ... and because the consent was snatched via irresistible and unjust moral violence...

Rejecting Honda Bay, the United States concentrated on Guantanamo. That choice was due to a strategic objective. Because of its exceptional value and geographic characteristics, it made it possible to assure military predominance in the Caribbean and fix its eyes on Panama's inter-ocean canal, for which it had obtained the construction rights that year as well, in 1903.

During its century of existence, the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo has been the scene of shameful episodes and events.

Once the base was established, U.S. capital investment rose, first with the construction of the base's vital water supply, and then in the sugar industry, railroads and electrical power. Gambling, prostitution and contraband proliferated with the arrival of the Marines, and became lucrative businesses for the national bourgeoisie.

The enclave's presence also had repercussions on the region's political life. In 1917, 1919 and 1922, the Marines were sent out from the base to "protect" the sugar mills and other U.S. economic interests in response to the revolt by the Partido Independiente de Color (Colored Independence Party), the Chambelona uprising and that of the liberals against the Menocal government.

During the final liberation war led by Fidel and the Rebel Army, the base was used as a supply point for the Batista dictatorship's air force, which indiscriminately bombed and fired on farmers and other civilians in the liberated zones. The base was also a launching point for U.S. troops invading other countries, like Haiti in 1915 and the Dominican Republic in 1918.

After the revolutionary triumph in January 1959, the base became a refuge for the old regime's murderers and torturers, and has been used as a platform for aggression against Cuba, including infiltration by enemy agents; the protection of counterrevolutionary bands; pretexts for justifying direct aggression against the island; a center of radio-electronic espionage and a point of concentration for ships and planes enabling sudden naval blockades to be imposed on the island.

Throughout these years, the military enclave has been the center of provocations and violations of our nation, and against the Border Guards responsible for patrolling the outer perimeter. According to official figures, from 1962 to August 1992, more than 13,000 such incidents have been registered, including shots fired with rifles and pistols (taking the lives of two Cuban Border Guards); aiming with machine guns, tanks and cannons; the throwing of objects; obscene gestures; breaking through the border fence and violating air and maritime space with ships, planes and helicopters.

The most recent ugly episode in the base's history is its use as a prison, where more than 500 detainees accused of being terrorists or having links to terrorism have been held and subject to physical and psychological torture, without the right to legal assistance or a decent trial. The world has been shaken by the spine-chilling images of chained men being subject to extreme degradation and force fed after waging a hunger strike to protest conditions in the prison, where they are denied access to their lawyers, humanitarian organizations or the United Nations.

The Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, approved by the people on February 24, 1976, says in Article 11 that our country "... rejects and considers null and void the treaties, pacts or concessions agreed to under unequal or unknown conditions or that diminish its sovereignty or territorial integrity."

Thus, Cuba demands the return of that territory because, as Fidel affirmed, "... That base is in their possession against the will of our people ... it is a dagger thrust into the heart of Cuba's land ..."

A White House report released last week on pre-emptive force in national security described Chavez as a "demagogue" who uses Venezuela's oil wealth to destabilize democracy in the region.

Washington is increasingly at odds with the former soldier over his close alliance with Cuba and Iran. U.S. officials dismiss his anti-U.S. tirades as rhetoric meant to stir nationalism before presidential elections in December.

Chavez's remarks also came after Venezuela's El Universal newspaper printed an interview with U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield, who reiterated his government's concern over growing ties between Venezuela and Iran.

Tensions between the Washington and Caracas rose in January after Venezuela expelled a U.S. naval attache on espionage charges and the U.S. State Department responded by removing a top Venezuelan diplomat from Washington.

Chavez was elected in 1998 on an anti-poverty platform, and has used billions of dollars in oil revenues to finance development programs for the poor as part of his self-styled socialist revolution.

He won a overwhelming victory in a recall referendum in 2004, but his critics at home and in Washington say he is centralizing power in an increasingly authoritarian system and cracking down on political opponents.