With yesterday’s major Cuba announcements, and ahead of Obama’s arrival in Trinidad and Tobago on Friday, I have a new commentary piece out at The Nation with the co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies, Marcus Raskin. Our piece looks at a new effort to resurrect an old idea: the transformation of Guantánamo Bay (or at the very least, the now notorious detention camps) into the site of a medical research partnership with Cuban scientists and doctors against Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in the Americas.
We write: "When the cold war penetrated Latin America through Cuba, some within the US government began to question the utility of an American military presence in a country allied with the Soviet Union. New ideas were sought to makeover the US presence at Guantánamo, and in a May 23, 1961, memo one of us, a member of President John F. Kennedy's National Security Council staff at the time, wrote:
“…We might endeavor to turn the Naval Base into a series of hospitals and technical institutions (…) The conversion of this Naval Base to a positive good would enhance the chances for better relations between Cuba and the United States.”
For the full piece, which I think is quite timely, click here.
Image: The Nation magazine (May 14, 2007 issue with Cuba cover)
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