Washington has never reconciled itself to Cuba’s intolerable arrogance of achieving independence in 1959—partial, since the United States refused to return the valuable Guantanamo Bay region, taken by “treaty” at gunpoint in 1903 and not returned despite the requests of the government of Cuba. In passing, it might be recalled that by far the worst human rights violations in Cuba take place in this stolen territory, to which the United States has a much weaker claim than Russia does to Crimea, also taken by force.
