Guarding Guantánamo: Soldiers and Borders at the Base

• In Event: Guantánamo, Cuba: Faraway Hinterlands, Watery Crossings, and Dangerous Dreams

Abstract

This paper will address testimonial and fictional representations of individual servicemen and servicewomen, both Cuban and American, at and around the Guantánamo naval base. Cuba’s elite force, la Brigada de la Frontera, was established in 1961 and grew from a small battalion charged with warding off potential attacks from U.S. forces to a well-structured organization incorporating both elite military professionals and young people on mandatory military service, focusing its efforts on intercepting Cubans’ often fatal migration attempts. Known for its rigorous demands on its soldiers’ physical and psychological stamina, recent representations of the Brigada de la Frontera – by writer Leandro Estupiñán Zaldívar and the late choreographer Alfredo Velázquez, for example – have nevertheless explored the vulnerability of individuals charged with defending a border with so prominent a role in Cuba-U.S. relations. At the same time, testimonial writing by former and current detainees at the naval base’s War on Terror camps, and by guards themselves, has depicted close and substantive relationships between detainees and certain prison guards, distinguishing clearly between the mundane intimacy of the detainee-guard relationship and the faceless power of the U.S. military as an institution. Reading from a range of accounts, this paper situates the soldier/ guard in both a history of political hostility and a continuum of compassion that crosses the border between Cuba and the Guantánamo naval base.

Author

• Esther K Whitfield, Brown University