In accordance with the Platt Amendment, imposed on the Constitution of
March, 1901, the Cuban government should sell or lease to the United
States the lands necessary for coaling or naval stations, at certain
specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States."

Those points (or pieces of land or water in the Caribbean island) were
located in Guantanamo and Bahia Honda, though the latter was never occupied.

The signing of this first agreement was followed by another one on July 2,
1903, which regulated the leasing of coaling and naval stations.

On December 27, 1912, both governments agreed on canceling the part of the
two agreements that referred to the “land or water in Bahia Honda, in
exchange for expanding the area occupied by the Guntanamo’s Naval
Station”. The Bahia Honda station was definitely excluded in 1934 with
another treaty.

With the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, subversive plans to overthrow
the radical and progressive popular government were orchestrated from the
U.S. air and sea enclave in Guantanamo.

Therefore, on November 9, 1961, the “Batallon de la Frontera” (Border
Battalion) emerged at the Vilorio farm, barely 12 kilometers from the city
of Guantanamo. This battalion had been born as a special company by the
end of 1960. This body of men and women undertook ever since the task to
guard with integrity and glory the only artificial border of Cuba.

On that same date but three years later, the Batallon de la Frontera
became a Brigade and as such it has been presented with several
distinctions for the exemplary courage and unselfishness of its members
––at the beginning made up of members of the Rebel Army––, as said by the
Cuban president Raul Castro Ruz.

Hundreds of raw recruits carry out their General Military Service
safeguarding the territory that borders with this hideout that has become
a torture center, which Commander in Chief Fidel Castro referred to as “a
stake in the heart of the Cuba”.

Different generations of the Batallon de la Frontera members have had to
endure more that 13,000 provocations and violations coming from this U.S.
naval base, only between 1962 and 1992.

However, they always remained calm and never answered back those
aggressions, following the ideals of martyrs Ramon Lopez Peña and Luis
Ramirez Lopez, who were killed by U.S. bullets on July 19, 1964, and May
21, 1966, respectively, while they were on duty.

Although the key mission of these disciplined and heroic combatants is to
protect the bordering line, some of them were killed away from this place:
Jose Perez Cutiño and Maximiliano Dominguez, on May, 1969, in the war
against bandits in the municipality of San Antonio del Sur; Luis de la
Rosa Callamo, in Baracoa, a year after; Ruben Lopez Sabariego, on October,
1961; as well as fishermen Rodolfo Rosell, in June 1962.

While on December 7, 1989, the Cuban people paid homage to their brothers,
who died in Africa and in other regions of the world, a group of marines
destroyed sentry boxes 17 and 18 ––the first one very close to the place
were Ramirez was killed.

As in previous occasions, the brave soldiers of the Batallon de la
Frontera did not answered back because their mission was to defend their
homeland with discipline and courage without answering back the
provocations of the imperialist enemy.

The humanitarian spirit of these guardians has led them to put their own
lives at risk in order to protect illegal immigrants trapped in mine
fields, mostly during the 1990’s.

On April 16, 1994, at the Mariana Grajales Revolution Square, in
Guantanamo, Raul praised the thousands of combatants and officials of the
Brigade, who put their lives at risk every day in the nearby area of the
U.S. naval base, which violates International Law.

The Cuban people will never quit its sovereignty over this piece of land
seized from the national territory.