masterwordsmith-unplugged

At this point of time, I am sure many of you out there would rather be singing the oldie Guantanamera (which means 'Woman from Guantanamo') than to be thinking of Guantanamo, thanks to certain notes made public as reported HERE. Apparently, there was a legal dispute over the rightful composer of 'Guantanamera'. After a long battle, the Supreme Court of Cuba credited José Fernández Diaz, known as Joseíto Fernández as the sole composer of the music in 1993. (CLICK HERE for Celia Cruz's video.)


Ironically, the lyrics to the song relate to a woman from Guantánamo (the easternmost province of Cuba. Its capital is also called Guantánamo.), with whom Fernández  had a romantic relationship, and who eventually left him. The alleged real story behind these lyrics (or at least one of many versions of the song's origin that Fernández suggested during his lifetime) is that she did not have a romantic interest in him, but merely a platonic one. If the details are to be believed, she had brought him a steak sandwich one day as a present to the radio station where he worked. He stared at some other woman (and attempted to flirt with her) while eating the sandwich, and his friend yanked it out of his hands in disgust, cursed him and left. He never saw her again. These words are rarely sung today. (Source: HERE)

What about Guantanamo, to be more exact - Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp?

According to THIS LINK:

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a controversial detainment and interrogation facility of the United States located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility was established in 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees from the war in Afghanistan and later Iraq.

It is operated by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) of the United States government in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which is on the shore of Guantánamo Bay.[1] The detainment areas consist of three camps: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana, and Camp X-Ray, the last of which has been closed. The facility is often referred to as Guantánamo, G-Bay or GTMO, after the military abbreviation for the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

After the US Department of Justice advised that the Guantanamo Bay detention camp could be considered outside U.S. legal jurisdiction, the first twenty captives arrived at Guantanamo on January 11, 2002. After the Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld on June 29, 2006, that they were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Following this, on July 7, 2006, the Department of Defense issued an internal memo stating that prisoners would in the future be entitled to protection under Common Article 3. Susan J. Crawford, who was appointed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to review practices used at Guantanamo Bay, told Bob Woodward of the Washington Post in an interview in January 2009 that Mohammed al-Qahtani was tortured while being held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, making her the first Bush administration official to concede that torture occurred there. MORE AT THIS LINK.

If you want to know what goes on there, CLICK THIS LINK that will lead you to lots of information.

Other recommended readings:

Huffington Post's article which has 4, 288 comments!!! (must read, must watch!!!)

Sesame Street - Songs of War by Christopher Cerf,who has won two Grammy Awards and three Emmy Awards for his music.


Al-Jazeera's Report on Songs of War

Music in Psychological Operations

The Daily Mail's article

The Guardian's article