The event occurred in 1903 during the government of Tomás Estrada Palma and was preceded by the Platt Amendment.

It was imposed on the Cubans in their first republican Constitution during the US military occupation of the island.

Through this document, against the will of the Cuban State and people, the United States could establish coal or naval stations, the first of them in Guantanamo Bay, in southeastern Cuba, .

The agreement occurred under the US threat of military intervention in Cuba. Experts state that it is illegal in the light of the United Nations Declaration on the Prohibition of Military, Political or Economic Coercion in the Conclusion of Treaties.

This agreement granted Washington complete jurisdiction over the leased lands, which violates territorial integrity, a principle enshrined in the Cuban constitutions from 1901 to the present.

Since the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, the US naval base has been the starting point of provocative actions which also involved the death of Cuban soldiers and workers, as in the case of the young military, Ramón López Peña.

Cuba has reiterated in several multilateral forums its just claim for the return of that territory, whose use is currently an insult to the principles upheld by the Cuban State and people.

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