THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 11, 1996 TAG: 9607110003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 37 lines
No American could feel more like an uninvited guest than a member of the U.S. Armed Forces stationed at Guantanamo Bay on the Southeast coast of Cuba.
For the past 35 years the Cuban government has seethed over the presence of U.S. forces on Cuba's soil - much as we would if China maintained a heavily armed base in a corner of Delaware.
But for three decades American military personnel have peacefully gone about their business - poised and alert always - on a slice of land 12 miles long, but a barbed-wire fence away from a hostile neighbor.
All Americans should be reassured by news that Gen. John Sheehan, chief of the U.S. Atlantic Command in Norfolk, and other American officers were caught red-handed in November 1995, quietly forging a fragile accommodation with their Cuban counterparts, including a man known as Gen. Perez-Perez.
They were small, formal gestures: handshakes, a few conciliatory words, an exchange of small tokens of good faith. But when a videotape of the encounter was shown to four Cuban-American congressmen, they howled that Sheehan's act was tantamount to treason.
This quartet of congressional opportunists was playing to anti-Cuban sentiment in their home districts by taking cheap shots at men in the front line. Thankfully, their views do not represent the majority of American opinion. Most Americans would agree that military commanders throughout the world should routinely conduct themselves in a careful and diplomatic manner.
In fact, Sheehan has made numerous trips throughout the Caribbean to places like Haiti. He's acquired an admirable reputation as a military officer skilled at smoothing ruffled international feathers.
It is reassuring to know that our military men and women assigned to that potential tinderbox called Guantanamo are keeping their watch but are also keeping tensions low by quietly forging an understanding with Cubans next door. by CNB