ON February 23, coinciding with the 115th anniversary of the occupation of part of the territory of Guantánamo by a U.S. naval base, several pacifist groups plan to hold a major protests worldwide to demand the closure of the military base.

With various initiatives that include mobilizations, messages in alternative and, where possible, more traditional media outlets, concerts and other cultural activities, activists will seek to call public attention to the issue, especially in the United States.

One of the actions will be to use Twitter to share clear messages under the hashtags: #ReturnGuantanamotoCubaNow; #USOutofGuanatamo; #EEUUFueradeGuantanamo; #DevuelvanGuantanamoaCubaYa!; including tagging the twitter account of President Donald Trump @POTUS.

This forms part of the agreements taken at the conference organized by the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Military Bases, held at the University of Baltimore in the U.S. state of Maryland, January 12-14, which addressed the need to close U.S. military bases located throughout the world.

The final resolution on the Guantánamo Naval Base concludes: “the Coalition Against U.S. Foreign Bases unanimously calls upon the global peace movement to organize, on or around February 23, 2018, Actions calling for the United States to promptly withdraw all its forces and personnel from Guantánamo Bay and immediately declare ALL agreements ceding Cuban control of Guantánamo Bay to the U.S. to be null and void.”

The Cuban chapter of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and the Dignity published its January 27 bulletin, in Spanish and English, on these issues, which already has the support of valuable intellectuals and artists, among whom is Argentine Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel.

The Committee also asked other organizations around the world to screen the documentary All Guantánamo is Ours, by filmmaker Hernando Calvo Ospina, which has been translated into numerous languages, to serve to spark a debate.

The audiovisual material explains how the Guantánamo Naval Base is a permanent source of threat, provocation and a violation of Cuban national sovereignty.

The activities will continue throughout the year as outlined on the Coalition website: www.NoForeignBases.org; with important events scheduled for April 14 and 15, to commemorate Earth Day (April 22), and May Day.

The U.S. has 860 military bases in 144 countries around the world. These facilities were created under the pretext of guaranteeing security in the face of armed groups, and to combat drug and human trafficking.

In fact, they have been very effective in quelling attempts at social change in countries that distance themselves from capitalism and the interests of the White House. Today our peoples need a change in the political and hegemonic vision of the United States to achieve higher rates of human development. As long as investments are made for war and not peace, we face the imminent danger of having the means to make the planet earth disappear in seconds.