How is it that Guantanamo Bay, seized after the Spanish-American War over 100 years ago, is still held by the United States as a naval base? President Obama has proposed to close the prison for those captured in the 'war against terrorism', but Fidel Castro argues in this extended essay, 'The Empire and the Independent Island', written in 2007, that the illegal occupation must end and the territory be returned to Cuba. This book also features a comprehensive chronology of the base's history and extensive appendices, including some key historical documents through which Washington has justified its continued occupation and recently declassified documents from the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. It also includes a foreword by Noam Chomsky, Nadine Gordimer, Salim Lamrani, Rigoberta Menchu, and Adolfo Perez Esquivel.