U.S. to Complete Removal of Mines From Cuba Base
About 11,000 land mines have been removed from the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, and the remaining 3,000 will be removed by the end of next year, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said he expects the work to be completed sometime in the second half of 1998.
He said President Clinton ordered the removal in 1996.
Although the antipersonnel land mines are being removed, he said, antitank land mines will remain “to protect the naval base from untoward action by the Cubans.”
Bacon noted that it does not appear that any action is being taken to remove the mines from the Cuban side of the 17.5-mile border around the base.
The spokesman said that “monitoring equipment” will be used to substitute for the mines that had been placed in the ground.
The base has been a Navy site since it was seized by American forces during the Spanish-American War in 1898.
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