It is now 117 years since the United States imposed the Platt Amendment on Cuba, a fact that limited the sovereignty of the country when that appendices was imposed on the Cuban Constitution, it was 1901 and the northern military occupation was a fait accompli since 1898.
In the face of popular resistance defending sovereignty, it was necessary to seek a different, more indirect mechanism, and in that context, North America appealed to the Constituent Assembly that would approve the Constitution, a text that would also include laws concerning relations between the two countries.
It was Senator Orville Platt who presented the Amendment in the United States Congress, a treaty that the Cuban government imposed on Cubans to leave the national territory after the end of Spanish rule.
Large protests and demonstrations supported the delegates who opposed the amendment and it was truly dishonorable because among its most sinister sections for Cubans was the right to intervene militarily on the island when US interests were in danger, in addition to non-recognition of Isla de Pinos as part of Cuba and the imposition of the establishment of Cuban bays for charcoal bases.
Facing that reality, worthy voices were raised against the Platt Amendment, women like Amalia Simone, wife of Ignacio Agramonte, who also opposed Yankee interventionism and the Platt Amendment, rejected the economic aid offered to her and said: "My husband did not fight to leave me an pension, but for the freedom of Cuba. "
From the Constituent Assembly, the vote of the patriot Salvador Cisneros Betancourt said: "... that the Americans did not come to Cuba purely for humanity as they proclaimed, but with particular and very interested aims".
And what about the radical position of the hero Juan Gualberto Gómez, one of the most loyal defenders of independence when he said when referring to the Platt Amendment: "... Only the Cuban governments with their support and benevolence would live ... we would only have miserable governments and people condemned to live more attentively to obtain the approval of the Powers of the Union, than to serve and defend the interests of Cuba ... "
After three months of resistance, the Assembly approved the Amendment as an appendices to the constitutional text, by 16 votes to 11.
A new stage of neocolonial domination began and the Platt Amendment is an essential instrument to fulfill that objective until its repeal in 1934, the year in which it was replaced by a Treaty that in the opinion of analysts and historians "was the same dog with a different collar" because ultimately, Cuba was not truly sovereign until January 1, 1959.
Translation: Liubis Balart