The Other Guantanamo

Available for over a year

To many people the name Guantanamo conjures up images of detainees in orange, allegations of torture, controversy and trauma. But to those who live there, Guantanamo means green hills and tumbling waterfalls, distinctive son and guajira music and mouth-watering Jamaican and French-influenced cuisine. In this programme, award-winning travel writer Polly Evans goes in search of the other Guantanamo, talking to local people about their area, and how they feel about it becoming synonymous with what Amnesty International called "the gulag of our times". She delves into the history of the open-ended American lease of this corner of the island - and asks whether the nearly 10,000 Cubans who held construction jobs on the site (and still draw a favourable US pension) have different feelings about it. Polly examines the personal, political and cultural stories of a controversial place - from a perspective that is seldom considered.