The historian Maikel Arista-Salado offers a reinterpretation of the Platt Amendment that challenges the official Cuban narrative, presenting it not as a symbol of Yankee imperialism but as a requirement of international law that the United States undertook when artificially creating the Republic of Cuba.
The historian's starting point is technical yet revealing: "The Platt Amendment was never in effect in Cuba. The Platt Amendment is a U.S. rule that has legal effectiveness within the United States; to transform that into having effectiveness in Cuba is the constitutional appendix."
That appendix was included in the Constitutional Convention of 1900, when the military governor warned the constituents that if they did not accept its content, the American troops would not withdraw. History has portrayed it as a grievance, but Arista-Salado interprets it differently.
"The Platt Amendment is an obligation of international law, because the United States creates the situation that will give rise to a Republic of Cuba. Therefore, the only moment to do so is before the republic is born," explains the historian.
It also dismisses the idea that a treaty would have been sufficient: "You can't just rely on a treaty, because tomorrow you can change the treaty and it’s over. Therefore, the constitutional appendix guaranteed the permanence of this agreement."
To justify the imposed controls, Arista-Salado questions the popular legitimacy of independence. He points out that in the elections of April 1898, with participation of almost 50% of the electoral register, 80% of the island's parliament was autonomist. "You can't tell me that the Cuban people unanimously wanted independence," he asserts.
Regarding the independence leaders, the historian is straightforward: "The mambises, who were to assume power, had spent the previous ten years handing out Republic bonds as bribes to American legislators. This is why the joint resolution was achieved," something that did not happen for the Philippines or Puerto Rico.
Regarding the specific content of the document, Arista-Salado details that the Platt Amendment consisted of about eight articles containing provisions on the limitation of treaties that undermined sovereignty, control of public debt, sanitation of the island, recognition of the acts of the occupying government, and the cession of land for coal naval bases, of which only Guantánamo remained.
Regarding the naval base, the historian recalls that the original treaty "states that it is only for supplying coal ships and nothing else," and he mentions that a scholar has argued that its later use as a prison violates that agreement.
But the aspect that Arista-Salado considers the most painful is not the naval base: "I believe that the most painful part of the amendment was the omission of the Isle of Pines from the boundaries of Cuba, because historically, the Isle of Pines has been part of Cuban territory and it was omitted until 1925."
The situation of the Isle of Pines was not resolved until the United States Senate ratified the Hay-Quesada Treaty in 1925, which had originally been signed in 1904, in consideration of the concessions regarding the naval bases.
The debate over the Platt Amendment gains new significance in the context of the discussions about a possible transition in Cuba, where some analysts draw parallels with the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which also sets external conditions for normalizing relations with the island.
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