Are attacks on Cuba an antiwar issue?

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The following exchange appeared yesterday on the United for Peace and
Justice announcments and information list.  Carlos Rovira Jr. is a leader of
UFPJ in the New York area and of the Vieques Support Campaign.  I think his
comments are relevant to the ongoing discussion of how to respond to the
intensification of the economic  blockade, the open assertion of
Washington's right to direct Cuban political life, and other acts of war
against Cuba.  There is also the increased and steady background noise of
escalating threats of direct military action in the event of another wave of
migration from
Cuba or other circumstances.  Serious antiwar fighters are obliged to take
these threats seriously, as the Cuban people and their leadership do.
Fred Feldman

Dear Mr. Geoff Johnson

This message is in response to your letter which I include  below.

You ask about the relevancy of the Cuban Foreign Minister's statement to
UFPJ, that is, my placing such a document on upjnyc at yahoogroups. Cuba
is under threat of war and we are an anti-war group. What more relevancy
do you need?

Furthermore, if it were not for the Cuban revolution, the right-wing Cuban
community in Miami would not exist, they would not have manipulated the
presidential election, George Bush would not be president and it is quite
possible, nay, probable that there would not have been a war on Iraq. In
short, one could say that UFPJ and this listserve might not even exist if
it were not for the Cuban revolution.

You agree that the Cuban statement is factually accurate, that Cuba is
under threat of attack and that "people of consience (sic) must fight
passionately against this possibility"  contradicting your contention that
the statement is not relevant.

So, the statement is true and relevant but according to you, must be
silenced. Let the people on the listserve decide for themselves if they
want to read and consider a true and relevant statement or not.

Cuba is for Cubans to figure out. Our role is to stop the war machine, a
war machine that is imperialist in nature, meaning that it wants to
continue the 400 year history of rich nations subjegating poor nations. We
do not merely want to stop the bombing and the slaughter of innocents but
to stop the drive for political and economic domination that is the reason
behind the aggression. This is why we in the UFPJ are now opposed to the
U.S. occupation of Iraq.

The implication that I am disseminating Cuban propaganda is ironic since
your references to Cuba's supposed intolerance of dissent echo the
statements of George Bush, who never talks about the hundreds of millions
of our tax dollars that is spent trying to create a fifth column in Cuba.
This fifth column would be a pretext for an invasion of Cuba, similar to
the one that was supposed to be the U.S. justification for the Bay of Pigs
invasion.

As a dissident in the U.S. and a fighter for Puerto Rico's independence
from U.S. colonial domination, unlike the Cuban "dissidents," I do not
need a foreign government to pay me to dissent , rather I beseech my own
people and others who share with me a common oppressor.

The purpose of the Cuban document is not to advocate support for the Cuban
revolution, the Cuban government or President Fidel Castro. The purpose of
posting the document is to lay bare the facts of US provocations and war
preparations against Cuba.  For the record, I disagree with your
assessment of the Cuban revolution and its leadership who have been the
greatest ally of the Puerto Rican people's struggle for
self-determination. I will be happy to discuss my views on this within the
framework of the UFPJ at an appropriate time.

It would be hypocritical of us to prioritize expressing differences with
Cuba over the call for no war on that country. Leading up to World War II,
some members of the progressive movement provided Hitler with "innocent"
arguments justifying the German invasion of the Soviet Union which cost
the lives of 20 million people.

Whatever your personal views are on the Cuban government or Fidel Castro,
if you are sincerely for peace and opposed to war, then you are morally
obligated to cease enhancing the arguments for US war provocations against
Cuba.

There is no equilibrium between the US government and the government of
Cuba. The U.S. government is the apparatus of a military network of
empire, whereas, the Cuban government is an apparatus born from a people's
struggle for self-determination. NO WAR  ON CUBA!


With respect and solidarity,

Carlos Rovira      "Carlito"



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Mr. Rovira,

As a member of the ufpjnyc list serv I take affront to the below e-mail
you sent to the list serv for two reasons:

A)  When the list was opened up so anyone can send e-mail on it, it was
noted that only relevant events, meetings, etc. should be posted to the
list.  Commentary such as that in this e-mail is not warranted under these
guidelines, and we would be dealing with 50 e-mails a day if others sent
this kind of stuff out.

B)  What makes you think that anyone is interested to read the comments of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Cuba?  Is UFPJ pro-Castro these days?
I certainly am not, and neither are any of the leftists and progressives I
know of.  The general point made and many of the specific arguments in the
declaration are obviously correct--it is completely ridiculous to classify
Cuba as a sponsor of international terrorism and indeed Cuba has instead
been the victim of US sponsored terrorism (in various forms) since the
country's independence from Spain.  I doubt if many people on this yahoo
group list serv would disagree with that.  Also the current direction of
US rhetoric toward Cuba is especially disturbing, with this administration
ratcheting up the war of words, leading perhaps ultimately to some sort of
confrontation by force.  People of consience must fight passionately
against this possibility, but personally I won't be doing it to save Casto
and his cadre--will you?  There are many good things to say about Cuba's
social and health programs, education initiatives, etc, but Castro is a
dictator, period, and Fidelismo is a betrayal of the ideals of the
revolution and the program manifesto of the 26th of July movement ("the
26th of July Movement adopts and proclaims the ideas of Marti, declaring
that it will fight at all times for those conditions which would make the
principle of freedom of conscience effective").  I cannot support a regime
as undemocratic and intolerant of dissent as that which holds power in
Havana right now, and I certainly would not uncritically disseminate their
propaganda (even if it is largely accurate in point of fact) as you have
by sending out the below e-mail.

If you disagree with what I have said in point B, I'd love to hear back
from you.  But even if this is the case, I think point A still holds true.
Let's limit e-mails to the group to those that are relevant to particular
events and meetings, but that's just my opinion.  Most of us are pretty
good at getting information such as that below on our own.

In Solidarity,

Geoff Johnson


=====
Carlos Rovira, Jr.      "Carlito"

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