[Marxism] Once Again, Hands Off Cuba

["jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

ONCE AGAIN, ?HANDS OFF CUBA!¹
By Jack A. Smith
Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter, Dec. 6, 2005
 
The United Nations General Assembly administered another parliamentary
thrashing to Uncle Sam in November, insisting that Washington end its
longstanding economic and political blockade of neighboring Cuba.

The Bush administration, however, has no intention to eliminate its
draconian embargo. Indeed, the White House is actively seeking to organize a
counter-revolution to restore capitalism to the socialist Caribbean island ?
and it does not rule out the use of U.S. force.

For the 14th year in a row, the UN overwhelmingly approved a resolution
calling on the U.S. to terminate over four decades of Cold War sanctions
against Cuba, this time by a vote of 182-4, with one abstention and four
countries not voting.

The four  ³no² votes were registered by the United States and Israel, of
course, and two dependent island chains in the Pacific occupying a total of
247 square miles and a combined population of 76,000 people ? Palau and the
Marshall Islands. Abstaining was Micronesia, another small Pacific nation.
Absent from the voting were El Salvador, Nicaragua, Morocco and the
U.S.-controlled satrapy of Iraq.

George W. Bush, the tenth U.S. president who has sought to depose President
Fidel Castro, has hardly concealed his desire to obliterate socialism¹s
foothold in the Americas, represented by Cuba¹s population of 12 million
people out of nearly 900 million inhabitants of North, Central, and South
America and the Caribbean.

Bush recently established an office within the State Department to plan for
the ³transition² to capitalism that the U.S. intends to bring about after
Castro¹s death. The Cuban president will be 80 next August but appears to be
in good health. 

According to a recent report in the Financial Times, Cuba recently has been
added to Washington¹s ³secret watchlist of 25 countries in which instability
could require U.S. intervention.² Indeed, the prestigious British newspaper
revealed Oct. 31 that the Bush administration ³recognizes that the
[post-Castro] transition may not go peacefully and that the U.S. may have to
launch a nation-building exercise.²

The last time Washington used armed force against Cuba was on April 15,
1961, when U.S. bombers attacked Cuban defenses in preparation for the
CIA-organized Bay of Pigs landing. The invasion force arrived April 17 and
was completely demolished in two days. Washington had expected the Cuban
masses to welcome the invasion, just as it wrongly anticipated the Iraqi
people would do four decades later.

As we wrote in ³The Cuban Revolution: 40 Years of Struggle,² ³Humiliated and
enraged by the invasion¹s failure, the Kennedy and succeeding
administrations stepped up their subversion against Cuba, hatching hundreds
of plots for fomenting strikes, causing crop failures, poisoning sugar
destined for foreign ports, assassinations of key figures [including dozens
of attempts on Fidel¹s life], demoralization campaigns, creating shortages,
plotting new invasions, terrorist attacks and tightening the embargo.²

The blockade is the most enduring of Uncle Sam¹s subversion schemes.  The
cost to Cuba ? a poor third-world country which emerged from some 500 years
of colonialism and neocolonialism less than 50 years ago ?  has been ³$82
billion and 15 years of sustainable development,² according to an article in
October by Juan Diego Nusa Penalver of Agencia Cubana de Noticias.

In recent years, the Bush administration has once again tightened the
blockade, curtailing by nearly 50% family travel back home by
Cuban-Americans as well by non-Cuban U.S. residents in order to deprive
Havana of the proceeds from tourism and visits. Last year, Washington
imposed fines totaling $1.2 billion on 77 foreign companies, banks and
non-government organizations for ³trading with the enemy.² So far this year,
the U.S. government has fined nearly 600 Americans for breaching the embargo
in one way or another, almost double the number of last year.

Speaking on the floor of the General Assembly before the sanctions vote,
Felipe Perez Roque, the Cuban foreign minister, declared: ³Never before, as
in the last 18 months, has the blockade been enforced with so much
viciousness and brutality.²

Responding to critics, Cuba¹s deputy UN ambassador, Ileana Nunez, told the
body that ³you can¹t prevent people from choosing a form of society where
the great benefits are not shared only by a few.² Nunez added, in response
to comments from the U.S. and some of its European allies, Cuba ³can learn
nothing about human rights from the richest country in the world where 44
million people go without access to health care. . . . The march of the
Cuban people is irreversible, in spite of imperialism and its acolytes.²

Some 25 countries took the floor to denounce the blockade. Among them was
Tanzania. ³Throughout Africa¹s struggle for independence and liberation,²
said that nation¹s UN ambassador, ³we counted Cuba as one of our strongest
allies.  The bonds forged in that struggle demand that we now stand with
Cuba.²

Commenting on the lopsided UN vote, Reuters news agency noted that ³the
measure is nonbinding and has had no impact on the United States. . . . But
the resolution has given Cuba a morale boost, especially from South American
and Caribbean nations and Mexico, which each year speaks in favor of the
resolution.²

Cuba has long been a target for regime change by the U.S. government. Soon
after the 9/11 terror attacks against the Pentagon and World Trade Center,
the White House began referring to Cuba as a ³rogue state² and a possible
target in the so-called ³War on Terrorism.²

In May 2002, John R. Bolton, then an Under Secretary of State, alleged in a
public speech to the Heritage Foundation that Cuba was producing biological
weapons for use against the United States. The purpose of his disclosure was
to exacerbate intense public fears of another attack, this time in the form
of toxins so deadly that they constituted a weapon of mass destruction
(WMD). This allegation made Cuba a legitimate target for a preemptive war
according to the rules of engagement entertained by the neoconservative
clique inhabiting the White House.

Bolton never produced evidence to substantiate his accusations because there
wasn¹t any. This was no ³intelligence failure.² He simply lied. Within days
of Bolton¹s charge, Army Maj. Gen. Gary Speer, commander of U.S. military
forces for Latin America and the Caribbean, checked his own intelligence
service and publicly scoffed at the report. The State Department soon
distanced itself from the allegations.

The entire project evidently was dropped when a department analyst charged
that Bolton, his boss, purposely twisted the information he obtained about
Cuba¹s renowned biomedical research program to make it appear the program
was a cover for creating biological weaponry on a mass scale. He said Bolton
threatened him if he did not back up the allegation, but he refused and went
public. Bush rewarded the unrepentant Bolton recently by promoting him to
U.S. Ambassador to the UN, where he functions as the proverbial bull in a
China shop.

But Cuba wasn¹t off the hook.  The White House had a new plan for regime
change. Arguing in October 2003 that ³the Castro regime will not change by
its own choice, but Cuba must change,² President Bush launched another
campaign to place Cuba under U.S hegemony ? the creation of the Commission
for Assistance for a Free Cuba, headed by then Secretary of State Colin
Powell. Its task was to develop a multimillion dollar ³proactive, integrated
and disciplined approach to undermine the survival strategies of the Castro
regime and contribute to conditions that will help the Cuban people hasten
the dictatorship¹s end.²

In May 2004, the commission issued a report of over 450 pages calling for an
additional expenditure of $60 million over two years to finance an
anti-socialist opposition within Cuba (the so-called dissidents), in
addition to the many millions more dollars regularly spent on anti-Cuba
propaganda and subversive activities. It also recommended increasing
economic pressure on Cuba, and produced a blueprint for a transition to
capitalism based on privatizing the country¹s resources and enterprises.

Here is how a resolution  by Cuba¹s National Assembly of People¹s Power
described the document soon after it was released:

³Disingenuously camouflaged as ?aid to a free Cuba,¹ the [report] goes into
minute detail on the measures Washington would impose if it succeeded in
getting possession of Cuba. Cuban society would be entirely subjugated to
the United States, which would dominate all its activities without
exception. A complete account of this recipe for unbridled interventionism
would be endless, but some aspects of the plan offer an idea of the degree
of servitude and exploitation planned for Cubans:

³One of the first tasks of the so-called ?transitional government¹ would be
to restore their properties to the former exploiters, including houses and
lands sought by the annexionist mafia that supported [former President
Fulgencio] Batista in the past. The process would be quick and directed by
Washington, which would set up a special mechanism to that end. This
infamous document also specifically decrees the eviction of those living in
reclaimed dwellings or unable to pay high rents, a return to the practice of
arbitrarily evicting small farmers, as well as the dismantling of the
farming cooperatives and restoration of the former latifundia [great
agricultural estates owned by rich landlords who employed low-paid workers].
What was already foreseen in the Helms Burton act [that strengthened the
blockade] is now expressed in a more blatant form.

³All sectors of the economy would be privatized, while a permanent U.S.
government Committee for Economic Reconstruction, to be set up right away,
would control the economy. The subsidies and price controls affecting goods
and services supplied to the public would be abolished. The social security
and welfare system would be dismantled and commitments to pay benefits and
pensions would be repudiated. Healthcare and education services would be
privatized. 

³This would be a return to capitalism in its most brutal form, under the
yoke of a foreign power. The consequences for the Cuban people would be so
terrible that even the report itself warns that ?it would not be easy¹ to
bring about ?the transition,¹ which would meet considerable rejection on the
part of Cuban society. For this reason it identifies as an ?immediate
priority¹ the assembling of repressive forces that would be organized,
trained, equipped and advised by Washington.³

A few days after this blast from the National Assembly, Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice ? at the behest of the Commission for Assistance for a Free
Cuba ? named Caleb McCarry to the post of Cuba ³Transition Coordinator²
within the department¹s newly formed Office for Reconstruction and
Stabilization.  This agency engages in planning and organization for pre-
and post-conflict situations and reconstruction operations that benefit the
hegemonic power. McCarry¹s appointment was lavishly praised by the
ultra-reactionary and terrorist-connected Cuban American National
Foundation, based in Florida, which fully understood it to be a step toward
regime-change and the restoration of class privilege.

McCarry has experience in ³promoting democracy² under U.S. tutelage in
Nicaragua and Guatemala on behalf of the government-funded Center for
Democracy, which ³assists emerging democracies² around the world. He is a
Republican former staff member of the House Committee on International
Relations. He is said to have worked with the International Republican
Institute (IRI) to destabilize the Haitian government.  The IRI was formed
to carry out President Ronald Reagan's 1982 call for ³helping countries
build the infrastructure of democracy² ? an objective President Bush claims
to be seeking today in occupied Iraq. It is financed by the National
Endowment for Democracy, and has been active for a number of years
³promoting democratic transition² in Cuba, working with other
counter-revolutionary organizations.

According to the Oct. 28 issue of the Cuban newspaper Granma, ³Caleb
McCarry, the proconsul designated by the Bush administration to [bring
about] the annexation of Cuba, belongs to a mafia of U.S. politicians and
officials who provoked the kidnapping and outrageous eviction of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide from Haiti [in a U.S.-backed coup in late April
2004]. . . . McCarry and his buddies developed their conspiracy with a
political activist linked to the Duvaliers [the vicious former ruling family
of Haiti] and a band of mercenaries and criminals, in a dirty operation
handled by the most fanatical far-right sectors of the Republican Party.²

McCarry¹s assignment is to ³accelerate the demise² of socialism in Cuba, as
soon as possible after the death of President Castro. According to the
Financial Times article Oct. 31, ³McCarry declined to comment on his work. .
. except to say that it would be ?thoughtful and respectful of the Cuban
people and their wish to be free.  The transition genie is out of the
bottle,¹ he said referring to opposition activities inside Cuba, and a
?broad consensus¹ was reached with the exiled community. ?They are the ones
to define a democratic future for Cuba.¹²

The Financial Times also reported that ³officials say the U.S. would not
?accept¹ a handover of power from Mr. Castro to his brother Raul, 74.² In
fact it is unlikely the Bush administration will ³accept² any transition in
Cuba that does not result in the restoration of capitalism and the
leadership of the far-right sector of the Cuban-American self-exiled
community, backed by Washington¹s money and armed might.  The quid pro quo
would be the restoration of the U.S. government as neocolonial hegemon over
the Pearl of the Antilles.

The Cuban government and people immediately understood from the new plan
that Bush was planning to displace their government and political system by
violence if necessary when the opportunity arises. Cuban National Assembly
President Ricardo Alarcon said McCarry¹s appointment as ³Transition
Coordinator² was proof that the U.S. is going forward with efforts to
³overthrow the revolution.² Armando Hart, a member of Cuba's Council of
State, declared: ³Be careful, Mr. Bush. Cuba is not alone; don't go looking
for another Vietnam in the Caribbean in the 21st century.²

A week after the Commission for Assistance for a Free Cuba delivered its
report last year, President Castro led a mass march in Havana to denounce
U.S. preparations for a takeover.  He also addressed his speech that day to
President Bush. It¹s worth quoting a few paragraphs:

³You have no right whatsoever, except for that of brute force, to intervene
in Cuba¹s affairs and, whenever the fancy takes you, to proclaim the
transition from one system to another and to take measures to make this
happen. Our people can be exterminated . . . but cannot be subjugated nor
put once again into the humiliating position of [being] a United States
neocolony [as Cuba was from 1898 to 1959].

³Cuba fights on the side of life in the world; you fight on the side of
death. Whereas you kill countless people with your indiscriminate,
preemptive surprise attacks, Cuba saves the lives of hundreds of thousands
of children, mothers, old and sick people all over the world [via its
international medical aid program]. . . .

³Human beings are not aware of, nor can they be aware of, freedom in a
regime of inequality like the one you represent. No one is born equal in the
United States. In the black and Latin ghettos and on the reservations for
the Native Americans, . . . there is no other equality but that of being
poor and excluded. 

³Our people, educated in solidarity and internationalism, do not hate the
American people nor do they want to see young white, black, Native
Americans, mestizo or Latin soldiers from that country die ? young people
driven by unemployment to enlist in the military to be sent to any corner of
the world in traitorous, preemptive attacks or in wars of conquest.

³The unbelievable torture applied to prisoners in Iraq has rendered the
world speechless. . . .

³Since you have decided that the die is cast, I have the pleasure of saying
farewell to you like the Roman gladiators who were about to fight in the
arena: Hail Caesar, we who are about to die salute you!  My only regret is
that I will not see your face because you will be thousands of miles away
while I¹m in the frontline ready to die fighting in defense of my homeland.³

Why has the U.S. consistently sought to destroy this small outpost of
socialism in the Americas since it was established in 1959? The reason is
certainly not because Cuba threatens the U.S. or anyone else. The island¹s
entire defense budget is less than 10% of what U.S. citizens spend on
cosmetics every year.

The explanation for Washington¹s animosity is fairly obvious. United States
imperialism has exercised economic, political and military hegemony over
Central and South America and the Caribbean for over 100 years.  About 45%
of the 570 million people in this region are poor or living in dire poverty.
Many more in the working class and middle class are insecure about the
future. Many resent the overlord to the north.

Tens of millions of these people do not see Cuba through the distorted lens
of Yankee hubris and continual Cold War propaganda against the Havana
government. They see it as an inspiration ? a former oppressed colony and
neo-colony which freed itself, shared its limited wealth among the working
people, ended racism, developed exemplary educational and health care
systems, holds its head defiantly high despite difficult conditions, and
regularly lectures a perennially perturbed Uncle Sam despite threats and
subversion. For its size, Cuba exercises an exceptional degree of moral and
political influence throughout the world.

Washington fears that the example of revolutionary Cuba might be replicated
in various Latin American countries unless it can be weakened, isolated and,
if possible, destroyed. Socialist Cuba, however, has survived some 46 years
of daunting circumstances, and has a fighting chance against the Bush
administration¹s imperial proclivities, particularly if the left and
progressive forces in the United States take up the old battle cry with
gusto, ³Hands Off Cuba!²

 


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