As the US Presidential election looms closer, it is time once again for the US administration to declare open season against Cuba in order to garner maximum votes for George Bush from the reactionary Miami-based Cuban exile population – votes that proved crucial to Bush’s fraudulent victory in 2000. But the transparency and cynicism of recent US manoeuvres against Cuba makes them no less damaging for the socialist island, particularly in the menacing climate of the current US ‘War on Terrorism’. While Cuba remains on the official US list of ‘terrorist states’, any hostile act by the United States can only be viewed as an attempt to provoke a response which could provide a green light for US military action. However, Cuba continues to parry the thrusts of the US and its lackeys and expose the hypocrisy and brutality of imperialism, while consolidating key alliances with other countries of Latin America. JIM CRAVEN and JUANJO RIVAS report.
United Nations vote
This renewed spate of attacks began in the run-up to the United Nations Human Rights Commission (HRC) meeting in April, as the United States, using threats and bribes, touted round the United Nations for any country shabby or desperate enough to play what Cuban Foreign Minister Roque has called ‘the role of the empire’s lackey’. By such measures the United States was able to force through its annual motion at the HRC, criticising Cuba for so-called human rights abuses for its jailing of 75 counter-revolutionaries in April 2003. Yet despite its best efforts, the US won by just one vote, enabling Cuba to claim a moral victory. Last year Costa Rica submitted the US motion as proxy; this year it was Honduras, lured by the possibility of a slice of a $3.5bn US Millennium Challenge Fund. Roque made it clear that Cuba rejects the spurious resolution approved in Geneva and will not abide by any of its stipulations.
The obscenity of Honduras’ role in this charade was highlighted by the fact that while Honduran President Ricardo Maduro was accepting US blood money, his wife was thanking Cuba for its assistance after Hurricane Mitch a couple of years ago, when Cuban doctors and medical aid were first to arrive. Roque launched a blistering attack on those who criticised Cuba’s human rights record. In a pointed jibe at Honduras, where reports of torture and the assassination of street children and prisoners are rife, he announced: ‘Cuba will not resort to murder, nor will it apply torture or violence, but has the right to defend itself and punish those who collaborate with a foreign power that is attacking its country.’
Twenty-one countries voted with Cuba to oppose the motion, including China, Egypt, India, Russia, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe, speaking for many of the poorest people in the world. Against Cuba stood the forces of imperialism – the United States, Britain and the other countries of the European Union, Japan, Australia, Sweden and their cronies – including Peru and Mexico.
Cuba responds
Cuba hit back swiftly, exposing the vile double standards that define imperialism’s stance on human rights, with its own motion demanding an investigation into the abuse of human rights at the US military prison in Guantanamo Naval Base. It also called on the UN’s special rapporteur on torture to report back from Guantanamo to the 2005 Human Rights Commission. The US responded with outrage, warning countries that their prisoners in Guantanamo would suffer if they supported the Cuban motion. Bush warned the countries of the EU ‘not to lend themselves to Cuba’s game’. And, inevitably, the other imperialist nations and their allies caved in; the Cuban motion was not discussed. Roque was withering: ‘Third World countries are witnessing a pathetic spectacle, that of the accusers being accused; the censors of yesterday now displaying desperate gestures so that the situation in Guantanamo will not be brought before the Human Rights Commission’. But Cuba has promised that it will continue to fight for an investigation into abuse at Guantanamo at the UN General Assembly in September at the next meeting of the HRC in 2005.
The cowardice of those countries that lined up with the US to attack Cuba at the United Nations was emphasised again in Fidel Castro’s May Day speech to over a million Cubans in Havana’s Revolution Square (see separate article). Castro pointed to the ‘servility’ of countries like Peru and Mexico, amongst others, who refused to stand up to imperialism. As a result, both countries immediately removed their diplomats from the island and,
in Mexico, the Cuban ambassador was declared persona non grata and was given 48 hours to leave – learning of the decision, by telephone, just five minutes before it was made public. Peru and Mexico may, however, come to regret their slavish adherence to US policy: within days, 5,000 Mexicans took to the streets to oppose their government’s anti-Cuban measures; in Peru, where the president’s popularity has dropped to 7.7%, indigenous peasants marched en masse.
Miami Mafia demand more
Yet the reactionary Cuban exile mafia – who, after all, will be satisfied with nothing less than Castro’s head on a plate and the total destruction of the Cuban revolution – have criticised the Bush regime for not being tough enough on Cuba. Step forward arch reactionary Robert Noriega, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs, paid-up member of the Cuban Miami mafia and architect of the recent coup in Haiti, with a 450-page Report from the Commission of Assistance for a Free Cuba, which has the stated aim of ‘hastening the day when Cuba becomes a free country’ by boosting support for internal counter-revolution, increasing international campaigns against Cuba, radicalising subversive actions and new measures to strangle the country’s economy.
The main provisions are:
• A $59m fund to train and support mercenaries acting to subvert Cuba from within
• An $18m programme to transmit US radio and TV propaganda from a C-130 aeroplane
• A further $5m to promote anti-Cuban campaigns in other countries
• Restrictions on the right of Cubans abroad to send remittances to their families in Cuba and to visit them
• Visits by US citizens to Cuba, already severely limited and punishable by huge fines, to be restricted still further
• Foreign governments to be urged to step up anti-Cuba campaigns and discourage tourist travel to Cuba
• A Cuban Asset Targeting Group will investigate Cuban companies and foreign companies that trade with Cuba with the aim of destroying Cuban exports
• More resources to be devoted to implementing sections of the blockade legislation which deny foreign nationals who trade with Cuba access to the US or allow them to be tried by US courts
The new measures aim to starve Cuba of hard currency and foment turmoil – again a way for imperialism to create a pretext for invading the island. Indeed, much of the report is given over to what the imperialists will do when they have recolonised Cuba. One particularly nasty and cynical addition is the provision for ‘the immediate immunisation of all children under five who have not already been immunised’ which deliberately obscures the reality that every child in Cuba is routinely immunised against 13 diseases by the age of five.
The Cuban government is already putting in place measures to counteract the potentially damaging economic effects of the new proposals. Sales of goods other than food, cleaning and hygiene items in hard currency stores have been suspended so as to prioritise goods and services to the population as a whole and so limit the growth of inequality of access. Oil and gas production will be increased until self-sufficiency is achieved. Better efficiency with less fuel expenditure and greater use of working animals is to be promoted in agriculture, Production of two of Cuba’s most important exports, nickel and cobalt, is to be increased. The production of all goods and services with better quality and less waste is being encouraged. Cuba is gearing up for a new ‘special period’. However, social projects will not suffer: all health and educational projects will continue unchanged and unemployment will be kept under 2.5%. Exchange rates for the Cuban peso and convertible peso will remain unchanged and bank savings and interest rates will be guaranteed. On 7 May, a joint statement by the Cuban government and the Communist Party of Cuba stated: ‘The solid support given to the Revolution by almost the whole population makes it invulnerable to Mr Bush’s putrid ideology. His cruel and cowardly measures will doubtless impose some degree of sacrifice on our people but they will not for one second slow down the march towards the humane and social goals it has set itself and no-one will be without help. Cuba will never return to the horrible, wretched, inhuman conditions of a US colony.’ A week later, Cubans proved their willingness to resist as one million marched to the US Interests Section in Havana to protest against the new measures.
‘They want to wipe out Cuba’s example’
Whatever imperialism has thrown at Cuba, the Revolution has continued not only to resist and to survive, but to develop. Socialism is being extended within Cuba, politically, socially, economically and ideologically. The Battle of Ideas and the projects associated with it have extended the Revolution more fully and profoundly to include even the most marginalised in Cuban society. At the same time, on the international stage, Cuba continues to speak for the oppressed of the world, to lead Latin America in the fight against the devastating US Free Trade Area of the Americas and to form alliances with other radical governments such as the Chavez government in Venezuela. Small wonder that the US Goliath perceives this tiny David of an island of 11 million people as such a threat to its plans for a ‘21st century of American domination’. For as Castro pointed out ‘You label a tyranny the economic and political system that has guided the Cuban people to higher levels of literacy, knowledge and culture than those in the most developed countries of the world. Listening to you talk of human rights in Cuba has a hollow, absurd ring. This, Mr Bush, is one of the few countries in the hemisphere where not once in 45 years has there been a single case of torture, a single death squad, a single extrajudicial execution or a single ruler who has become a millionnaire through having held power. You lack the moral authority to speak of Cuba.’
FRFI 179 June / July 2004
