By Michael Faulkner – 05.03.09
At the Summit of the Americas held in Trinidad in mid April
a seemingly insignificant event caused something of a stir in the international
media. Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez shook Barack Obama by the hand and
presented him with a copy of a 36 year old book entitled Open Veins of Latin
America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. The book, by Eduardo
Galeano, was published in New York in 1973 by the leftwing Monthly Review
Press. Widely read throughout Latin America, it informed and inspired two
generations of political activists, some of whom, like Chavez, have recently
assumed power in the so-called “pink tide” that has risen on the continent. To the undisguised delight of the
publishers the book has soared from number 54,295 on the Amazon sales chart, to
sixth place. When, three years ago during an address to the UN Assembly, Chavez
waved a copy of Chomsky’s Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global
Dominance, his promotion of the book had a similar effect. It shot to the top
of Amazon’s best seller list. Whether or not Obama ever reads Galeano’s book we
may never know, but the symbolism of the event is beyond doubt.
As in the United States, so throughout the world - including
Latin America – there are high hopes that an Obama presidency will mark a
complete break from the policies and practices of his predecessor. And
particularly in Latin America Obama will be expected to abandon not only the
record of the Bush administration, but the treatment accorded to countries of
the hemisphere since the introduction of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.
The acid test will be how the new administration treats
Cuba. Much has been made of Obama’s gesture towards an easing of some of the
most punitive aspects of his predecessors’ treatment of the Island since 1959.
So far what has been signalled is hardly more than a gesture. The additional
restrictions imposed by Bush on Cuban Americans travelling to and posting
remittances to relatives in Cuba, have been withdrawn. It is likely that soon
all restrictions on travel by US citizens will be lifted, but, as yet, there is
no indication that the 47 year old trade embargo (described by the Cubans as a
blockade), which is more punitive than that imposed on Iraq before 2003, will
be ended. It is significant that Cuba was the only country in the hemisphere to
be excluded from the summit of the Americas. Cuba’s continued exclusion from
the Organization of American States, from which it was expelled in 1962, is due
solely to the obdurate hostility of successive US administrations. But Cuba now has important allies in
Latin America and it is the United States that is isolated. Year after year,
the UN General Assembly votes overwhelmingly – usually with only the US,
Israel and the Marshall Islands against – to lift the embargo. And the
US, government annually demonstrates the utter hypocrisy of its vaunted respect
for the UN by ignoring the result. All this is well known, as is the contempt
with which the US government has treated any UN resolutions with which it
disagrees. If president Obama is serious about the need to improve his
country’s relations with the rest of the world, he could begin by righting the
wrongs perpetrated in his own back yard.
It is now 50 years since the revolution led by Fidel Castro
overthrew the corrupt and brutal Batista regime which was armed and supported
by the US. From the beginning the new Cuban government, which enjoyed
overwhelming support on the island, faced the unrelenting hostility of the US.
Although the record is well known to those who have bothered to examine it, it
is worth briefly considering the origins and development of US-Cuban relations
in order to dispel some of the myths perpetrated in those accounts claiming
that the decades-long hostility to Cuba was motivated by resistance to “the
Soviet threat” and a desire to “restore democracy” to the island.
The Cuban revolution of 1959 was primarily a struggle for
full national independence - the
completion of an anti colonial movement against Spanish rule that was hijacked
by a US intervention in the early twentieth century, turning Cuba into a
virtual colony of the United States. The naval base at Guantanamo Bay, outcome of an unequal treaty forced on
the Cubans, dates from this time.
The Eisenhower administration snubbed Fidel Castro when he
visited Washington in 1959. Vice-president Nixon remarked, on the basis of the
agrarian reform being implemented at the time, that he was “obviously a
red.” When in 1960 Castro
nationalized the Western-owned oil refineries because, in breach of contract,
they refused to refine Soviet crude oil purchased by the government, the US
cancelled the sugar quota. This meant that 70 percent of Cuba’s sugar
production was left without a market. The intention was clear: to cripple Cuba
economically and bring down Castro, This attempt would probably have succeeded
if the Soviets had not stepped in and bought the sugar. The Eisenhower
administration’s attempt to destroy the Cuban revolution had the effect of
radicalising it. The cancellation of the sugar quota pushed Cuba into a closer
dependence on the USSR.
From that time the US devoted itself to the destruction of
the Cuban revolution. Acts of terrorism aided and abetted by the CIA
intensified. In 1960 the Cuban government expropriated all US corporate
interests in the country. The
Eisenhower administration severed diplomatic relations and branded Cuba “an
outpost of Sin-Soviet imperialism.” Compliant Latin American puppets toed the line. Successive US
administrations, Republican and Democratic, have treated Cuba’s attempt to
break free from US tutelage and build a socialist society as a criminal offence
to be punished with the utmost severity. The catalogue of real offences
perpetrated against Cuba is endless. Distortions of fact, lies and chicanery
have been the commonplace accompaniment of the 50 year old vendetta against the
country. In 1961 the Bay of Pigs invasion organized by the CIA was preceded by
a clumsy provocation involving the mendacious claim that the Cuban airforce had
rebelled; CIA terrorism and sabotage was routine in the 1960s and the numerous
well-documented attempts to assassinate Castro sit uneasily with US public opposition to terrorism; the
so-called missile crisis of 1962 seems to have had its immediate origin in a
secret planned invasion of the island that became known to the Cubans; the
retention of the US base on Cuban soil at Guantanamo is a blatant violation of
Cuba’s sovereignty and against the expressed demand of the Cuban government for
its removal. But worst of all perhaps is the 47 year old embargo, which until
1990 necessitated Cuba’s heavy dependence on the Soviet bloc, and, since the
Soviet collapse, has so severely handicapped its economic recovery.
In the face of such adversity Cuba’s survival is an
extraordinary achievement. The
embargo attempts to impose a unilateral US policy on the rest of the world by
penalising any country that trades with Cuba. This violates the UN Charter and
that of the OAS. It also contradicts the principle of free trade, which the US
advocates everywhere else. According to Cuban sources, in 2002 the damage to
the country’s economy caused by the embargo since its institution exceeded
$70bn. (Cuba’s Report to the United Nations Secretary-General on the UN’s
General Assembly Resolution 56/9 (2002) ) The embargo has seriously affected
Cuba’s access to foodstuffs and medicines, which its instigators knew full well
would have dire consequences for the nutritional standards and healthcare of
the population. That a humanitarian tragedy has been avoided can only be
explained by the Cuban government’s determination at all costs to ensure that
the dietary, healthcare and educational needs of its people are a top priority.
Its success in these areas, although apparently of no interest to the US
government and its supporters, appears little short of miraculous. During the
so-called “special period” dating from the early 1990s, when most Western pundits
were predicting the imminent collapse of Cuban communism, disaster was avoided
by ensuring the free provision of food in nurseries, schools and hospitals and
that everyone had access to low priced staple foods.
Cuba’s extraordinary achievements in the face of this
draconian embargo may be seen in the following statistical comparison:
| |
Jamaica |
Cuba |
Germany |
| Average life expectancy (m/f) |
69%/75% |
76%/80% |
76%/82% |
| Infant deaths per 1,000 births |
20 |
7 |
5 |
| Adult HIV/Aids rate |
1.5 |
0.1 |
0.1 |
| Doctors per 1,000 head of population |
0.9 |
5.9 |
3.4 |
| Adult literacy rate |
86% |
99.80% |
99% |
That Cuba, suffering under a crippling embargo, has achieved
first world standards in terms of life-expectancy, healthcare and education, is
of little interest to those whose proclaimed commitment to democracy and human
rights rarely goes beyond empty rhetoric. If President Obama wants to win and
retain the respect of citizens of “the other America” he might start by reading
Galeano’s book and lifting the
blockade of Cuba. 