The US Empires Strikes Again at Cuba
Elio Delgado Legon
HAVANA TIMES – US Imperialism has attacked the Cuban Revolution on all fronts. These attacks are well-known so I don’t have to name them again, plus that isn’t what I want to cover in this article.
As all of these attacks have crashed into an impregnable wall that is the Cuban people’s resistance, the Empire on the decline uses lies to justify its wrong and unjustifiable policy against the Cuban people.
First, they put on the whole “sonic attacks” show, when some of the US embassy’s personnel were forced to return to their country and declare that they had suffered different symptoms, which were never scientifically proven. It was the perfect excuse to shut down the Consulate and withdraw nearly all of their diplomatic mission, kicking out most Cuban diplomats from Washington too, thus breaking nearly all diplomatic relations, which was what the anti-Cuban mafia in Miami wanted all along.
Later, measures were taken to intensify the economic war that the US has waged on the Cuban people for almost 60 years, hoping that desperation would lead them to overthrow the Cuban Revolution and reinstate capitalism like in pre-1959 Cuba.
Then, the waiver on Title III of the Helms-Burton Act was lifted, so as to dissuade foreign investors from investing capital in Cuba and limit the country’s economic progress as a result. As if all of this wasn’t enough, they have now banned US cruise ships from entering Cuban ports, as well as any private US ships or planes.
Even though these measures violate international Law and infringe on the rights of US citizens, they have been accepted because US citizens fear million-dollar fines, without the right to defend themselves. On top of that, they’ve tried to stop any oil carrying ship from reaching Cuba so as to create chaos and prevent economic growth.
Now, when it would seem that the US has exhausted its arsenal of attacks against Cuba, they’ve pulled another one from out their sleeve: three million dollars to anyone who presents an investigation that proves Cuban doctors violated human rights when serving in over 60 countries right now.
How absolutely ironic! The country that has soldiers and the most sophisticated weapons deployed all over the world, which has taken the life of millions of innocent people (the most valuable human right) is trying to find human rights violations committed by Cuban doctors, who have saved millions of lives and improved health indexes in many countries, as well as restoring millions of people’s eyesight, people who were unable to afford a simple cataract operation.
Ever since 1963, Cuban doctors have provided collaborative services in over 160 countries, 300,000 doctors and health professionals embarking on these missions. In addition to this, Cuba has trained up over 92,000 doctors from many poor countries and even the US’ discriminated and impoverished social group, people who would never have been able to study medicine in their countries because of how expensive university studies are there. Yet, Cuba has trained them for free so they can help their communities to improve their health indexes.
Cuban doctors have gone to wherever there is a large-magnitude earthquake, such as Pakistan, Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Haiti, to mention a few, to save lives and heal the injured, at absolutely no cost.
When the Ebola virus broke out in three Western African countries and the WHO asked for help, Cuban doctors were the ones who worked the most towards wiping out the virus, risking their own llives to save the sick from certain death. Is this what the US wants to declare a human rights violation? The only place where human rights are violated in Cuba is the US naval base in Guantanamo which they still hold onto against the will of the Cuban people and government.
When the nuclear accident of Chernobyl happened and Ukraine asked for international aid to treat children who had been affected by radiation, Cuba offered to receive up to 10,000 patients and created conditions for their medical and psychological care. Many children’s lives were saved, who were declared terminally ill in their own country. In the end, over 25,000 children received medical treatment in Cuba, in spite of the US blockade, which no other country has done even in better financial conditions.
If the US really wants to stop human rights violations of the Cuban people, it needs to lift its economic, commercial and financial blockade, which it has imposed on us for the past 60 years almost, and is the greatest mass violation of human rights of a sovereign people.
I am very surprised by this comment of yours. ‘Communism’ for lack of a better term is not against the influx of money into its economy. It is about managing the distribution of wealth within the country.
That comment is really naive, almost uneducated on political systems international vs internal policies.
That comment is delusional or wilfully ignorant at best Brad.
I have not seen Cuba interfering with USA economy…
I have not seen Cuba interfering with USA economy…
Interesting, I agree with most of what you said there. Professor Ronald M. Smith I heard of him, I had no idea he was at Bletchley Park or still alive. I always thought of socialism as an ideology and not a political system this is why in practice it fails and falls into fascism. I would suggest capitalism also leads to fascism as money buys political power and the circles of power grow smaller and smaller and corruptions grow bigger and bigger, we see that in the USA today. I would argue that the means of productions and natural resources being privately owned inevitably means that the workers are slaves to the owners, similar to when the state owns them. We can see that with the current neoliberalism blooming fruit of the Friedman and Chicago school of economics ‘experiments’ of the 1950s and starting with Chile in the 1970s. We haven’t found or avoided systems where these are simply not owned, perhaps looking into First Nation culture (and other) would help.
You appear to confuse the Cuban people with the Batistas in Miami.
The Canadian staff were recalled in the same fashion and for the same reasons as the USA embassy: False pretences.
I thought Mr. Delgado Legon exposed succinctly and clearly the same evidences that I have discovered after studying the Cuban revolution and the USA interference in Cuba (and in fact in all of central and south America since the 1950s) since the 1970s.
Another thought!
Elio’s article is entitled: The US Empires (sic) Strike Again at Cuba
But why would any communist object to the removal of capitalist ventures like cruise ships or indeed tourism? Surely under communist thought and belief that is beneficial as it is a reflection of individual wealth?
The bottom line is that both systems of governance of states have failed in providing a dignified standard of living for their particular populations, that is soc?ialism or capitalism. We are now in the 21 century and together we can exclude all the barbarians of the 20th century that acted as leaders in killings, massacres,etc in the name of a free society. The list is too long to list here but you get my gist.
Doesn’t matter how much lipstick you put on a pig.
Cuba is a 1 party communist dictatorship there is no liberty.
No Curt, the US administration correctly calculated that the cruise ships from Miami were causing a substantial increase in tourism revenues for the Cuban regime. That isn’t complicated and is not a consequence of fear. But, where are the cruise ships from Russia, China, Vietnam and North Korea? Cuban stowaways have proven over the last sixty years to be seeking refuge in the US rather than bombing it – that was only the ambition of Fidel Castro thwarted by Khrushchev.
That has to be one of the dumbest rules of one of the dumbest laws ever passed in the US. Did the brilliant geniuses who made this law have the US citizens health and security in mind. Are they afraid that a ship that has been to Cuba in the last 6 months will be contaminated and cause the US population to get a fatal Cuban disease. Or maybe they fear some Cuban stowaways may hide on the ship and bomb the US once the ship reaches there.
Elio fails to consider the US sovereign rights to determine with whom we choose to do business. Foreign-flagged cruise ships are not governed by US law. They may call upon Cuban ports of their choosing. The US likewise has the sovereign rights to determine that ships that have docked in Cuba in the previous 6 months may not enter US ports.
Cuba’s record regarding Human Rights is often discussed on these pages.
Elio will refer to the better aspects of his country’s post revolutionary human rights record (international healthcare and disaster relief) but never to the poorer aspects thereof.
However he is absolutely correct when he states that the USA is in no position to criticise.
The USA is one of a tiny percentage of countries to carry out the death penalty on the mentally ill. The USA is a country of child brides (legal child sexual abuse). One U.S. state is apparently on the verge of passing a law stating that an underage victim of incestious rape will be forced to carry the resulting pregnancy to full term and give birth to the rapist’s child. We all know about the USA’s violations of the Geneva Convention. We have all seen footage of the children of economic migrants being separated from their families and caged.
I am not going to refer to every single example, but the list of human rights abuses in the USA is definitely not a short one.
The USA and Cuba are both fascinating but flawed countries with their good points and bad points. Neither has the moral high ground to condemn the other regarding human rights issues without first addressing their own respective failings.
Actually Curt in a previous contribution i expressed the view that it was highly likely that there was a Russian involvement and I have also written that I do not think that the Cuban regime had anything to do with it as it was contrary to their interests. My reason for raising the Canadian “sonic” experience is to explain that such attack occurred on other than just the US Embassy – in short that it was a reality.
As you know, I wrote a book about Cuba, and the chapter upon the US is very critical. But, as one who detests communism having had the opportunity to view its consequences from childhood onwards, I am not blinded to the faults of others.
My initial criticisms of the US commenced in 1948, when having had the great privilege and pleasure of attending a two hour recital by the late Paul Robeson (the original singer in Showboat of “Old Man River”), I became aware of the rampant racism in the US. Upon his return to the US, the State Department removed his passport because “It is intolerable that a US citizen should criticize the treatment of black citizens in the US, in other countries.” Then in 1950, following the lynching of four black men in Mississippi, Robeson in a meeting with President Harry Truman asked for a law against lynching to be introduced – Truman a Democrat, demurred, responding that: “It’s not time yet.” In 1951 Robeson spoke at the UN in New York saying: “I accuse my country the US of genocide.” This from a man who in 1938 was the first black man to perform the role of Othello – for the Royal Shakespeare Company in London and in 1943 refused to perform on Broadway unless the audience was desegregated.
All of that Curt was many long years prior to Rosa Parkes refusing to sit at the back of the bus (1962) or indeed of Martin Luther King starting his movement. I deeply regret that Robeson’s fight appears largely unrecognized today, for his was a lonely courageous pursuit.
Regarding political criticisms in general, my view is: If the hat fits, wear it!
There is another correspondent in these pages who continuously endeavors to persuade others that i only see good and evil and that the world is not black and white. I write from experience, not theory as he obviously with his flaccid none-discriminatory comments, does.
Freedom is for me a precious pearl held by far too few in our current world. I see no good in communism or fascism both being totalitarian, but have zealously protected democratic socialism although contrary to my own view. I was however amused by an assessment given by the late Head of the Asian Language Department of the University of Toronto, Professor Ronald M. Smith who had a lifetimes experience of academia (he also worked at Bletchley House for MI6 with Alan Turing and Dr. Tommy Flower (designer of Colossus): “I can tell you about socialism. A degree in Sociology is a degree in wishful thinking.”
Thank you for your comment Curt!
Carlyle, you are right when you say that situations and other things are under very tight scrutiny by the government. But even in the Soviet Union {Russia} all the way from Stalin to Putin, the government did not catch everything. Did it ever occur to you that maybe the Cuban Government had nothing to do with the Sonic Attacks? What would their motive be? I found it very interesting, but admirable that on one of your previous posts you were almost as critical of the US as you are of Cuba.
Wonderful how Elio is always able to replicate the views of the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party of Cuba.
it is noticeable that Elio refrains – as indeed does the Castro regime in general – from reporting upon the effects of the “sonic attacks” upon staff of the Canadian Embassy in Havana, which have resulted in the families of staff having to leave Cuba and services being drastically reduced.The comments are always directed only at the US Embassy staff experiences.
As is customary with communists, Elio confuses the Cuban people with the Castro regime – which has never been elected in a free vote.
And all the American sinners prayed for the Orange Devil they made!