Reply #184: The reason the embargo can be blamed for Cuba's dire economic straights [View All]

[Judi Lynn]

is because suffering is built into the reason for using it. Everyone knows that. Only the slowest could be attracted to this absurd charge which rightwingers attempt to pull out time after time. Punishing Cuban citizens has been on the minds of occassional homicidal fools in the country since 1897, when the Breckenridge Memorandum was penned:

Department of War
Office of the Undersecretary
Washington D.C.

December 24, 1897


(snip)
We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army.
(snip)

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/bmemo.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CIA: Most Cubans loyal to homeland
Agency believes various ties to island bind the majority
By Robert Windrem
NBC NEWS PRODUCER

NEW YORK, April 12 <2000> — Cuban-American exile leaders — and many Republicans in Congress — believe that no Cuban, including Juan Miguel Gonzalez, could withstand the blandishments of a suburban American lifestyle, that he and all other Cubans would gladly trade their “miserable” lives in Cuba for the prosperity of the United States — if only given the chance. Witness House Minority Leader Dick Armey’s invitation to Gonzalez, offering him a tour of a local supermarket. But U.S. intelligence suggests otherwise.


THE CIA has long believed that while 1 million to 3 million Cubans would leave the island if they had the opportunity, the rest of the nation’s 11 million people would stay behind.

While an extraordinarily high number, there are still 8 million to 10 million Cubans happy to remain on the island.
(snip)

The CIA believes there are many reasons Cubans are content to remain in their homeland. Some don’t want to be separated from home, family and friends. Some fear they would never be able to return, and still others just fear change in general. Officials also say there is a reservoir of loyalty to Fidel Castro and, as in the case of Juan Miguel Gonzalez, to the Communist Party.

U.S. officials say they no longer regard Cuba as a totalitarian state with aggressive policies toward its people, but instead an authoritarian state, where the public can operate within certain bounds — just not push the envelope.

More important, Cuban media and Cuban culture long ago raised the banner of nationalism above that of Marxism. The intelligence community says the battle over Elian has presented Castro with a “unique opportunity” to enhance that nationalism.

There is no indication, U.S. officials say, of any nascent rebellion about to spill into the streets, no great outpouring of support for human rights activists in prison. In fact, there are fewer than 100 activists on the island and a support group of perhaps 1,000 more, according to U.S. officials.
(snip)

http://members.allstream.net/~dchris/CubaFAQ019.html

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April 26, 2003

Cuba Crackdown:
A Revolt Against the National Security Strategy?
By ROBERT SANDELS

Since becoming principal officer at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana in September 2002, James Cason has increased official U.S. connections with Cuban dissidents. Entering directly into Cuba domestic politics, Cason helped launch the youth wing of the dissident Partido Liberal Cubano. Nowhere in the world, said Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque, would it be legal for a foreigner to participate in the formation of a political party. In October 2002, Cason invited a group of dissidents to meet with U.S. newspaper editors at his residence in Havana. Although it has become routine for heads of the U.S. mission to seek out dissidents, it was unusual to meet them at home.

Feb. 24 of this year, he participated in a meeting of the dissident Assembly for the Promotion of Civil Society at the home of prominent dissident Marta Beatriz Roque. Also present at the meeting were several reporters to whom Cason repeated his criticisms of President Fidel Castro's government and reaffirmed U.S. support for dissidents.

Cason organized two other such meetings at his residence in March even after receiving a formal complaint from the Foreign Ministry.

In a recent television interview in Miami, Cason said the help he gave dissidents was "moral and spiritual" in nature. But, according to the testimony of several Cuban security agents who infiltrated the organizations that received U.S. support, the Interests Section became a general headquarters and office space for dissidents. Some of them, including Marta Beatriz Roque, had passes signed by Cason that allowed them free access to the Interests Section where they could use computers, telephones, and office machines.

The State Department calls these activities "outreach." However, under the United States Code, similar "outreach" by a foreign diplomat in the United States could result in criminal prosecution and a 10-year prison sentence for anyone "who agrees to operate within the United States subject to the direction or control of a foreign government or official (Title 18, section 951 of the United States Code).
(snip/...)

http://www.canadiandimension.mb.ca/v37/v37_4lh.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

....Sr. Baguer was Chairman of the Cuban Independent Press Association, an organization home to several dissident journalists revered by Canadian media.

It turns out that Sr. Baguer was recruited by the US Interests Section of Havana (the compound that houses American foreign service personnel) to create and/or distort information to feed to American sponsored counter-revolutionary Radio Marti, and to several other journalistic fronts as necessary.

A special open pass gave him 24 hour access to the US facilities including an Internet room where a couple of dozen other phoney ³independents² worked. Sr. Baguer explained that they were told what to write about and paid generously in cash with money smuggled in through couriers. Among his assorted colleagues in disinformation was the alleged exiled poet Raul Rivero, also ³connected² as a writer for the ultra-conservative newspaper, the Miami Herald.

Fortunately for the US Interests Section, Nestor Baguer was a real journalist who knew how to make phoney stories look good. Unfortunately, he was also a double agent for Cuban intelligence(codename Octavio) who¹d been operating undercover successfully since 1960. Should have been a helluva story, but for all the attention he got, Sr. Baguer could have saved his breath. Not only are North American media not interested in the truth about Cuba; when we find it, we kill it.

Consider the good work of Sun Media in the summer of 1999, when Winnipeg played host to the Pan American Games. From the outset, Winnipeg Sun staffers harassed Cuban athletes about their alleged lack of a free press to the point that they almost withdrew from the Games. Castro, who had expected a supportive welcome from Canada, blasted Canadian media and the Sun in particular for unfairly demoralizing Cuban competitors, the national media covered the row, and relations between the two countries quickly hit a new low.

As a columnist for the paper, I challenged the Sun¹s kneejerk anti-Cuba editorial stance and was fired three weeks later. Manitoba¹s Human Rights Commission ruled that the Sun was guilty of discrimination based on perceived political belief and negotiated a settlement of $1000. It was the first time in Canada that a writer had held a publisher accountable for an unfair dismissal on political grounds. Publishers might now have to think twice before firing writers of unpopular material.
(snip/...)

http://www.canadiandimension.mb.ca/v37/v37_4lh.htm~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

US military 'brutalised' journalists

News agency demands inquiry after American forces in Iraq allegedly treated camera crew as enemy personnel

Luke Harding in Baghdad
Tuesday January 13, 2004
The Guardian

The international news agency Reuters has made a formal complaint to the Pentagon following the "wrongful" arrest and apparent "brutalisation" of three of its staff this month by US troops in Iraq.
The complaint followed an incident in the town of Falluja when American soldiers fired at two Iraqi cameramen and a driver from the agency while they were filming the scene of a helicopter crash.

The US military initially claimed that the Reuters journalists were "enemy personnel" who had opened fire on US troops and refused to release them for 72 hours.

Although Reuters has not commented publicly, it is understood that the journalists were "brutalised and intimidated" by US soldiers, who put bags over their heads, told them they would be sent to Guantanamo Bay, and whispered: "Let's have sex."

At one point during the interrogation, according to the family of one of the staff members, a US soldier shoved a shoe into the mouth one of the Iraqis.

The US troops, from the 82nd Airborne Division, based in Falluja, also made the blindfolded journalists stand for hours with their arms raised and their palms pressed against the cell wall.

"They were brutalised, terrified and humiliated for three days," one source said. "It was pretty grim stuff. There was mental and physical abuse."
(snip/...)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1121981,00.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unlike in Chile, El Salvador and other past and present military- dominated Latin American regimes, people are not "disappeared" from their homes; tortured and disfigured cadavers are not found on public roadways as a warning to the rest of the population to keep silent.

There is not (and has not been for over two decades) any major civil strife; no armed bands fighting the government, no massive sweeps and detentions of the general population.

In fact, if the truth were to be told, Cuba's performance in some crucial areas of human rights -- those the Universal Declaration on Human Rights lists under "the economic, social and cultural rights" -- is outstanding by any measure. The absence of poverty, hunger, preventable disease, illiteracy, homelessness and unemployment is impressive even to people and governments not enamored of the Cuban political system.

The fact that Cuba considers food, housing, education, health care and jobs as basic human rights guaranteed in the Constitution puts that system relatively high in the esteem of many human rights buffs, regardless of the limitations on individual civil liberties.

Despite the serious allegations by anti-Castro exiles, most impartial observers give Cuba's judicial and penal system a high rating in comparison to what existed before in Cuba and what exists today in other Latin American countries and in the United States.

And even those who are more concerned with individual rights, the area in which the Cuban system is weakest, generally acknowledge after witnessing the Cuban system first-hand that:

1) infringement of those rights seems to stem basically from the back-to-the-wall position the United States has put Cuba in consistently since its 1959 revolution, and

2) they are not so massive as to warrant more than passing comment from the international community.
(snip)

It was on this basis that the Mexican diplomat questioned the inclusion of Cuba on the HRC agenda.
(snip/...)

http://www.walterlippmann.com/klw-theatre.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The U.S. Embargo and the Wrath of God
by Juan Gonzalez
In These Times, March 8, 1998



Havana: Gilberto Duran Torres couldn't devote much attention to Pope John Paul lI's historic visit here in January. While Cuban journalists and thousands of foreign journalists recorded the pope's every move, Duran and the other doctors at Calixto Garcia Hospital, Cuba's largest and most prestigious medical center, spent another hair-raising week quietly concocting their own miracles-a string of patchwork procedures to keep their patients alive.
Duran is chief of the intermediate care unit. He has worked at the hospital for 25 years, but nowadays he watches helplessly as the country's awesome cradle-to-grave, free medical system slowly disintegrates. Duran's department, for instance, is making do with artificial respirators that are more than 20 years old. . . . "We should have at least 12 for my unit," he says. "We have far fewer, and they are always breaking down. When one goes, we don't have the parts to fix it, so we have to search around the city, find a hospital that's not using theirs, and transport it here." So much of the world's advanced medical equipment and drugs are manufactured by U.S. firms that the three-decade-old American embargo is now literally killing Cubans, according to a 1997 report issued by the American Association for World Health (AAWH) following a year-long investigation.
Back in Washington, the proponents of the embargo insist that needed medical supplies can still get to Cuba. But the 300 page AAWH report, "Denial of Food and Medicine: The Impact of the U.S. Embargo on Health and Nutrition in Cuba," provides startling documentation of dozens of cases in which Cuban hospitals could not secure the medicine and equipment they needed because of the sharp restrictions imposed by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.
Dr. Julian Ruiz, a surgeon at Calixto Garcia, recounts his 15-day search last September for a Z-Stent Introducer, a small contraption that he needed to operate on a man with colon cancer. Not one could be found in the country. The manufacturer of the Z-Stent, Wilson Cooke Medical Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C., refused to sell it to the Cubans. Ruiz' staff, scouring the world, finally found a Z-Stent they could buy in Mexico. By that time, the man's cancer had spread.
(snip)

Nothing has drawn the Catholic Church and the Cuban government closer together than their mutual opposition to the U.S. blockade of medicine and food supplies to Cuba's people.
"Even in warfare, you don't bomb hospitals and schools," says Patrick Sullivan, the pastor of a church in Santa Clara and the only American priest permanently stationed in the country.
A Cuban official in charge of finding and paying for food from abroad recounted her frustration with the embargo. "To ship a thousand tons of powdered milk from New Zealand, I must pay $150,000, when bringing the same amount from Miami would only cost me $25,000," she says.
While the U.S. government forces Cuba to pay six times more than necessary for children to drink milk and shuts off the supply for medical screening tests, it scurries to sell more Boeing planes to China, to open new Nike factories in Vietnam and even finds ways to ship food to North Korea. The last time anybody looked, these were socialist countries too, at least in name.
After all his homilies criticizing the lack of individual freedom and the evils of communism, the 77-year-old pope, no less a dictator within his church than the 71 -year-old Castro is within his party, still managed in his parting words to condemn the U.S. embargo for striking "the population indiscriminately, making it ever more difficult for the weakest to enjoy the bare essentials of decent living."
(snip/...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Human_Rights/Cuba_embargo.html
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I'm prepared to address the over 40 year old history of the Cuban "exile" pattern of raids, bombings, shootings, against Cuba, the crop burnings, the murders of even people who were "friendly" to the Cuban government going all the way to the streets of Washington D. C., and the Chilean diplomat, Orlando Letellier.

There are many of us who are more than familiar with the vicious, violent, utterly destructive while wildly STUPID behavior of Cuban rightwing exiles throughtout the years after the revolution.

These CUBAN MATTERS would be appropriately dealt with on an actual thread about Cuba, not Hugo Chavez. It's good form to stay with the subject at hand, not to stretch the conversation into a random, roving discussion of anything which comes to one's mind.