Cuba: Embargo has cost us $89 billion

[Scurrilous]

Source: Associated Press

<snip>

"Washington's 45-year-old embargo has cost Cuba more than $89 billion to date, wreaking havoc on everything from primary education to pest control and nearly all other facets of island life, the foreign minister said Tuesday.

Havana produced a 56-page booklet laying out its latest argument against the embargo ahead of next month's meeting in New York of the U.N. General Assembly, which has voted 15 years in a row to urge the United States to lift trade sanctions against Cuba.

Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque said the U.S. policy caused $3 billion in losses over the past year alone to the economy of Cuba -- which had a 2006 GDP estimated at $40 billion, according to the CIA World Factbook.

The embargo "has reached levels of schizophrenia and made the last year notable for the ferocious and cruel way the blockade has been applied," Pérez Roque said at a news conference. Washington, he said, is bent on "persecuting Cuban interests and attempting to beat our people into submission with hunger and disease."



Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/459/story/242415.html

[Baby Snooks]

1. And which president had 8 years to lift the embargo?

Most Americans probably do not agree with the embargo. But apparently Democratic as well as Republican presidents do.

Another question for the Democratic presidential candidates. Will they lift the embargo or continue it?

We trade with China whose human rights violations far exceed any committed by Cuba. Why not trade with Cuba? What is the purpose of the embargo anyway? Who really supports it?

[Judi Lynn]

3. The violent reactionary Cuban "exile" community in Miami, New Jersey, and their

confederates in the Congress. They have had people like Jesse Helms, Tom DeLay, etc. act as their mentors, creating bills for them which put the screws to Cuba "even worser," making life even harder for them, while simultaneously allotting HUGE amounts of money to send to the small group of Cuban professional "dissidents," with whom the Miami community is in constant contact.

You might find the remarks made by Texas Republican Dick Armey, when he was leaving Congress to be worth pondering:

He predicted that the 42-year-old Cuban trade embargo won't last long because it's losing support in Congress. Armey said his own past support for the embargo was based on his loyalty to two Cuban American House members -- Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

Armey also said that House members whose districts could benefit from trade and travel to Cuba should vote against the embargo.
(snip/...)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/83131_pot17.shtml

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From an article written in 2002:

August 21, 2002

The Politics of the Cuba Embargo

Personal Loyalty in Congress
by Tom Crumpacker

An August 17 article by Mark Helm of Hearst Washington Bureau about our House Speaker Dick Armey's upcoming retirement casts some light on the way our Congress and Administration have been dealing with Cuba issues in recent years. By way of background recall:

(1) under House rules the House leadership--the Speaker and majority whip (Tom Delay, also from Texas)--determine when, where and how bills are voted on;

(2) bills have been introduced every year and have been pending for many years to repeal the Cuba embargo and Helms-Burton blockade--and have had very substantial, increasing support--but votes on the merits with full debate with one partial exception have never been allowed;

(3) the only other Cuba bills voted on have been on amendments to Administration budget requests for money to enforce the embargo and travel restrictions, which have to be voted on each year, and by substantial, increasing margins the travel enforcement money has been turned down in the Hou! se the last three summers and once in the Senate (where it comes up again soon, maybe next month);

(4) in November, 2000 a vote was finally forced on a bill which would allow medicine and nutritional food to be sold to Cuba, which passed in both chambers by large margins only to be gutted in conference by the addition of two provisions tacked on by Miami Congressman Diaz-Balart, apparently appointed to the conference committee by Armey and Delay, which prohibited normal use of credit in sales to Cuba and "codified" the unconstitutional travel restrictions (completely unrelated to the bill which had been voted on), which was then signed into law by Clinton in that form;

(5) regarding this maneuver Rep. Mark Sanford (R, SC) said his leadership had "behaved shamefully" and Sen. Max Baucus called the matter a "travesty of our democracy";

(6) this summer the House also voted for amendments to the budget requests to end the credit restrictions and the limits on amounts which could! be given to Cuban family members and against amending the budget by ending the embargo, 200-- 225.

This latter vote may not be an accurate measure of the full anti-embargo sentiment in the House because some members might have felt it was procedurally improper to do away with all the embargo laws on a budget request amendment, including the lengthy Toricelli (1992) and Helms-Burton (1996) provisions, without amending or repealing or addressing these laws directly.

In other words this vote appears to have been just another "show trial" by Congress to help present members keep their seats or a preliminary testing of the waters never intended to be legal. The Cuban people don't have lobbyists or numerous people or powerful organizations working for them in the US Congress. Our Constitution provides that foreign affairs are supposed to be in the domain of the executive branch representing the nation as a whole. The August 17 Helm article, titled "Armey's independence shows as time runs out," quotes Armey as follows:
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/crumpacker0821.html

[Hippo_Tron]

5. To add insult to injury Clinton signed the Helms-Burton act

[saigon68]

21. I don't expect his wife to do anything different

I think however Al Gore would have----just to piss off the right wing in Fla.

[noel adamson]

2. The U.S. propaganda attempt to cause the communist economy tp fail...

...seems to have backfired. Whatever dictator Castro's faults may be Cuba and it's economy is still there. It's economy has survived in spite of the very long term attack by the greatest economic power on earth. I suppose it is possible it would have failed if we had not done this but I think that unlikely especially when we view the Chinese communist dictatorship's rapidly growing economy which has been given great help by giants like all American WalMart and uber right winger Rupert Murdoch who seem to fit right in.

[spag68]

4. Cuba

I was in the USN from 59-62 and was in Gitmo several times. Back then it was a dream stop for us, beautiful beach
h and all the fun we could want except women. We traded cigs at the fence for cigars and other goods. Later I lived in Miami for 7 years and loved the Cuban people there especially the food, however this embargo stuff is just goofy and I just can't get my mind around what good it can possibly be doing for any one. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think american business and tourists would make Cuba over faster then you can spell Castro. It is such a beautiful place it's a shame to waste it, just like it's a shame to waste Gitmo. I only hope we wise up soon.

[Mika]

6. Its good for politicians.

The US embargo on Cuba is a campaign cash cow for US politicians on both sides of this issue. Sanctions will remain in place as long as it is so.



-

[pampango]

7. The embargo is a stupid idea that has been a political football for too long.

I wonder what will eventually take its place. Free trade, fair trade, Cuban membership in the WTO (that's what opened things up for China), limited trade that preserves the current social structure there...

Cuba seems to be the o(ne Third World country that many cons don't want to trade with and many liberals want to open up more trade with.) ;)

It should be up to the Cuban people what route they want to take. Let's get rid of the embargo and get that out of their way.

[hughee99]

8. Wreaking havoc? Attempting to beat [our] people into submission with hunger and disease?

As I understand it from reading many of the Cuba related threads, they have one of the world's best health care systems, full employment and 100% literacy. This does not sound like the same place Cuban Foreign minister Felipe Pérez Roque is describing.

[Judi Lynn]

9. There have always been sources available which illuminate what he is saying.

Embargoed for Release: 5 p.m., EST, January 17, 2000
U.S. Embargo Against Cuba Contributed to Public Health "Catastrophes" -- Says Yale Medical School Professor

New Haven, Conn. -- The United States embargo against Cuba has contributed to several public health catastrophes, among them an epidemic of blindness due to a dramatic decrease in the supply of nutrients, a Yale physician says.

There also have been epidemics of infants ingesting lye, which is used when soap is not available, and an outbreak of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a form of paralysis associated with water contamination due to lack of chlorination chemicals, said Michele Barry, M.D., professor of medicine and public health and director of the Office of International Health at the Yale School of Medicine.

"The embargo against Cuba is one of the few embargoes that includes both food and medicine and it has been described as a war against public health with high human costs," Barry wrote in an article published January 18 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. "Although curtailments of individual liberties and privacy by the Cuban government may seem as an abridgement of personal freedom, we as health care professionals have a moral duty to protest an embargo which engenders human suffering in Cuba to achieve political objectives."

Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wrote a commentary on U.S. embargo policies in the same issue of the publication in response to both Barry's article and a related position paper prepared by the American College of Physicians-American Society of Internal Medicine.

Barry said she visited Cuba in February 1999 with the Social Science Research Council. Her last visit had been 15 years earlier, as a lecturer.

"During this current visit, I was struck by profound changes that have occurred to a health care system once considered the preeminent model for developing countries," she said.

The U.S. trade and aid embargo against Cuba, which began in 1961, was tolerable until the Soviet bloc crumbled -- as did its aid to Cuba -- in the late 1980s, she said. The situation was worsened with passage of the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, which prohibits foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies to trade with Cuba.
(snip/...)

http://www.yale.edu/opa/newsr/00-01-17-02.all.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This has been a pattern employed since John C. Breckenridge, Undersecretary of War wrote his memorandum on Cuba in 1897, on Christmas Eve, with the exception being any of the times in which the U.S. had a puppet in place to control Cuba's people and Cuba's government, no matter what hell befell the population:

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

December 24, 1897

~snip~
We must destroy everything within our cannons’ range of fire. We must impose a harsh blockade so that hunger and its constant companion, disease, undermine the peaceful population and decimate the Cuban army.
(snip)

......we must create conflicts for the independent government. That government will be faced with these difficulties, in addition to the lack of means to meet our demands and the commitments made to us, war expenses and the need to organize a new country. These difficulties must coincide with the unrest and violence among the aforementioned elements, to whom we must give our backing.

To sum up, our policy must always be to support the weaker against the stronger, until we have obtained the extermination of them both, in order to annex the Pearl of the Antilles.
(snip/...)

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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuba Report To UN On Why USA's Blockade Must End
Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 10:15 am
Press Release: Cuba Government

Report by Cuba on Resolution 59/11 of the United Nations General Assembly

“The necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”

August 15, 2005

INTRODUCTION

The economic, commercial and financial blockade impose by the United States against Cuba is the longest-lasting and cruelest of its kind know to human history and is an essential element in the United States’ hostile and aggressive policies regarding the Cuban people. Its aim, made explicit on 6 April 1960 is the destruction of the Cuban Revolution: (…) through frustration and discouragement based on dissatisfaction and economic difficulties (…) to withhold funds and supplies to Cuba in order to cut real income thereby causing starvation, desperation and the overthrow of the government (...)”

It is equally an essential component of the policy of state terrorism against Cuba which silently, systematically, cumulatively, inhumanly, ruthlessly affects the population with no regard for age, sex, race, religious belief or social position.

This policy, implemented and added to by ten US administrations also amounts to an act of genocide under the provisions of paragraph (c) of article II of the Geneva Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948 and therefore constitutes a violation of International Law. This Convention defines this as ‘(…) acts perpetrated with the intention to totally or partially destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group’, and in these cases provides for ‘the intentional subjugation of the group to conditions that result in their total or partial physical destruction’.

The blockade on Cuba is an act of economic war. There is no regulation of International Law which justifies a blockade in times of peace. Since 1909, in the London Naval Conference, as a principle of International Law it was defined that ‘blockade is an act of war’, and based on this, its use is only possible between countries at war.

Although the total blockade on trade between Cuba and the United States was formally decreed by an Executive Order issued by President John F. Kennedy on 3 February 1962, measures that are part of the blockade were put in place just a few weeks after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on 1 January 1959.

On 12 February 1959, the US Government refused to grant a modest credit requested by Cuba to maintain the stability of the national currency. Later, other measures were applied such as the restriction of the supply of fuel to the Island by American transnational companies, the halting of industrial factories, the prohibition of exports to Cuba and the partial, and later total, suppression of the sugar quota.

By virtue of the blockade, among other restrictions, Cuba cannot export any product to the United States, or import any merchandise from this country: American tourists are prohibited from visiting; the dollar cannot be used in the country’s transactions with foreign countries; the country has no access to the credit, and cannot carry out transactions with regional or American multilateral financial institutions and their boats and aircrafts must not enter American territory.

The blockade has a marked extraterritorial component. In 1992, with a view to intensifying the effects of Cuba’s loss of 85% of its foreign trade after the Soviet Union and the European socialist block fell apart, the United States passed the Torricelli Act, which removed Cuba’s ability to purchase medicines and food from US subsidiaries in third countries which stood at US$718 million in 1991. The Torricelli Act placed tight restrictions on ships sailing to and from Cuba, thus making formal its serious extraterritorial provisions. A ship from a third country that docks in Cuban waters cannot enter a port in the United States until 6 months have passed and said country has obtained a new permission permit.
(snip/...)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0510/S00197.htm

The 1996 Helms-Burton Act made the effects of the blockade worse, increased the number and scope of the provisions with an extraterritorial impact, instituted persecution of and sanctions on actual and potential foreign investors in Cuba and authorised funding for hostile, subversive and aggressive acts against the Cuban people.
(snip/...)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0510/S00197.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Denial of Food and Medicine:
The Impact Of The U.S. Embargo
On The Health And Nutrition In Cuba"
-An Executive Summary-
American Association for World Health Report
Summary of Findings
March 1997

After a year-long investigation, the American Association for World Health has determined that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens. As documented by the attached report, it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system. But since 1992 the number of unmet medical needs patients going without essential drugs or doctors performing medical procedures without adequate equipment-has sharply accelerated. This trend is directly linked to the fact that in 1992 the U.S. trade embargo-one of the most stringent embargoes of its kind, prohibiting the sale of food and sharply restricting the sale of medicines and medical equipment-was further tightened by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.

A humanitarian catastrophe has been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a high level of budgetary support for a health care system designed to deliver primary and preventive health care to all of its citizens. Cuba still has an infant mortality rate half that of the city of Washington, D.C.. Even so, the U.S. embargo of food and the de facto embargo on medical supplies has wreaked havoc with the island's model primary health care system. The crisis has been compounded by the country's generally weak economic resources and by the loss of trade with the Soviet bloc.

Recently four factors have dangerously exacerbated the human effects of this 37-year-old trade embargo. All four factors stem from little-understood provisions of the U.S. Congress' 1992 Cuban Democracy Act (CDA):

1. A Ban on Subsidiary Trade: Beginning in 1992, the Cuban Democracy Act imposed a ban on subsidiary trade with Cuba. This ban has severely constrained Cuba's ability to import medicines and medical supplies from third country sources. Moreover, recent corporate buyouts and mergers between major U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies have further reduced the number of companies permitted to do business with Cuba.
   
   2. Licensing Under the Cuban Democracy Act: The U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments are allowed in principle to license individual sales of medicines and medical supplies, ostensibly for humanitarian reasons to mitigate the embargo's impact on health care delivery. In practice, according to U.S. corporate executives, the licensing provisions are so arduous as to have had the opposite effect. As implemented, the licensing provisions actively discourage any medical commerce. The number of such licenses granted-or even applied for since 1992-is minuscule. Numerous licenses for medical equipment and medicines have been denied on the grounds that these exports "would be detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests."
   
   3. Shipping Since 1992:The embargo has prohibited ships from loading or unloading cargo in U.S. ports for 180 days after delivering cargo to Cuba. This provision has strongly discouraged shippers from delivering medical equipment to Cuba. Consequently shipping costs have risen dramatically and further constricted the flow of food, medicines, medical supplies and even gasoline for ambulances. From 1993 to 1996, Cuban companies spent an additional $8.7 million on shipping medical imports from Asia, Europe and South America rather than from the neighboring United States.
   
   4. Humanitarian Aid: Charity is an inadequate alternative to free trade in medicines, medical supplies and food. Donations from U.S. non-governmental organizations and international agencies do not begin to compensate for the hardships inflicted by the embargo on the Cuban public health system. In any case, delays in licensing and other restrictions have severely discouraged charitable contributions from the U.S.

Taken together, these four factors have placed severe strains on the Cuban health system. The declining availability of food stuffs, medicines and such basic medical supplies as replacement parts for thirty-year-old X-ray machines is taking a tragic human toll. The embargo has closed so many windows that in some instances Cuban physicians have found it impossible to obtain life-saving medicines from any source, under any circumstances. Patients have died. In general, a relatively sophisticated and comprehensive public health system is being systematically stripped of essential resources. High-technology hospital wards devoted to cardiology and nephrology are particularly under siege. But so too are such basic aspects of the health system as water quality and food security. Specifically, the AAWH's team of nine medical experts identified the following health problems affected by the embargo:

1. 
   
   Malnutrition: The outright ban on the sale of American foodstuffs has contributed to serious nutritional deficits, particularly among pregnant women, leading to an increase in low birth-weight babies. In addition, food shortages were linked to a devastating outbreak of neuropathy numbering in the tens of thousands. By one estimate, daily caloric intake dropped 33 percent between 1989 and 1993.
   
   2. Water Quality: The embargo is severely restricting Cuba's access to water treatment chemicals and spare-parts for the island's water supply system. This has led to serious cutbacks in supplies of safe drinking water, which in turn has become a factor in the rising incidence of morbidity and mortality rates from water-borne diseases.
   
   3. Medicines & Equipment: Of the 1,297 medications available in Cuba in 1991, physicians now have access to only 889 of these same medicines - and many of these are available only intermittently. Because most major new drugs are developed by U.S. pharmaceuticals, Cuban physicians have access to less than 50 percent of the new medicines available on the world market. Due to the direct or indirect effects of the embargo, the most routine medical supplies are in short supply or entirely absent from some Cuban clinics.
   
   4. Medical Information: Though information materials have been exempt from the U.S. trade embargo since 1 988, the AAWH study concludes that in practice very little such information goes into Cuba or comes out of the island due to travel restrictions, currency regulations and shipping difficulties. Scientists and citizens of both countries suffer as a result. Paradoxically, the embargo harms some U.S. citizens by denying them access to the latest advances in Cuban medical research, including such products as Meningitis B vaccine, cheaply produced interferon and streptokinase, and an AIDS vaccine currently under-going clinical trials with human volunteers.

http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In November, there will be a vote in the General Assembly of the United Nations to condemn the embargo on Cuba. This will be the SIXTEENTH YEAR IN A ROW almost all the member countries will vote together against the U.S. embargo, as has been the outcome every year, with only 2 or 3 countries, at the very most, in all this time voting with the U.S. supporting the U.S. embargo, these countries being the Marshall Islands, Israel, Palau.

Tuesday, 12 November, 2002, 22:44 GMT
UN condemns US embargo on Cuba

The United Nations general assembly has again voted overwhelmingly against the 40-year-old United States' embargo against Cuba.
With 173 votes to three, it was the highest vote in support of Cuba since the blockade was first debated by the general assembly in 1992.

A group of 25 countries, led by Mexico, said the US was violating international law and the UN charter.(snip)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2455923.stm

~~~~~~~~

UN General Assembly Condemns Yet Again the Embargo Against Cuba
Translated Saturday 18 November 2006, by Liliane Bolland

United Nations. The General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly once more - by 183-4 - in favour of lifting the sanctions imposed by Washington against Cuba.
For the 15th consecutive year, the General Assembly of the United Nations pronounced itself, in an overwhelming majority, last Wednesday, in favour of a resolution calling for the lifting of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States. “Seventy per cent of Cubans were born under the blockade, which has cost the Cuban economy more than 86 billion dollars in the space of 47 years ”, recalled the Cuban minister of Foreign Affairs, Felipe Perez Roque. labeling the blockade an economic war, “an act of genocide, as defined under the United Nations Charter, violating international law”.

Refused access to international markets and to credits, Cuba is obliged to pay an additional price of 30-50% as a result of the prohibition on ships from docking in its ports, a consequence of the United States Torricelli and Helms-Burton amendments.

Unsurprisingly, the United States and Israel, which both disregard UN General Assembly resolutions, as well as two tax havens, Palau and the Marshall Islands, voted against lifting of the blockade. “We must send a clear signal to the Cuban government, that it is not the embargo, but the denial of fundamental human rights to Cuban people that is the cause of their suffering”, explained, unconvincingly, the US delegate Ronald Godard. As if the United States was the world champion in democracy, stifling the rights of a people - in Cuba- for more than forty years.

The resolution, adopted by 183 countries (4 against), has nevertheless very little chance of being applied since General Assembly votes are not binding. Nevertheless, the number of States condemning the blockade, a hang-over of the Cold War, has not ceased to grow during recent years, demonstrating the Washington’s isolation concerning Cuba.
(snip/)

http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/article421.html

[hughee99]

11. Thanks, I will bookmark this...

I'm not doubting that these are the result of US trade policies, I just wonder how Cuba manages to provide world-class medical care without essential drugs and equipment.

[Judi Lynn]

13. It seems to impress everyone who takes the time to study it.

Some of us Cuba-watchers saw this article when it first came out which you might find interesting:

Learn from Cuba, says World Bank

by Jim Lobe

Washington, 30 Apr 2001 (IPS) - World Bank President James Wolfensohn Monday extolled the Communist government of President Fidel Castro for doing “a great job” in providing for the social welfare of the Cuban people.

His remarks followed Sunday’s publication of the Bank’s 2001 edition of ‘World Development Indicators’ (WDI), which showed Cuba as topping virtually all other poor countries in health and education statistics.

It also showed that Havana has actually improved its performance in both areas despite the continuation of the US trade embargo against it, and the end of Soviet aid and subsidies for the Caribbean island more than ten years ago.

“Cuba has done a great job on education and health,” Wolfensohn told reporters at the conclusion of the annual spring meetings of the Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “They have done a good job, and it does not embarrass me to admit it.”

His remarks reflect a growing appreciation in the Bank for Cuba’s social record, despite recognition that Havana’s economic policies are virtually the antithesis of the “Washington Consensus”, the neo-liberal orthodoxy that has dominated the Bank’s policy advice and its controversial structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) for most of the last 20 years.

Some senior Bank officers, however, go so far as to suggest that other developing countries should take a very close look at Cuba’s performance.

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.
(snip/...)

http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/learn.htm

[ronnie624]

19. In light of the facts laid out in the article,

this statement doesn't make much sense:

“It’s not so much that the economy may collapse and be unable to support such a system, as it is that any transition after Castro passes from the scene would permit more freedom for people to pursue their desires for a higher standard of living.” The trade-off, according to Ritzen, may work against the welfare system that exists now.

Gotta' throw a bone to the masters in Washington, I suppose.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Isn't that SAD? They want to remove the very things the people have worked so long and hard

to develope which make them so much more fortunate than they were before the revolution, and better off than many of the people today in Central and South America.

I've heard they are not about ready to have all their hard work destroyed.

[Aridane]

16. Indeed, one of the world's best health care systems....

and what's more, it's completely free! Maradona was treated for his drug addiction in the Hermanos Ameijeiras hospital in Havana.

I have just come back from Cuba and was witness to some of the commendable achievements of the Revolution. I was impressed by many things but by the time I left I couldn't help feeling that it is time for a change in Cuba. No need to change everything though. I don't think Cubans want everything to change either.

The trade embargo should indeed be lifted. If the US can do business with China, why can't it do business with Cuba????

I met some really wonderful people in Cuba and life is very hard for them. Just try making ends meet with just $10 a month. It's as good as impossible.

[hughee99]

17. Then Cuba must indeed have an incredible system

if it can overcome a lack of essential medicines and equipment.

I have no problem with lifting the embargo or the Cuban system, I just find it interesting that when discussing the embargo, I hear about how awful things are in Cuba, and yet when discussing health care, education, etc... I hear how good things are. Admittedly, I've never been to Cuba, I just have some trouble understanding how a system without essential equipment and medicine can provide the best health care.

[Mika]

18. What Cuba has is incredible practitioners and infrastructure.

The focus is on health, not on the profitability of ill health. Corporations aren't embedded in the Cuban h-c system, and the Cuban Ministry of Health manufactures most of their own drugs. True, Cuba does lack much of the "state of the art" high tech electronics systems, but that is more than compensated for by immediate access to a caring h-c system.

I have been there and seen it with my own eyes, many times.

[Freddie Stubbs]

10. So, the workers' paradise needs trade with the big bad capitalists?

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

12. They need the United States to stop interfering with their trade with other countries.

Your flippancy needs a better footing in reality.

[Freddie Stubbs]

22. Which other countries cannot trade with Cuba because of the US?

:shrug:

[Mika]

26. Here's a bit of clarification, for your edification

Cuba is free trade with countries, that is their sovereign right. But, overall, countries don't manufacture goods - corporations do.

The US trade sanctions (the Helms-Burton law - the embargo) are aimed at corporations, foreign and domestic. Domestic corporations are not free to sell their goods to Cuba (without a special exemption from USOFAC), or if the US corporation is based in a foreign country they are not allowed to sell their goods and/or services to Cuba or Cuban government officials. Foreign corporations are not free to sell their goods to Cuba if they do business in the USA. According to US Helms-Burton law (and a myriad of other add-ons to other bills) these corporations must choose one market (the US) or the other (Cuba).



-

[Judi Lynn]

14. By the way, how many islands are you aware of which can produce everything they need?

Cuba's population was imported after the Spanish killed off almost all the Native Cubans, to do the slave work on the plantations. The crops their genius owners planted were all made to sell to Europe and the United States, and this artifically large population for an island that size continued to produce the same products.

They were not set up to be able to handle all the manufacturing and mining, etc. it would take to adequately sustain them.

The OTHER countries in the world were outraged by the Cuban embargo, calling it ILLEGAL by international law standards. The U.S. also plants itself directly in the middle of attempted trade with other countries, forbidding them, if they hope to do frequent business with the United States, to have anything to do with Cuba.

This limits their commerce considerably, not to mention the U.S. interference in their own financial affairs with other countries creates a 30 to 50% increase, at LEAST, in the cost of the products, and in some cases, far, far more.

Don't peddle that babbling around people who are likely to know something about this.

[Freddie Stubbs]

24. Which contries will not trude with Cuba because the United States forbids them?

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

25. You're going to have to stop being a burden to posters and start doing research yourself.

The United Nations Resolution
The U.N. resolution passed in response to the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, for instance, denounced any governmental economic or trade policy which is meant to punish another country and, in turn, disrupts the free flow of international trade. Passed with a vote of 138 to 3 with 24 abstentions, the resolution shows recevied strong support. Only the United States, Israel, and Uzbekistan voted against the resolution, and, for the first time in history, the European Union acted in concert against the United States. The resolution called for all nations to abstain from taking economic sanctions against another country which would negatively influence the free flow of international trade. The resolution decries "economic and trade measures by one state against another which affect the free flow of international traffic," and specifically attacks the Helms-Burton Act as "affect the sovereignty of other states, the legitimate interests of entities or persons under their jurisdiction and the freedom of trade and navigation."

The Threat to the WTO
The World Trade Organization, which was created two years ago by an international attempt to regulate global trade, is currently overseeing legal procedures against the actions of the American government. After six months of negotiations, Europe brought its charges of U.S. interference with international trade before a WTO judicial panel, claiming that "the United States has violated international law by imposing penalties on foreign companies" (New York Times, 2/20/97). The U.S., though, which sees the WTO as a young, unstable organization without the proper structure to regulate international law, has refused to cooperate with the legal procedures. Although the refusal of the United States to comply with the investigation has prompted further anger in the international arena, the U.S. may have a legally binding position--the "national security exception". This is a discrepancy in the WTO treaty texts of both GATT Article 21 and GATS Article 14 (applying to trade in goods and trade in services, respectivly) which exempts nations of the WTO from trade agreements in the case of national security. In other words, if the United States claims that its relations with Cuba are a matter of security, it would be exempt from any otherwise binding trade agreements of the WTO. Whether or not the U.S. chooses to fight Europe's charges, the case presents a potential threat to the WTO's credibility. Accoring to the American Society of International Law, the WTO treaty, when given a broad interpretation, could be shown as inconsistent with actual policies, resulting in the threatened security and stability of the world trading system for which the WTO had been created to protect.

OAS Speaks Out
During the1996 annual meeting of the Organization of American States, yet another resolution against the Helms-Burton Act was presented and approved. Like others, the resolution passed by the Organization of American States also criticizes Washington's move to tighten the embargo, claiming that the Helms-Burton Act presents a threat to international commerce and law. It criticizes all laws which "obstruct international trade and investment," as well as "the free movement of persons." Along with the investigation of the World Trade Organization, the OAS resolution also called for the Inter-American Judicial Committee to "examine the validity under international law" and provide a ruling as soon as possible. The resolution had 32 co-sponsors, and was approved by every member nation but the United States--a statistic which is especially significant in the face of charges that the organization is "a group of subservient puppets manipulated by the United States" (New York Times, 6/5/96). Moreover, "coming from a forum that has always done its best to avoid controversy, the vote could only be interpreted as a stunning defeat for the United States and a rejection of the Clinton Administration's get-tough policy toward Cuba" (New York Times, 6/5/96).

Domestic Commerce Disapproval
Perhaps the most astounding response to the Helms-Burton Act, though, is the disapproval of American corporations. Fearing a loss of customers and retaliation by foreign governments, corporate America is beginning to protest the government's use of economic sanctions. The corporations are not only concerned about the effects of the tightened embargo on Cuba, but also the widespread American policy of using economic sanctions against "misbehaving" nations. Since 1941, the U.S. government has implemented over 70 unilateral sanctions--against Japan, Cuba, Iraq, South Africa, U.S.S.R., and various others. These policies limit the international market for American corporations, corporations which are then subject to retaliation and sanctions (such as Canada's Godfrey-Milikin Act) from affected nations. And, although American corporations are almost always willing to support a national government which goes out of its way to accomodate Big Business, The Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, Export Council, and National Foreign Trade Council have all taken steps to express their dissatisfaction (New York Times, 9/11/96).
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http://www.earlham.edu/~pols/ps17971/weissdo/iresponse.html

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Very few of us have the time to do not only our own reading, but trying to fill in all the empty spaces in your awareness as well. You need to start informing yourself, just the way the serious DU'ers must.

As I probably wrote (haven't gone back to examine it) COMPANIES which intend to do business with the U.S., based in other countries are not allowed to bring their ships in to US waters for a period of 6 months, which means no import/export business for them if they are regular U.S. customers.

Companies which produce products like medical equipment which have ANY components made in the U.S., or made with material produced in the U.S., or made with any part with a U.S. patent are not allowed to sell those products to Cuba. This means Cuba has had a great deal of trouble locating dialysis machines, certain cancer treatment machines, diagnosis equipment, water purifiers, and a vast number of other essential products used in every day life.

Didn't say COUNTRIES, unless I made a mistake, as this concerns COMPANIES from other countries. As I have written here before, CANADA has a law which forbids their citizens to comply with U.S. demands on the embargo, etc.

Respect the common ground and don't waste other people's time with questions you should attempt to answer for yourself.

[Kingofalldems]

15. GOP talking points

Thank you for your concern.

[Freddie Stubbs]

23. Which President signed the Helms-Burton Act?

:shrug:

[Mika]

27. Must.. remind .. self...