No cigar as banks cut off Cuba (... on US interference)

[Judi Lynn]

June 28, 2008
No cigar as banks cut off Cuba
Joanna Blythman on US interference


IT SEEMS that our banks are doing the United States's dirty work these days. Lloyds TSB and Barclays have been telling British customers who have financial dealings with Cuba to take their business elsewhere. Why? Because they're scared. Not of the British government - which nominally encourages trade with Cuba and has a policy of positive engagement with the island - but of the US.

Blinded by rabid anti-socialist, anti-Castro sentiment, for 48 years the US has conducted a vendetta against this peaceful Caribbean island by imposing a crippling economic blockade, one that has wilfully impoverished the Cuban people and been roundly condemned for 16 years running by the UN General Assembly. In 2007, 184 countries, including the UK, voted against it - only four didn't. The whole world, apart from the US, its thuggish sidekick, Israel, and a couple of obscure statelets, believes this punitive blockade should be lifted.

Cuba appears on America's blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, along with pariah states such as Sudan and North Korea. US legislation has long criminalised any company doing business with Cuba, and it is enforced with McCarthyite zeal - American business people have been fined and imprisoned. Even a director's fact-finding visit to the island could land a US company in trouble.

Unable to carry its anti-Cuba argument abroad, the US uses its economic muscle to get what it wants outwith its own borders. Thus any transnational company or its subsidiary with a presence in the US - even if not based there - can face swingeing penalties. Swiss banking giant, UBS, for instance, has had to pay the Federal Reserve a fine of $100 million for dealing with Havana.

More:
http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2369430.0.no_cigar_as_banks_cut_off_cuba.php

[Joanne98]

1. I wouldn't put my money in those banks anyway.

They have "subprime" troubles!

[Arctic Dave]

2. I wonder how much business they are doing

under the table with Cuba. You would think with the troubles their having getting a paying costumer would be their main concern.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

3. The Federal Reserve needs to be done away with

How did private banks get to control the money in the U.S.? The federal reserve should be a govt. agency, not the ownership of banks. Banks are running this country.

[Baby Snooks]

4. "That man tried to kill my Daddy"

Buried away somewhere in archives are records of deals between Prescott Bush and Battista. And of course George HW Bush was behind the scenes hidden from public view but still very much a part of the planning of the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Those who believe he was behind the assassination of JFK believe the Bay of Pigs fiasco was what set it in motion. JFK was to blame for not allowing the Bushes and their dynasty to return to Cuba. Of all the conspiracy theories through the years, this is the one that seems to have some basis in fact at least in terms of why. But there was also Halliburton and its eyeing Vietnam like a vulture eyes potential prey. There was of course oil in the South China Sea. But there were all those war contracts. That LBJ of course gave to Halliburton. That JFK never would have.

No doubt at some point George HW Bush, like his son, blurted out "That man tried to kill my Daddy" in reference to Castro. Translation of that is "That my tried to steal my Daddy's money." And in Castro's case, he in fact did.

George W Bush is now moving to normalize relations with Vietnam and causing quite a firestorm over doing so. Particularly among veterans who fought in what they believed was a just war but all these years later was merely another war of the Bush dynasty as it established its empire in the name of defending freedom and democracy.

The reality of the Bushes is that sins of the father are visited upon the son. Unfortunately they are visited upon the rest of us as well.

[Mika]

5. How many times have we seen DU's Cubaphobes mewl 'but Cuba can trade with the rest of the world"?

Cubans threw the US controlled oligarchy out of Cuba, and put an end to the ways of corporatism.
Cubans have world class social infrastructure that is expanding yearly.
Cubans get recognition and awards for the complete care, education, and security of their children first and foremost.
Cubans are respected the world over (except by the US gov) for their educating and exporting of doctors and teachers to the far reaches of the planet.
And they've done it facing 48 years of US actions that are tantamount to declarations of war.

- -

Before the 1959 revolution

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.

___



After the 1959 revolution
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/185.html

“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.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

[Doctor_J]

6. Cuba - the one country on earth Smirk can still bully

and make himself feel like a man.