 On October 29-30, 2024, the General Assembly of the United Nations debated the Cuban resolution, “The need to end the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” The October 29 session began with addresses to the General Assembly by seven political and regional groups of nations: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), consisting of ten countries; the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), 57 nations on four continents; the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, 18 member States; the African Group, 55 member States; the Community of Latin American States (CELAC), 33 member states; the Caribbean Community (Caricom), 15 member states; the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), 120 member states; and the G77 and China, 134 member States. In addition, thirty-one nations took the podium to address the question. All spoke clearly in support of the resolution, and many condemned the arbitrary inclusion of Cuba on a spurious list of nations that supposedly sponsor terrorism. On October 30, 187 countries voted in favor of the resolution, with two opposed (United States and Israel). The small central-eastern European country of Moldavia abstained.  Cuban Minister of Foreign Relations Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla addressed the General Assembly in presentation of the resolution. He began with a powerful example of the impact of the U.S. blockade on Cuban society. For five days, from Friday, October 18 to Wednesday, October 23, Cuban families were deprived, except for a few hours, of electricity, with anxiety that food would spoil, and it would not be possible or very expensive to replace it, and many lacked running water. Hospitals operated under emergency conditions, and schools and universities suspended classes. Political, economic, and cultural activities were closed, and only vital institutions remained open. The economy came to a halt. Rodríguez declared that the Cuban economy in recent years has experienced difficulties without precedent, in spite of the fact that the government works tirelessly to find solutions. There are various causes of this situation, he noted, but the most outstanding factor is the deliberate intention of the United States to suffocate and sabotage our national economy, placing significant obstacles to impede our growth and development. The U.S. government knows very well, Rodríguez maintained, that the blockade violates the UN Charter and international norms, and that it has a direct and indirect effect on the Cuban system of health and the general wellbeing of the people. The U.S. policy deliberately intends to impoverish the people and provoke shortages, as the centerpiece of a multidimensional unconventional war against Cuba, with the intention of provoking the collapse of the Cuban Revolutionary Government. Even though the blockade has not provoked political instability in Cuba, it functions as a message of warning to the entire world that there is a price to be paid for rebellion. The Minister noted that the strengthening and intensification of the blockade was initiated by the Trump Administration in the period 2017 to 2019, and the new measures have been maintained by the Biden Administration. These measures have included pressures and threats directed against companies and banks in third countries that have commercial and financial relations with Cuba. A dimension of this is the inclusion of Cuba on a spurious list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism, which, in spite of its absurdity, enables the government of the United States to threaten and penalize companies and banks in third countries. It thus functions as a key element of economic coercion in the unconventional war against Cuba. In addition, the recent measures have included the blocking of an expedited visa for European citizens to travel to the United States, if they have previously made a trip to Cuba, thus damaging Cuban tourism, the nation’s principal source of international currency. The surprising fact, Rodríguez declared, is that Cuba, during six decades of the blockade, was able to construct a social project that attended to the fundamental needs of the people with respect to nutrition, housing, education, health, and transportation; and that Cuba persists with the support of the people and with political stability in the current stage of the intensified blockade. As result, Cuba enjoys great prestige in the world today.  The U.S. reply in the General Assembly debate The rules of the General Assembly grant the right to the United Sates to reply to the resolution, and a solitary representative of the U.S. diplomatic corps assumed the responsibility. Cuban diplomats frequently express sympathy for their professional diplomatic colleagues of the U.S. diplomatic corps in this situation, because they are placed in a situation where they must defend the indefensible before the clear condemnation of the representatives of the world. In this case, the U.S. representative began with his best pitch: he declared that the sanctions are part of U.S. global efforts "to promote democracy and promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms in Cuba." In an editorial on October 30 in Granma, Carmen Maturell Senon and Claudia Thalía Suárez Fernández point out that the UN Charter and international norms do not grant the United States the legal authority to judge the political practices of other nations. Moreover, as is commonly argued in Cuba, the United States does not have the moral authority to judge the political practices of other nations from a democratic perspective, taking into account numerous undemocratic situations and practices, frequently cited, provided by critical currents within the United States. Although such Cuban counterarguments against the U.S. charge of undemocratic practices in Cuba are valid, I have never been entirely satisfied with such a response. The accusation that Cuba has an authoritarian government that violates human rights is widely believed, at least in part, among the people of the United States. And there is an international norm in favor of democracy and against totalitarian or authoritarian governments. The accusation of authoritarian practices by Cuba has credibility, because there is lack of understanding of the actual functioning of the Cuban political process of people’s democracy, which has structures different from representative democracy. The Cuban political system does not provide freedom of choice of competing political parties, as in representative democracies; rather, it provides alternative mechanisms for the voice and political participation of the people, in the form of people’s assemblies with true political power and mass organizations of workers, farmers, students, women, and neighborhoods, which are constitutionally integrated into the Cuban political process. Cuba developed this alternative approach to democracy during the 1960s and 1970s, in the aftermath of the delegitimation of the political parties and the system of representative democracy in Cuba during the 1940s and 1950s. Therefore, I maintain that, in debates about the U.S. blockade, we who defend Cuba should explain how Cuba’s system of people’s democracy works, so that the imperialist claim that it is promoting democracy in Cuba can be dismissed, on the grounds that Cuba has democracy of a different form, rooted in its history of having struggled for democracy in the context of a neocolonial situation. The Cuban democratic process is designed to grant power to the people and to block the usurping of power by an elite that represents its interests and those of a foreign power. People’s Democracy in Cuba: A vanguard political-economic system Aside from his myopic approach to democracy, the U.S. representative was guilty of a couple of misrepresentations. First, he mentioned 1,000 supposed political prisoners that were detained illegally in Cuba, stemming from the events of July 21, 2021. In fact, as Maturell and Suárez point out, 177 citizens were detained during the events of July 11 for serious offenses, with 790 detained with lesser charges. They were accused of vandalism, attacks on persons, and destruction of public property. In legal processes characterized by respect for due process, proof of violence was provided by statements of witnesses and victims as well as expert witnesses who examined videos published in different media, which allowed the identification of the accused in such criminal acts as public disorder, instigation to commit crimes, damage to property, robberies with force and violence, attacks of persons, sabotage, and sedition. The great majority of the persons accused are no longer detained, having been acquitted of the charges, paid their fines, or completed their sentences. (Description of the events of July 11 can be found in Chapter Five, People’s Democracy in Cuba). In addition, the US representative asserted that U.S. regulations with respect to Cuba permit the exportation of food and medicine to Cuba. In fact, the conditions stipulated for such commerce are onerous and costly, and the authorization is bureaucratically complex, such that it is not a workable option in practice. Cuban entities have attempted to use it, and they have found that it appears to function as a mechanism to justify the U.S. claim that food and medicine are being sold to Cuba. In the recently held Forum of Cuban Civil Society against the Blockade, the shortages of medical equipment and supplies and medicines in the Cuban health system were described by Cuban doctors, including Dr. Jorge Juan Marinello, president of the Cuban Society of Oncology, Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine; Dr. Albia Pozo Alonso, director of the Cuban Journal of Pediatrics; Olga Agramonte Llanes, president of the Cuban Society of Hematology; and Eugenio Selman-Houssein, director of the William Soler Cardiological Center. Moreover, the U.S. representative did not say a single word with respect to the inclusion of Cuba on the list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism. It is widely recognized throughout the world that this is an entirely baseless accusation against Cuba. Yet the inclusion of Cuba on the spurious list is a central mechanism of the intensification of the blockade since 2019, because it provides a legal mechanism for the blocking of commercial and financial transactions with Cuba by companies and banks in third countries. The arbitrary inclusion of Cuba on the list was rejected by many of the delegations that took to the podium to express their country’s call for the end of the blockade. § Further Considerations To state the obvious, the U.S. blockade of Cuba violates the sovereign right of Cuba to determine its own political-economic system, in accordance with its national characteristics and history. And it violates the sovereign right of third countries to regulate the economic relations of their corporations and citizens. As such, it violates the UN Charter and international norms. Moreover, it violates the economic rights of U.S. citizens and residents. This is well understood in the world. Cuba has become a symbol in what some leaders and intellectuals of the Global South have called World War III, a multidimensional unconventional war between Western imperialist nations, led by the United States, and nations of the Global South and East that are leading an anti-imperialist process of construction of an alternative world order based in mutually beneficial commerce and cooperation. At the current time, the power elites and the people of the United States are not ideologically prepared to discern that their best interests in the long term would be served by cooperation with the emerging process of alternative construction. Regardless of the obstacles placed in their path, the nations of the Global South and East will continue on the road of developing in practice a world order characterized by cooperation and respect for the sovereignty of all nations. Their persistence will increase the probability that either the American power elite or the American people will awaken to enlightened consciousness, through which it would be discerned that the rise of China and the Global South and the persistence of Cuba are not threats to the United States. Rather, these world dynamics provide the USA with the opportunity to adjust course in foreign policy and find an anti-imperialist road, which would provide the key to the fulfillment of the American promise of democracy, inherent in the nation’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution. AuthorThis article was produced by Charles McKelveys blog. Archives November 2024
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From the big Western cartelized media, traditionally hostile to the Cuban Revolution, coverage of the situation has been largely irresponsible, with clear ideological biases contrary to the Cuban socialist project, which prevents us from extracting from these analyses elements for an objective understanding of the fundamental causes that have led the island to the current situation. Especially when we insist on seeing it outside the socioeconomic panorama in which the country is developing. Looking at Cuba in a regional context helps to understand, first of all, that the island’s energy crisis is not an extraordinary scenario, but is unfortunately quite common in the region. Building and sustaining a modern and reliable energy system is an extraordinary challenge for developing economies. The dynamics of contemporary societies impose an increasingly higher energy demand on the generation capacities of countries, as an infinite number of electrical devices are being incorporated adding more demand on the power systems. At the same time, the increase in the average global temperature, droughts and other climatic disorders impose additional stress on the grids, which often end up dangerously overloaded. In Mexico, for example, in May of this year, high temperatures and the resulting increase in demand led to blackouts in 16 of the country’s 32 states. In Costa Rica, the drought drastically reduced the country’s generation capacity, which depends on hydroelectric generation for 70% of demand, forcing the rationing of electricity consumption. A similar situation has hit Colombia, whose reservoirs remain 16 points below the historical average. In Ecuador, drought and generation obsolescence have now led to outages of up to 14 hours a day. Venezuela has also been facing blackouts in several states of the country, as a result of US sanctions, internal sabotage and the deterioration of the energy infrastructure. On the nearby island of Puerto Rico, a U.S. colony, blackouts are a frequent reality, with situations such as the one on June 13, where a disconnection left more than 300,000 customers without service. Undoubtedly, Cuba has one of the worst generation scenarios in the region at present. The island faces the same climatic situations and deterioration of infrastructures that are common to the countries in the area, but with the significant aggravating factor that for more than sixty years the nation has had to deal with a strangulating economic, commercial and financial blockade, intensified by Donald Trump in the pandemic which the government of Joe Biden has left the most aggressive provisions untouched, including the permanence of the island in the infamous list of Countries Sponsors of Terrorism, which hinders any attempt to access financing that would help to overcome the crisis. To get an idea of the dimension of the material cost, the human cost is more difficult to gauge, just take a look at the recent report prepared by Cuba for the vote by the UN General Assembly on October 30 of resolution 78/7 entitled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. Between March 1, 2023 and February 29, 2024 alone, the damages and material losses caused by the blockade amounts to more than five billion dollars, some 189 million dollars more than the figure presented in the previous report. In the absence of the blockade, Cuba’s GDP, at current prices, could have grown by around 8 percent in 2023. In more than six decades, the accumulated damage amounts to 1 trillion 499 billion 710 million dollars. Specifically in the energy and mining sector, the report presented by the island details that the accumulated damages in the period amount to no less than 388 million 239 thousand 830 dollars. Since 2019, the U.S. government began the persecution of ships and shipping companies that transport fuel to the island. In that year alone, 53 vessels and 27 companies were sanctioned. Companies such as the Italian Termomeccanica, acquired by the American Trillium and the firm Accelleron, refused to supply the country with parts and pieces indispensable for the maintenance of thermoelectric power plants. As a result of this, together with the lack of financial resources, the maintenance cycles have been lengthened, often failing to comply with them. Currently, 13 of the 15 generation units are out of the maintenance cycle. Therefore, to understand the electric power crisis in Cuba, implies, in fairness, to measure how much the U.S. blockade is affecting the entire economic, productive and social fabric of the island. Without exonerating political responsibilities that may exist internally, no serious analysis can ignore the siege against the island as the first factor of the current crisis. The narrative of the mainstream corporate press, complicit with the West, seeks to present as proof of the failure of socialism what is, above all, the responsibility of imperialism. This is not the first time that those of us born on this island find ourselves in a complex situation. It is worth recalling, perhaps, an anecdote that expresses one of the profound meanings of the Cuban revolutionary process since its beginnings in the 19th century. In a moment of desperation in 1871, during the Ten Years’ War, when there was a shortage of war supplies, food, medicines and the pressure was increasing on the troops operating in
AuthorJosé Ernesto Novaes Guerrero, is a Cuban writer and journalist. Member of the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS) , the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) and the Coordinator of the Cuban chapter of the Network in Defense of HumanityREDH. This article was produced by Resumen. Archives November 2024  The XVI BRICS Summit, held under the theme of “Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security,” met in Kazan, Russian Federation, from October 22 to October 24, 2024. Delegations from thirty-five countries and six international organizations participated in the Summit. BRICS was established as an intergovernmental economic-commercial association in 2009 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China, with South Africa joining in 2010. On January 1, 2024, BRICS officially expanded its membership to include Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Iran. The Sixteenth Summit in Russia was the first summit of the expanded BRICS, often referred to as BRICS Plus or BRICS+. There were three important developments in the Kazan Summit. First, an evident deepening of the commitment of BRICS to construct an alternative, multilateral and more just world order. Secondly, the creation of an alternative method of payment among the BRICS nations, which avoids the need to use the U.S. dollar. And thirdly, the inclusion of thirteen nations in the newly created category of BRICS Partners.  § The deepening of the construction of an alternative, multilateral world order From the beginning, BRICS contained an inherent orientation toward the creation of an alternative, more just, multilateral world. But also from the beginning, the evolution of BRICS as a project of ascent by its member nations was a possibility, which would imply the continuity of the political-economic structures of the world economy, which function to sustain and intensify global inequalities in power and wealth. Ascent would imply only that there would be a partial redistribution of power and wealth in the world-system, with stronger emerging nations receiving more of the spoils. And it would imply a failure to address the unsustainable contradictions of the world-system. However, during its evolution, BRICS has evolved with an increasing commitment to the creation of an alternative world order. This was especially evident in the Xiamen Declaration issued by the 2017 Summit in China, which affirms that since the founding of BRICS in 2006, the member nations have: fostered the BRICS spirit featuring mutual respect and understanding, equality, solidarity, openness, inclusiveness and mutually beneficial cooperation. . . . We have shown respect for the development paths of our respective choices, and rendered understanding and support to each other's interests. We have upheld equality and solidarity. We have furthered our cooperation with emerging markets and developing countries (EMDCs). We have worked together for mutually beneficial outcomes and common development. The Declaration commits to the promotion of a more just and equal world. We will enhance communication and coordination in improving global economic governance to foster a more just and equitable international economic order. We will work towards enhancement of the voice and representation of BRICS countries and EMDCs in global economic governance and promote an open, inclusive and balanced economic globalization, thus contributing towards development of EMDCs and providing strong impetus to redressing North-South development imbalances and promoting global growth. The evolution toward commitment to the construction of an alternative world order was evident in the 2024 Summit in Russia. The Kazan Declaration reaffirms the commitment of BRICS to mutual respect, sovereign equality, inclusiveness, and collaboration. It declares, “we note the emergence of new centres of power, policy decision-making and economic growth, which can pave the way for a more equitable, just, democratic and balanced multipolar world order. Multipolarity can expand opportunities for EMDCs to unlock their constructive potential and enjoy universally beneficial, inclusive and equitable economic globalization and cooperation.” The Declaration further declares the importance of the principles of the UN Charter as the “indispensable cornerstone” for ensuring cooperation based on mutual respect, justice, and equality. This commitment to the construction of an alternative world order was echoed by the discourse of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was host and moderator of the activities and sessions. At the BRICS Plus Outreach plenary session of October 24, Putin noted that the plenary session will discuss pressing issues in the world today, including sustainable development, poverty, climate change, technology, terrorism, and international crime. He declared that “it is crucial for BRICS members to discuss all these issues with countries from the Global South and East that share our approach. All our countries share similar aspirations, values and a vision of a new democratic world order that reflects cultural and civilisational diversity. We are confident that such a system should be guided by the universal principles of respect for the legitimate interests and sovereign choice of nations, respect for international law and a spirit of mutually beneficial, honest co-operation.” Putin observed that the construction of a more just international system is not easy, because its development is hampered by forces of domination, who seek to impose what they call a “rule-based order,” which is in reality an attempt to contain the independent development of countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. These forces resort to illegal unilateral sanctions and the manipulation of currency markets; and they interfere in the domestic affairs of nations, ostensibly promoting democracy. Their methods are “twisted” and “perverse.” He further declared: I would like to reiterate that Russia, like all BRICS countries, is open to cooperation with all countries of the Global South and East to promote inclusive and sustainable development and ultimately build a better world. It will be a world where every nation’s stance and interests are taken into account, their right to sovereign development and their identity are respected, and the absolute value of all cultures, traditions and religions is recognised. At an international press conference following the event, Putin noted that the participation in the Summit of delegations from thirty-five countries indicates the growing interest in cooperation with us from states that are indeed pursuing truly independent and sovereign policies. Each of these countries has its own path of development, distinct models of economic growth, and a rich history and culture. It is obviously this civilisational diversity and unique combination of national traditions that underlie the strength and enormous potential for cooperation not only within BRICS but also within the broader circle of like-minded countries that share the group's goals and principles. In a similar vein, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared at the Summit that “BRICS countries should conform to the general trend of the rise of the Global South, seek common ground while reserving differences, and work with one heart and one mind to further consolidate shared values, and safeguard common interests. . .. BRICS countries must work together to build BRICS into a primary channel for strengthening solidarity and cooperation among Global South nations and a vanguard for advancing global governance reform.” [Reported on the Website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China].  The creation of an alternative form of payment The Kazan Declaration endorses the use of newly developed cross-border instruments to facilitate the use of local currencies in financial transactions between BRICS countries and their trading partners. The Declaration assigns the foreign ministers and central bank directors the task of further consideration of the use of local currencies and payment instruments and platforms, reporting back to BRICS by the next presidency. Putin reiterated at the Expanded Meeting of the Summit that “creating incentives for using national currencies in trade and investment remains high on our agenda.” He noted, in response to a question at the press conference following the Summit, that the BRICS nations are using their respective national currencies in trading with each other. Each of the BRICS nations have developed their own systems for international payments using national currencies. The Venezuelan outlet Misión Verdad reported that a presentation of a system of payments in development was made at the BRICS Business Council of October 17-18, 2024. While each country has a centralized banking system that facilitates the control of transactions in each State, the BRICS Pay platform would establish an interconnection of the networks of national payments, which would permit the participating national banks to establish direct ties with foreign banks and other financial institutions. The new structure of payments would enable rapid and inexpensive international commercial transactions, without depending on foreign platforms. It would permit the use of national currencies, avoiding the use of the dollar or the Euro. Misión Verdad further reports that the creation of a new mechanism of international payments has been developing since the BRICS presidency of South Africa in 2017. It has been mentioned from time to time the possibility of creating a new currency, something like the creation of the Euro in the European Union. So far, however, BRICS has been oriented in practice to the development of secure and rapid payments involving the use of national currencies. It seems to me that this route is more consistent with the BRICS stress on the sovereignty of each nation, because the nations involved do not lose control of their national monetary policy. In the case of the European Union, some of the weaker economies were significantly damaged by their inability to control monetary policy under the Euro regime. It perhaps is a historic lesson from the experience of the dollar and the Euro that a common currency among nations benefits the stronger economies in the union. BRICS, however, is forging a union based in the sovereignty and equality of all, and it thus far is oriented to developing new methods of payments using national currencies.  The establishment of BRICS “partner countries” as a new category With recognition of the considerable interest in BRICS by the countries of the Global South, the Kazan Declaration endorsed the category of BRICS Partner Country, which was named as a modality in the BRICS Summit in South Africa. In the press conference following the Summit, Putin reported that the list of countries for the first phase of expansion has been agreed upon. All these countries have filed requests, and BRICS will send out invitations and proposals to future partner countries, formally requesting them to join the work of BRICS. Upon receiving favorable responses, the countries on the list will be announced. Serguei Monin reported from Kazan in Brasil de Fato on October 24 that the BRICS countries have agreed to include thirteen nations in the category of partner states: Turkey, Indonesia, Algeria, Belarus, Cuba, Bolivia, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Vietnam, Nigeria, and Uganda. These are by and large nations with a progressive and/or anti-imperialist orientation. Venezuela was excluded from the list as a result of a veto by Brazil. There has been much speculation in Latin American media concerning the reason for the veto by the government of Lula, who has played a central role in the process of Latin American union and integration. I do not find credible many of these various speculations, which suggests confusion on the question. As best as I can discern, Brazil has a short-term interest in excluding Latin American partners from BRICS, especially the larger nations, because most of the infrastructural investments in the region by the BRICS Development Bank currently go to Brazil. Any government committed to the BRICS approach would overrule such short-term considerations in favor of the long-term interest in common development, which implies the inclusion of more Latin American countries in BRICS. But at the present time, Brazilian sectors less committed to the development of an alternative world order are part of the Workers’ Party coalition in power in Brazil, and Lula is compelled to make concessions to these sectors within the ruling coalition. The question of Venezuela is not settled. At least Russia and China favor the inclusion of Venezuela, which possesses a foreign policy fully consistent with BRICS values. And Venezuela has much to offer the BRICS group, including oil reserves. If Venezuela remains excluded during the current phase of expansion, the Bolivarian nation nonetheless would be able to take advantage of strategic partnerships with BRICS member countries, as presently is occurring with respect to China and Russia. Deepening bilateral relations with BRICS member nations would strengthen Venezuela’s petition, paving the way for Venezuela’s inclusion in the Group. Putin declared that Russia disagrees with Brazil with respect to Venezuela. He expressed the hope that Brazil and Venezuela would work out their differences, and he noted that Lula had asked him to pass a message to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. In a bilateral meeting with Maduro during the Summit, Putin expressed his appreciation for Venezuela’s commitment to its sovereignty and for the contributions of the Venezuelan government to the construction of a multilateral world order.  A note on the participation of Cuba The Cuban delegation at the Summit was headed by Minister of Foreign Relations Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel decided not to attend the Summit, because of the electrical blackout and the damage inflicted by Hurricane Oscar. He remained in Cuba to direct the civil defense response. In his address to the Summit, Rodríguez referred to these events in Cuba, pointing out that the consequences would have been more grave, if it were not for “the selflessness of fifty-two thousand electrical workers, engineers and managers; the conscious participation and popular mobilization in support of recovery; the understanding and complete tranquility of the citizenry; and the effective conduct of the Government.” (Indeed so). The Minister of Foreign Relations declared that “BRICS has emerged as a fundamental actor of increasing relevance, authority and leadership on the global geopolitical stage and a real hope for the countries of the South on their complex path towards achieving a more just, democratic, equitable and sustainable international order.” He noted Cuba’s emphatic rejection of any attempt to impose a so-called “rules-based” international order, which violates international law and the norms and principles of international relations. Cuba especially appreciates the road of the BRICS Group toward the structural reform of an international system that is obsolete, unjust, speculative, and exclusive. Meanwhile, he noted, the BRICS Bank of Development plays an increasingly decisive role as an alternative source of financing for the nations of the Global South, with more just conditions; BRICS is contributing to the construction of a new and inclusive international financial architecture, thereby reducing dependency on the U.S. dollar. The Cuban Foreign Minister asked the representatives of the BRICS member states to support Cuba’s formal solicitude to become a “Partner Country.” He pointed out that Cuba has maintained historic ties with the BRICS member nations; and Cuba is able to make contributions to the group in such areas as the pharmaceutical biomedical industry, health, education, and science and innovation.  Final Considerations BRICS is the culmination of a historic tendency that has been expressing itself since the Bandung Conference of newly independent states of Asia and Africa in 1955. It is a tendency that is logically consistent with the interests of the Global Majority and with the dialectical march of human history. It therefore can only be stopped by the destructive unleashing of global war by the imperialist powers, or by the self-destruction of the movement itself through politically immature exaggerated rhetoric, which inflames the passions and eclipses reasoned and well-conceived strategies. Russia, China, and Cuba model the politically mature reasoned approach that is necessary to preserve the forward march of the construction of an alternative world order, more just and sustainable, necessary for the peace and prosperity of humanity in future epochs. The consolidation of an alternative world order would be a defeat for the power elites that rule the USA and the other Western powers. But it would not be a defeat for the peoples of the West. Quite the contrary. For the peoples of the West, the construction of a new world order by the Global South and East would be good news, because the leaders of the processes of change of the South and East call upon the peoples of the West to participate in and cooperate with the emerging world order. They are not playing a zero-sum game; they believe in a sustainable common future based on a win-win philosophy. It has been so since Bandung and the founding of the Non-Aligned Movement, through which the newly independent nations of Asia and Africa and the neocolonized nations of Latin American and Caribbean have put forth a proposal for North-South cooperation to complement South-South cooperation. AuthorThis article was produced by Charles McKelvey blog. Archives November 2024  On October 10, 2024, in the Cuban online news outlet Cubadebate, there appeared an article by Francisca López Civeira, a well-known Cuban historian, on the initiation of the first Cuban War of Independence on October 10, 1868. On that date, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes declared from his Demajagua Estate in Manzanilla the launching of a war of independence from colonial Spain. López informs us that prior contemporary events had been favorable for the pronouncement of independence. In 1866-1867, a reformist effort in Spain had failed, thus strengthening the independence cause. Conspiratorial groups emerged across the island, especially in the eastern and central regions. In September 1867, the Glorious Revolution resulted in the overthrow of Queen Isabella II, initiating division and instability in the Spanish government that would last several years. Puerto Rico launched an independence uprising on September 23, 1868; and on the continent, Latin American states that had attained independence during the first quarter of the century were experiencing processes of liberal reform, which rejected any effort by Spain to reconquer her former possessions. The conspiratorial groups, López informs us, were composed fundamentally of landholders and professionals tied to particular regions in Cuba. Their strong regional affiliations influenced their views on key issues confronting the Revolution, including the question of slavery. Céspedes demonstrated his commitment to the abolition of slavery on October 10, when he not only announced the initiation of a war of independence, but he also proclaimed liberty for his slaves and called upon them to join in the independence struggle under conditions of equality. Subsequently, the Constitution of Guáimaro, in establishing the Republic of Cuba in Arms on April 10, 1869, declared that “all the citizens of the Republic are entirely free.” On December 25, 1870, Céspedes, as President of the Republic of Cuba in Arms, declared the total abolition of slavery. However, the independence war of 1868 failed to attain its goals. The 1878 Pact of Zanjón with Spain ended the war without conceding the independence of Cuba, and it granted liberty only to those slaves who had fought in the insurrectionist ranks. Various factors contributed to the failure of the Ten Years’ War: the opposition to the struggle on the part of the Western landholders, who feared that the unfolding forces would unleash an uncontrollable revolution from below; divisions between the executive and legislative branches of the Republic in Arms, which led to the destitution of Céspedes as president in 1873; the deaths of Céspedes in 1874 and Ignacio Agramonte in 1873, the two principal leaders of the revolution; and a tendency toward regionalism and caudillismo in the revolutionary army. In essence, the Revolution of 1868 did not attain the necessary unity of the people, and it lost its exceptional leaders. There were objective economic factors in the failure of the Revolution of 1868 to attain the necessary unity. In the eastern provinces, sugar production and slavery were less developed, and therefore, cattle haciendas continued to be prevalent in some of the eastern provinces. The cattle haciendas fulfilled a semi-peripheral function in the world-economy, supplying beef to the sugar plantations of the western provinces, which in turn exported sugar to the commercial centers of the world-economy. In their semi-peripheral role, eastern cattle ranchers were embedded in the internal market, and they therefore had a long-term interest in the expansion of the internal market and in an autonomous Cuban economic development sustained by the greater purchasing power of the people. This meant that the cattle ranchers had a long-term interest in alliance with slaves, freed slaves, workers, small farmers, and professionals, all of which would benefit from an autonomous economic development that casts aside Cuba’s peripheral role. At the same time, not all the eastern landholders were cattle ranchers; some were owners of sugar plantations, which fulfilled a peripheral function of supplying raw materials to Spain and other core nations. They sought to include the western estate bourgeoisie, owners of sugar plantations, in the independence movement, by making concessions to their interests and concerns. The western sugar bourgeoisie was hesitant to support a war of independence due to fear that it would unleash a slave revolution, as had occurred in Haiti. These class, ideological and regional divisions prevented the independence movement initiated in 1868 from attaining the unity necessary for the taking of political power. López notes that on January 24, 1880, in a famous speech in New York City before Cuban revolutionary emigrants, a 27-year-old José Martí declared that the daily lives of Cubans living in the areas controlled by the Cuban revolutionary forces during the Ten Years’ War had been essentially changed, as a result of the fact that different social groups were interwoven in the terrain of struggle. The mass of combatants of the revolutionary army was composed of the middle strata of society—including intellectuals, peasants, and freed slaves—who on the basis of their performance were promoted in the military structure, and they also were elevated in popular recognition. After the Revolution of 1868, the Cuban people would not be the same, in spite of its failure to attain its principal goals of independence and abolition. Since the independence war of 1868-1878, the Cuban revolution has passed through different stages. The Independence War of 1895 to 1898 attained formal political independence, but true sovereignty was denied by the U.S. military intervention of 1898 to 1902. Moreover, the death in battle of Martí in 1895 meant that the Cuban Revolution was deprived of an exceptional leader who uniquely possessed the depth of understanding necessary for confronting U.S. neocolonial intentions. Subsequently, the people’s revolution of the 1920s and the 1930s, which included an independent reformist government of 100 days, was frustrated by U.S. support in 1933 for the future dictator Batista. In 1953, Fidel announced, with the attack on Moncada, a new stage of the Cuban Revolution, which he declared was a new stage of war in the single Cuban revolution that was initiated in 1868. Thus, the pronouncement of October 10, 1868, would be the beginning of the process of revolutionary transformation, recognized as such by Martí and Fidel. López writes that “the Revolution of '68 was a fundamental event for the consolidation of the nation and for new revolutionary projects. October 10 was its birth, its foundational moment.” § The necessary unity of the people is ultimately attained Fidel Castro possessed an exceptional capacity for understanding, which enabled him to discern the objective possibilities for establishing the necessary unity of the people’s revolutionary struggle. And he possessed the capacity to explain to the people, enabling him to forge a unity rooted in objective-political conditions, thus bringing the Revolution of 1868 to its culmination. As the Revolution approached triumph in 1958, Fidel was able to forge an anti-Batista political coalition. But for the Revolution in power, a more substantive political-economic unity would have to be established. In 1959, the representative democracy of the neocolonial republic had been discredited, and Fidel began to speak of the need for some form of direct democracy or humanist democracy. Initially, this took the form of mass assemblies, mass organizations, and popular participation in a nationwide literacy campaign. The initiative culminated in the development of people’s democracy, characterized by people’s power, mass organizations, constitutional assemblies, popular consultations, and a vanguard political party. With respect to the economy, Fidel understood the need to end Cuban dependency on the production of sugar for export and a system of forced agricultural labor in the form of low-waged plantation labor and low-income tenant farming, which reinforced the underdevelopment and the poverty of the country. He understood the need to modernize and diversify the economy, thereby stimulating economic growth that would provide resources for high quality free public education and public health as well as for housing and transportation. Fidel’s envisioned economic program required mutually beneficial trade with the USA, in which Cuba would purchase from the United States not consumer goods, as in the past, but machines, equipment, parts, and supplies necessary for Cuban industrial production and modernized agricultural production of a diversity of crops. And the program would be strengthened by the participation of the Cuban industrial bourgeoisie, insofar as it did so in a spirit of cooperation with the national project. With these requirements in mind, Fidel arranged for substantial participation of the national bourgeoisie in the revolutionary government that was formed on January 1-2, 1959. And Fidel undertook an eleven-day trip in April 1959 to the United States, where he spoke to the American Society of Newspaper Editors; gave speeches at Harvard, Colombia, and Princeton universities; addressed a multitude of 40,000 in New York’s Central Park; had ten interviews with various representatives of the news media; and held several press conferences. Fidel’s message was that Cuba will undertake an agrarian reform program in order to expand its agricultural production, thereby enabling it to buy machines for its industrial production in Cuba. He declared that he anticipated that Cuba would buy more from the United States than in the past but buying things necessary for Cuban production. Even though the United States possessed the political and economic conditions to accept Fidel’s proposal of cooperation with Cuba, the American power elite was incapable of considering it. We now know from unclassified documents that the USA at the time of Fidel’s visit was well-entrenched in a project of regime change with respect to Cuba. But Fidel continued to hope that the United States would see the advantages of cooperative relations with revolutionary Cuba. For its part, Cuban big industry rejected Fidel’s call for participation in the Cuban revolutionary project. It balked at the measures being adopted by the Cuban Revolutionary Government, which were designed to break the neocolonial relation with the USA. It opted to abandon the country and to join the United States in its project of regime change. Thus, in accordance with real unfolding dynamics, the unity that was forged during the 1960s by the triumphant revolution became a unity of the people, including professionals, peasants, workers, students, and women in a project of sovereign economic development, based in cooperation with the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc. It did not include the Cuban national bourgeoisie, which incorporated itself in the Cuban counterrevolution, based in south Florida. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist bloc, the Cuban revolutionary socialist project has been able to sustain the unity of the various sectors of the people, albeit with some erosion, and without the emergence of viable opposition. At the same time, Cuba has adjusted to the collapse of the Soviet Union through the deepening of relations of mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries, first with Europe and Canada, then with Latin America, and subsequently, with the emerging economies and anti-imperialist states of the Global South and East. Cuba has taken a leading role, along with other nations of the Global South and East, in the construction of a more sustainable and more just world-system. Since 1980, the United States has evolved to a decadent, aggressive form of economic and militarist imperialism, to the detriment of its own economic development and prestige in the world. Its self-destructive policies, combined with the sound structures of the alternative project of the Global South and East, point to a good possibility for the future emergence of a more just and peaceful world, unless this possibility is destroyed by imperialism in decadence. Cuban persistence in the context of difficult worldwide dynamics is remarkable, and it is rooted in the unity of the various sectors of the people in the construction of a socialist nation, as the best option to protect their interests. AuthorThis article was produced by Charles McKelvey. Archives October 2024 
On Monday, the Director of General Affairs of the Cuban Foreign Ministry, Carlos Pereira, announced that his country had requested to join BRICS+.
“Cuba has officially requested its incorporation into BRICS as a ‘partner country’ through a letter addressed to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who holds the presidency of a group that is consolidating itself as a key player in global geopolitics and a hope for the Global South countries,” Pereira stated. During an interview with the TASS agency, Russia’s ambassador to Cuba, Victor Koronelli, confirmed Cuba’s request and recalled that Cuban representatives have already participated in several multidisciplinary events within the BRICS framework over the past year. He also mentioned that Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has been invited to participate in BRICS Plus/Outreach, a meeting that will take place during the upcoming BRICS summit in Kazan.
At the 2023 BRICS Summit, Cuba was invited as the pro tempore president of the Group of 77 + China. On that occasion, Cuban representatives advocated for enhancing synergies and effective coordination between BRICS and the G77.
Additionally, Cuba also defended respect for the United Nations Charter and urged the establishment of a new, more stable, predictable, and diversified international monetary order. Formed in 2010, BRICS is an economic cooperation group that emerged as an initiative by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Since 2024, this group has included 10 countries, among them Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
teleSUR/ JF Source: PL – Minrex
AuthorteleSUR Staff ArchivesOctober 2024  photo: Bill Hackwell It is difficult, very difficult to make a valid account of 65 years of great events, of profound transformations, of surprising achievements, of complex challenges, of internationalist victories, of global warnings, of new approaches, of constant search and also of mistakes; but always of tenacity and fierce constancy, sustained in the most contradictory circumstances by a whole people on the march. In short, the Cuban revolution changed the circumstances of the world since the second half of the 20th century. My earliest memories go back to childhood, when my father clung to a radio and patiently managed to tune in to Radio Rebelde, founded by Che in the Sierra Maestra. For him, a survivor of the Spanish Civil War and a year in a concentration camp, this was a dream recovered, a return to life. When I arrived in Cuba as part of the international brigades, summoned to cut cane for the challenge of producing 10 million tons of sugar, my life changed, the fact that most expresses the impact on my senses and capabilities populating them with meanings is that I not only read, but I lived a revolution: its torrent of joyful and determined humanity. An avalanche of facts, memories, readings, presences, debates envelopes me and I believe it is so for those who have been close to Cuba. A statement that has accompanied these 65 years of revolution was made by Fidel Castro on January 8, 1959, in the first speech that Havana’s citizens witnessed in amazement: “Perhaps from now on everything will be more difficult”. And so it has been. A fragment never to be forgotten: “I know that in speaking here tonight I am faced with one of the most difficult obligations in this long process of struggle […]. I believe that this is a decisive moment in our history: tyranny has been defeated. The joy is immense. However, much remains to be done. Let us not delude ourselves into believing that from now on everything will be easy; perhaps from now on everything will be more difficult. To tell the truth is the first duty of every revolutionary. To deceive the people, to awaken delusions, would always bring about the worst consequences, and I believe that the people must be warned against excessive optimism […]. And that is why I want to start -or rather continue- with the same system: to tell the people the truth”. In his first incredible speech, because it was the moment of victory, Fidel warned: “The revolution no longer has before it an army in combat readiness. Who can be today or in the future the enemies of the revolution? Who can be, before this victorious people, the enemies of the revolution? The worst enemies that the Cuban revolution could have in the future are the revolutionaries themselves”. This statement had and has multiple meanings for any process of change. First, to ask oneself what were the intentions of those who participated: ambition, desire to command, ignoble purpose, enjoyment of power, living like kings? “If these are the intentions, the revolution will fail”. If henceforth new combats were necessary, it will not be more or less numerous troops that will prevail, the only column that will win the war alone will be the people. “More than the people can no general, more than the people can no troops.” If mistakes are made, all of us, we and the people are going to suffer the consequences. “There is no error in the revolution without consequences for the people.” In the face of mistakes only the truth and let the people decide. “It is necessary to speak this way so that demagogy and confusionism does not arise, and above all divisionism […] the first thing I will always do, when I see the Revolution in danger will be to call the people” and that the people know everyone and their actions. “It is necessary to call the people a thousand times, it is necessary to talk to the people a thousand times, so that the people, without shooting, solve the problems.” Times of exploits came, the recovery of embezzled goods and popular justice, literacy, land distribution, the great nationalizations, the volunteer work days, the vaccination campaigns, the total victory against the mercenary invasion. Times of unity, with the defeat of the counterrevolutionary bands, with the ideological struggle against sectarianism, with the great assemblies of the people and the first and second Havana declarations. Times of organization and participation forming the popular militias, the CDR, the women’s federation, the students’ federation, the peasants’ and workers’ federation, the writers’ federation, culture and science. Times, as Martí said, of creating the new from the roots, creations that even today amaze the world, such as scientific ones: new drugs, vaccines, unique teaching and cultural systems, medical universities for the third world, selfless solidarity of all kinds initiated in 1963, liberation of southern Africa and the end of apartheid, creation of the system of broad democratic participation of the People’s Power, among many others. Since that bestial attack on March 4, 1960, when the explosion of the ship La Coubre shook the whole of Cuba, difficult times came, with terrorist attacks, bombings, incendiary bombs on the population and workplaces, economic blockade, contamination of crops and livestock. A thousand and one forms of vileness against a people that has not ceased to evolve technologically. Difficult times that today strike with force to that heroic people that continues stubborn in an unimaginable, epic resistance, that is why Cuba continues to be that vital utopia in our hopes also in resistance. Source: La Jornada, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English AuthorTatiana Coll This article was produced by Resumen. Archives January 2024  Compatriots: We arrive at the 65th anniversary of the triumph of our socialist Revolution. Many have been the challenges we have had to face to reach this point; but it has been worth it, the work of the Revolution and its social achievements, even in the midst of difficulties, corroborate this. For Fidel has been the first thought of Cubans in this historic commemoration, especially here, in the heroic city of Santiago de Cuba that treasures his immortal remains, and also for all those who have fallen in the noble purpose of achieving and preserving the independence of the homeland. We are gathered in the same place where Fidel proclaimed on January 1, 1959, the triumph of the only Revolution that has ever existed in Cuba, initiated on October 10, 1868 by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the Father of the Homeland, whose name this square bears. By paradoxes of history, the then nascent Yankee empire consummated the military occupation of Cuba on January 1, 1899, therefore, its total domination over our island lasted exactly 60 years. One of the most shameful and outrageous acts of the occupier in those days was to prevent the entry into the city of the troops of the Liberation Army commanded by Major General Calixto Garcia, without whose action there is no doubt that the Spaniards would have defeated those arrogant, but quite inept invaders all along the line. That is why Fidel, when he was at the gates of Santiago, said in his speech on Radio Rebelde: “This time the Mambises will enter Santiago de Cuba […] The history of ’95 will not be repeated”, he concluded. I remember that memorable night of January 1st, 1959. As many know, by decision of the Commander in Chief I had arrived hours earlier in Santiago with the mission of consolidating the surrender of the garrison of the Moncada Barracks, some 5,000 men who were in this city, in addition to the main force of the Navy, and I was, as one more, among the crowd that filled this square. Fidel, upon seeing me, ordered me to go up to the tribune and speak to those present, I only said a few brief words that have not been preserved, but that is not important. The words of Fidel, who on that occasion warned us: “The Revolution begins now; the Revolution will not be an easy task, the Revolution will be a hard enterprise full of dangers”. Eight days later, after his triumphal entry into the capital, he insisted on this, when he said: “The joy is immense. And yet, there is still much to be done. Let us not fool ourselves into believing that everything will be easy in the future; perhaps everything will be more difficult in the future,” he said. It was his early warning not to overestimate successes and to prepare to face the most difficult option, and life proved him right. The road we have traveled has not been easy, we have had to face the permanent and perverse aggressiveness of the enemy, which has even resorted to military invasion, terrorism and a ruthless and cruel blockade, condemned by the overwhelming majority of the nations of the world, in its failed attempt to destroy our Revolution and erase its inspiring example for other peoples, that it is possible to build a just and humane society, with equal opportunities for all. The policy of permanent hostility and blockade of the United States Government is the main cause of the difficulties of our economy. There is no doubt about this reality, even though the enemy invests millions of dollars and much effort to hide it. It is seconded by some who act against their own homeland, either out of a desire for profit or simply out of the spirit of serfs. Others allow themselves to be misled by his lies, and in a certain way unconsciously play along with him, overwhelmed by daily difficulties. With the latter we cannot lose patience, we must listen to them, explain to them until we convince them with the powerful weapon of truth, which is on our side. This does not mean in any way that we are unaware of our shortcomings and errors, which have never been of principle. The leadership of the Revolution has been characterized, throughout these 65 years, by its transparency and self-critical spirit, by discussing with the people any insufficiency, aware that only together we will be able to eradicate them. On the unknown road of building socialism in a poor country subjected to constant aggressions, we have been forced to create our own ways of doing things, evidence that the Cuban revolutionary process has always been characterized by an immense creative capacity. Today we can say with healthy pride that neither external aggressions, nor the blows of nature, nor our own mistakes have prevented us from reaching this 65th anniversary. Here we are and here we will be! (Applause.) This has been possible, in the first place, because of the proven resistance and self-confidence of our heroic people; because of the wise leadership of the Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution Fidel Castro Ruz; because of the existence of a Party that has become a worthy heir to the trust placed by the people in its leader, and because of the unity of the nation. Comrade Díaz-Canel referred a few moments ago to this trajectory in his review of the epic lived by the Cubans during these 65 years, which extends to the difficult and unforgettable moments of the Moncada, the Granma and the struggle in the Sierra and the plains, until reaching the true triumph, a day like today. And the greater the difficulties and dangers, the greater the demands, discipline and unity required. Not a unity achieved at any price, but one based on the principles so accurately defined by Fidel in his reflection of January 22, 2008, and I quote: “Unity means sharing the struggle, the risks, the sacrifices, the objectives, ideas, concepts and strategies, arrived at through debates and analysis. Unity means the common struggle against annexionists, sellouts and corrupt people who have nothing to do with a revolutionary militant”. And he added another essential idea: “We must avoid that, in the enormous sea of tactical criteria, the strategic lines are diluted and we imagine non-existent situations”. Such is our unity, which did not arise by magic, which we have patiently built among all of us, brick by brick. In the Cuban Revolution there has been room for every sincere patriot, with the only requirement of being willing to confront injustice and oppression, to work for the good of the people and to defend their conquests. In that forge of action and thought our Party was forged, alien to authoritarianism and impositions, listening and debating the different criteria and giving participation to all those willing to join in the work. Modesty, honesty, adherence to the truth, loyalty and commitment have been the key. In socialism and its work, in unity and revolutionary ideology, our capacity to resist and win is sustained (Applause). Unity is our main strategic weapon; it has allowed this small island to succeed in every challenge; it sustains the internationalist vocation of our people and its prowess in other lands of the world, following Marti’s maxim that homeland is humanity. Let us take care of unity more than the apple of our eye! I have no doubt that this will be so. I am convinced that the Pinos Nuevos, our combative youth, will guarantee it. The unity formed by the Party, the Government, the mass organizations and all our people, and as part of this the combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, is the shield against which will crash, once again, all the subversive plans of the enemy, which include from the systematic use of lies to terrorism. Today I can state with satisfaction that the Cuban Revolution, after 65 years of existence, far from weakening, is getting stronger (Applause), and as I already said a decade ago, on a day like today and in this very place, with no commitments to anyone at all, only to the people (Applause). Compañeras and compañeros: I know that I express the sentiment of the Historic Generation in ratifying the confidence in those who today occupy leadership responsibilities in our Party and Government, and in the other organizations and institutions of our society, from the highest positions to the tens of thousands of grassroots leaders who are in the front line of combat. In very difficult circumstances, the vast majority of them have been demonstrating with their actions the necessary revolutionary firmness and will to overcome the current difficulties and move forward together with our people. Those who, due to insufficient capacity, lack of preparation or simply because they are tired, are not up to the level demanded by the moment, should give their place to another comrade willing to assume the task. I call on all our cadres to meditate every day on what more can be done to justify the trust and exemplary support of our compatriots, even in the midst of so many needs, not to be naïve or triumphalist, to avoid bureaucratic responses and any manifestation of routine and insensitivity, to find realistic solutions with what we have, without dreaming that something will fall from the sky. Likewise, within the many daily tasks and challenges, find time to overcome, knowledge has always been an essential weapon, and even more so in the present. If the current challenges and difficulties are great, greater is the work of the Revolution, which constitutes its best and irrefutable defense against the infamies of the enemy, a palpable work in any corner of Cuba in the material and spiritual order. The Revolution dignified Cuba and Cubans. The very concept of power took on a new dimension when politics ceased to be the fiefdom of an elite and all the people became the protagonists of their destiny. That is why we have to defend and carry forward this Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble. History has taught us where resignation and defeatism lead to. Let us not limit ourselves to resist. Let us get out of these difficulties, as we have always done, by fighting! (Applause), with the same determination of Baraguá, of Moncada, of Granma, of Girón and with the firm convictions instilled in us by the Commander in Chief. This translates today into working harder and, above all, doing it well. This is our commitment to the glorious history of the homeland and the best tribute to the fallen. As the Prime Minister, comrade Manuel Marrero, explained in a clear way just a few days ago in the National Assembly of People’s Power, in the complex and unpostponable economic battle it is imperative to advance in productivity, order and efficiency, even if it implies some sacrifices to create the conditions that will allow us to get out of the current situation and develop. Finding an answer to these difficulties is an unavoidable duty of all Cuban revolutionaries. On such a significant date, I ask our people to join consciously and responsibly, as we are accustomed to, in this endeavor that the homeland demands today. I reiterate a conviction that I expressed in the Cuban Parliament on August 1, 2010: “We, Cuban revolutionaries, difficulties do not keep us awake at night, our only path is to continue the struggle with optimism and unshakable faith in victory” (Applause). In this supreme endeavor, the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, faithful and sure guardians of the Revolution, will participate decisively. If yesterday from the victorious arms of the Rebel Army emerged free, beautiful, powerful and invincible the new homeland, today I can affirm that in the face of any threat or weakness its combatants will not renounce to continue being, together with the Party, the soul of the Revolution (Applause). Dear compatriots: As the Commander-in-Chief stated in his message upon the formation of the Association of Combatants of the Cuban Revolution, thirty years ago: “…There are no generational contradictions in the Revolution for one simple reason: because there is no envy or craving for power among its sons. “None of us old fighters cling to positions nor do we consider ourselves creditors of the homeland for having rendered it a service, and as long as we have strength left we will be in the post assigned to us, however modest it may be.” So much for Fidel’s words, which seem to have been spoken today. On this date of such significance I can affirm that our greatest pride and satisfaction is to have been with Fidel in every moment of joy, indignation or sadness; to have learned from him the decisive importance of unity; not to lose serenity and confidence in triumph no matter how insurmountable the powerful obstacles of the enemies or how great the dangers may seem; to learn and draw strength from every setback until transforming it into victory. Faithful to his teachings and his example, here we are, and from the heroic Santiago de Cuba we ratify that we remain with our foot in the stirrup and ready to charge with the machete, together with the people and as one more combatant (Applause), against the enemy and our own mistakes, certain that the Mambi cry will always resound in this land: Viva Cuba libre! (Exclamations of: “Viva!”) (Ovation) -Source: Cubadebate, unofficial translation by Resumen Latinoamericano – English http://www.cubadebate.cu/autor/raul-castro-ruz/ AuthorRaul Castro. This article was produced by Marxism-Leninism Today. Archives January 2024
In this way, the United States inaugurated a tradition that would characterize its behavior in the international arena to this day, in which the words of its political leaders not only conceal their true intentions, but in many cases the intentions have been the total reverse of the words. It was not for nothing that the Liberator, Simón Bolívar, left posterity a phrase that is still valid today, when he pointed out in 1829 that the United States seemed destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of freedom.[i] The Monroe Doctrine served as the basis of the United States’ political and economic policy. The Monroe Doctrine served Washington to declare unilaterally and as if it were a divine right, protector of the American continent, letting the rest of the world know where its zone of influence, expansion and predominance resided. However, during the first three years following its enunciation, the countries of the region invoked it on no less than five occasions in order to confront real or apparent threats to their independence and territorial integrity, only to receive negative or evasive responses from the U.S. government. The passage of time confirmed that the Monroe Doctrine had been created only to be defined, interpreted and applied at the convenience of the United States. Over time it would have numerous updates and corollaries from different U.S. governments, always seeking to close any gap that could, from the interpretation and practice of other international actors and the countries of the region themselves, jeopardize its true designs. To mention just a few of them, the Polk Corollary[ii] of 1848: not only would the United States not admit new European colonizations on the American continent, but also that no nation in the region would freely request the intervention of European governments in its affairs or its own union with any of them; it also stated that no European nation could interfere in the will or desires of countries of the continent to join the United States; the Hayes Corollary[iii] of 1880: fixed the Caribbean and Central America as part of the exclusive sphere of influence of the United States and that to avoid interference by European imperialism in America, Washington should exercise exclusive control of any inter-oceanic canal to be built; Roosevelt Corollary[iv] of 1904 -much better known-: proclaims the duty and right of the United States to intervene as international arbiter or policeman in Latin American and Caribbean countries in the face of conflicts or debts with extra-regional powers; and the Kennan Corollary[v] of 1950: justified U.S. support for the dictatorships that flourished in the region under the pretext of anti-communism, which would even be called “national security dictatorships”. None of the U.S. leaders ever entertained the idea that Monroe’s declaration could constitute an act of altruism or of particular friendship towards the neighboring republics to the south -as many Latin American governments fervently believed for years- let alone that it implied for the United States the obligation to intervene in defense of any country in the continent that was the victim of external aggression. For U.S. statesmen, the Monroe Doctrine was limited to announcing the eventual intervention of the United States only in those cases and in those areas of the region that were of vital interest for its domination. This is what the Secretary of War of the Monroe administration, John C. Calhoun, stated: “We must not be subjected to having our general declarations quoted to us on every occasion, to which we can give all the interpretations we want. There are cases of intervention where I would appeal to the vagaries of war with all its calamities. Am I asked for one? I will answer. I designate the case of Cuba. As long as Cuba remains in the power of Spain, a friendly power, a power which we do not fear, the policy of the government will be, as has been the policy of all governments since I have intervened in politics, to leave Cuba as it is, but with the express design, which I hope never to see realized, that if Cuba leaves the dominion of Spain, it shall not pass into other hands but ours…In the same category I will mention another case, that of Texas; if it had been necessary, we would have resisted a foreign power.”[vi] Between 1825 and 1826 it was corroborated that the Monroe Doctrine had nothing to do with “peace and security”, and much less with a sincere and disinterested support to the independence of their “brothers of the South”, when the United States opposed by diplomatic means and in a threatening tone, before a possible joint Colombian-Mexican expedition, with the objective of bringing independence to Cuba and Puerto Rico, a project that Simón Bolívar and Guadalupe Victoria, the latter president of Mexico, had cherished. In the face of strong U.S. diplomatic pressure, the governments of Bogota and Mexico responded that no operation of great magnitude against the Spanish Antilles would be accelerated until the proposal was submitted to the judgment of the Amphictyonic Congress of Panama to be held in 1826. Washington’s concern, as is logical, continued, transferring its concern to the governments of Colombia and Mexico and moving all the levers of its diplomatic power. [vii] Years later, José Martí would refer to this embarrassing passage in the history of the United States, a reflection of the Monroist ideology, in one of his famous speeches when he said: “And Bolívar was already putting his foot in the stirrup, when a man who spoke English, and who came from the North with government papers, grabbed his horse by the bridle and spoke to him as follows: “I am free, you are free, but that people who are to be mine, because I want them for myself, cannot be free!”[viii] The status quo convenient to the interests of the United States could not be altered by extra-continental powers, but not even by the countries of the region themselves. This situation would be maintained during the years 1827, 1828 and 1829, every time an attempt was made to revive the redemptive enterprise; both by Colombia, Mexico and Haiti. It is very illustrative in today’s light, when we continue to see the Yankee obsession with Cuba, that in the context of the proclamation of the Monroe Doctrine, the interests of U.S. domination over the Greater Antilles were especially gravitating. The Monroe Doctrine was also complemented by the so-called theory of the Ripe Fruit, formulated by John Quincy Adams in 1823, in which Cuba was compared to a fruit on a tree, to metaphorically point out that just as there were laws of physical gravitation, there were also laws of political gravitation and, for such reasons, there was no other destiny for Cuba than to fall into American hands, it was only necessary to wait for the opportune moment for the fruit to be ripe for that inevitable end to be fulfilled. During this process – Adams also pointed out in a letter sent on April 28, 1823 to the diplomatic representative of the United States in Madrid – it was preferable that the desired fruit remained in the hands of Spain before it passed into the hands of the more powerful powers of the time. Hence, when the British Foreign Minister, George Canning, proposed to Washington the signing of a joint declaration rejecting any attempt by the Holy Alliance and France to restore Spain’s absolutism in the Spanish-American territories, the United States took the lead in a masterstroke, making a declaration of its own -later known as the Monroe Doctrine- that left the United States’ hands absolutely free in America and tried to tie them to the rest of the powers, including England. At the root of the emergence of the Monroe Doctrine was Cuba, as one of the territories most coveted by the U.S. political class. Also Mexico, more than half of whose territories would later be usurped during the war of 1846-1848. IIn 1830, Simón Bolívar, who during his struggle for independence and the unity of the peoples of Spanish America had felt the rejection of the United States as a great obstacle and permanent danger, as well as his calculating and cold stance -which he called arithmetical behavior- in relation to the emancipation process that was taking place in South America, was leaving for eternity. Against the Liberator and his plans for the unity and integration of Spanish America, a wide conspiratorial network was woven from Washington, which is still astonishing today for its level of articulation, when the means of communication and intelligence available to U.S. imperialism today did not yet exist. However, U.S. diplomatic representatives such as William Tudor, William Harrison, Joel Poinsett, among others, did a very effective dirty work to defeat more than the person of Bolivar, the ideas he represented and defended, totally antagonistic to the Monroist philosophy. His pioneering thought of anti-imperialism, about the unity and integration of the territories freed from the yoke of Spanish colonialism, in favor of the abolition of slavery, of the most dispossessed classes and the independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico, were the greatest threat to their interests of expansion and domination that Washington faced in those years, hence their innumerable attempts to discredit him by calling him “usurper”, “dictator”, “the madman of Colombia”, among other offensive adjectives. II In the second half of the 19th century, the Bolivarian ideal would have in José Martí, the Apostle of Cuban independence, one of its most brilliant disciples, who could see like no one else into the entrails of the monster and warn of its dangers for the independence of Our America and the very balance of the world. It was then up to him to confront Monroeism at the stage when the United States was taking its first steps of transition to the imperialist phase and when the Monroe doctrine was being modernized through Pan-Americanism, which advocated continental unity under the dominant axis of Washington from the narrative of the so-called Manifest Destiny, a thesis of supposed biblical roots, which affirmed that the divine will granted the American nation the right to control the entire continent. The United States sought hemispheric supremacy in international legal forums and instruments and with it the institutionalization of the postulates of the Monroe Doctrine. Through his chronicles and articles in more than twenty Spanish-American newspapers, José Martí developed an intense anti-imperialist work to defeat the thesis of a single currency, arbitration and customs union, promoted by the U.S. Secretary of State, James Blaine, at the American International Conference held in Washington between 1889 and 1890. He would also do so at the Monetary Conference of the Republics of America in 1891, where he actively participated as Consul of Uruguay. There has never been in America, from independence to the present time,” warned Martí, “a matter that requires more wisdom, nor obliges more vigilance, nor demands clearer and more meticulous examination, than the invitation that the powerful United States, full of unsaleable products, and determined to extend their dominions in America, make to the less powerful American nations, linked by free and useful trade with the European peoples, to establish a league against Europe, and to close deals with the rest of the world. From the tyranny of Spain, Spanish America knew how to save itself; and now, after seeing with judicial eyes the antecedents, causes and factors of the invitation, it is urgent to say, because it is the truth, that the hour of declaring its second independence has arrived for Spanish America.”[ix] Shortly before falling in Dos Rios on May 19, 1895, in an unfinished letter to his Mexican friend Manuel Mercado, Martí left testimony of which had been the sense of his life: to prevent in time with the independence of Cuba, that the United States spread through the Antilles and fall with that force more on our lands of America. With a far-sighted vision Martí had seen the great danger that the voracious imperial appetites of Washington represented for Cuba and the countries of our America and foresaw what could happen if the independence of Cuba and Puerto Rico was not achieved in a short time, where he considered the balance of the world was to be found. In the faithful of America are the Antilles,” wrote Martí in an analysis that demonstrates his knowledge and vision of the geopolitical interests that were moving on the international scene, “which would be, if slaves, a mere pontoon of the war of an imperial republic against the jealous and superior world that is already preparing to deny it power, -a mere fortress of the American Rome; and if free -and worthy of being so by the order of equitable and hard-working freedom- they would be in the continent the guarantee of balance, that of independence for the still threatened Spanish America and that of honor for the great republic of the north, which in the development of its territory, unfortunately already feudal and divided into hostile sections, will find more certain greatness than in the ignoble conquest of its smaller neighbors, and in the inhuman fight that with the possession of them would open against the powers of the world for the predominance of the world”. And a few lines further on he expresses: “It is a world that we are balancing: it is not only two islands that we are going to liberate.”[x]. III In 1898, with its intervention in the Cuban-Spanish conflict, the United States turned the island of Cuba into a test tube for neocolonialism in the region, thus initiating a historical period characterized by the consummation and success of the Monroe Doctrine, consolidating its dominance in the Western Hemisphere and gradually displacing rival powers, especially England. In addition to Cuba and Puerto Rico, Washington secured control of the Isthmus of Panama, one of the most important geostrategic points. The Dominican Republic, Panama, Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua and Haiti suffered directly from the policy of the Big Stick and the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine with the intervention and territorial occupation of the Yankee Marines. In the case of Cuba, Monroeism acquired legal connotation through the Platt Amendment, an appendix to the 1901 Constitution, imposed by force on the Cubans under the threat of permanent military occupation. The Platt Amendment gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuba whenever it deemed convenient and to lease territories for the establishment of naval and coal bases, the origin of the illegal U.S. presence in Guantanamo Bay to this day. The Platt Amendment was neither conceived nor imposed to safeguard Cuba or any Cuban interest, but as a tangible expression of the Monroe Doctrine. Roosevelt’s successor in the White House, William Taft, through dollar and gunboat diplomacy, combined military intervention with U.S. financial and political control, expanding and consolidating U.S. domination in Central America and the Caribbean. “The day is not far distant,” Taft would unabashedly point out, “when three stars and three stripes at three equidistant points will delimit our territory: one at the North Pole, another at the Panama Canal and the third at the South Pole. The whole hemisphere will in fact be ours by virtue of our racial superiority, as it is already ours morally.”[xi] This was followed by the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Warren Harding, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, all of whom, in one way or another, reinforced the postulates of the Monroe Doctrine, intervening or threatening militarily whenever the requirements of their imperial security in the region were threatened. The Mexican Revolution suffered the onslaught of Monroeism in those years, as did Nicaragua from 1926 to 1933, when Augusto César Sandino, leading a popular army, confronted the Marines who had invaded and occupied the country. The U.S. troops were finally defeated and had to withdraw from the Central American nation on January 3, 1933. However, the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration, the same one that had advocated the deception of the Good Neighbor policy towards Latin America and the Caribbean, did not stand idly by and conspired against Sandino until his assassination was carried out and the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza was established, “a son of a bitch”, as Roosevelt himself described him, “but our son of a bitch”. IV The outbreak of World War II was a perfect opportunity for the U.S. government to further expand its domination throughout the hemisphere, extending its military bases in the region and getting numerous Latin American and Caribbean countries to join its “hemispheric security” projects, in reality becoming subordinate to the geostrategic objectives of U.S. imperialism. The signing in 1947 by 20 Latin American and Caribbean governments of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR) was a palpable example of this. Monroe and Adams could not have been more satisfied from their graves, especially when in 1948 the Organization of American States (OAS) was created as an instrument of the United States to modernize and institutionalize its domination over Latin America and the Caribbean. Its birth was baptized with the bloodshed of the Colombian people, in the midst of a popular uprising triggered by the assassination of progressive leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán. The government servile to Washington’s interests imposed after those events would be the only one to send troops to the Korean War to please the master of the North. It immediately became evident that the purpose of the OAS had nothing to do with “continental unity and solidarity” in the face of common challenges and “extra-regional threats”, but that it was just another piece in the new world system that was emerging to satisfy the hegemonic interests of the U.S. power elite. The so-called Inter-American system was in reality part of its system of domination. The OAS was an adaptation of the Monroe Doctrine to the post-war scenario in order to align the entire region in the face of the “dangers of international communism”. Hence its uselessness -beyond the possibility of verbally condemning U.S. imperialism- to represent the interests of the Latin American and Caribbean peoples. The history of the OAS has been none other than the most infamous support of oligarchic governments to Washington’s interests, or Washington’s disrespect for the majority, when that majority has disagreed with its positions, reflecting the fallacy of its own existence as a space for concerted action between the two Americas. The OAS Charter itself has been violated and regional consensus has been flouted by the United States on multiple occasions. Undoubtedly, it was conceived and continues to try to function as a Yankee “Ministry of Colonies”, at the root of which lies the Monroist philosophy. At the end of World War II, the United States achieved absolute supremacy in the Western Hemisphere, reaching the pinnacle of the aspirations of the founding fathers, of Adams and Monroe when they launched the famous doctrine and of their most loyal and creative continuators. Having reached that level of control in what they considered their backyard, the power elite of U.S. imperialism felt in a position to extend its hegemony to other geographical areas of the world, even going beyond the limits of what was expressed in the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. V The 1960s brought a new revival of the Monroe ideal in the face of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and the supposed penetration of communism in the Western Hemisphere, a pretext that was assumed and disseminated from Washington to follow an even more aggressive course against the Cuban revolutionary process and provoke its diplomatic isolation in the hemisphere, a fact that materialized when Cuba was suspended from the OAS in 1962. In that same year President Kennedy said at a press conference: “The Monroe Doctrine means what it has meant ever since President Monroe and John Quincy Adams enunciated it: that we would oppose a foreign power extending its power into the Western Hemisphere, and that is why we oppose what is happening in Cuba today. That’s why we have cut off our trade relations. That’s why we work in the Organization of American States and in other ways to isolate the communist threat in Cuba.”[xii] The resistance and achievements of the Cuban Revolution, its example of independence and absolute sovereignty at the very gates of the U.S. empire, was an inadmissible reality for the true hegemonic purposes under which the Monroe Doctrine was inspired. At the same geographical point where Washington had begun its long road of successful expansion and preeminence, making its debut as an empire, the most forceful and sustained challenge ever faced by the colossus of the North from the periphery of the South also began and, as if that were not enough, under its own nose and by an island, small in size, but a giant as a moral example for the world. Fidel Castro Ruz, would embrace the Bolivarian, Martian, anti-colonialist, anti-imperialist, internationalist and Marxist ideal, becoming a heresy that even today and facing the future, continues to fight and win great battles, while his example and thought lives on in the Cuban people and revolutionaries around the world. In addition to unleashing a full-spectrum war against Cuba that continues to this day, this anomaly to U.S. domination in the Western Hemisphere led the various U.S. governments to unleash a whole series of violent and reactionary policies to prevent the existence of more Cubas in the region. A new stage of invasions, coups d’état and support for bloody dictatorships began, under the pretext of the fight against communism. In the name of freedom – also of human rights – as Bolivar had warned in 1829, Washington was responsible for the most horrendous crimes practiced against the peoples south of the Rio Bravo. Millions of disappeared, tortured, murdered, was the cost paid by our peoples, a figure impossible to fully calculate if we add up the victims of Monroism since the 19th century. We can never forget that history, which is also part of what these two hundred years of the Monroe Doctrine have meant. How can we not refer to Operation Condor, which between 1975 and 1983 was responsible for thousands of deaths and disappearances throughout the continent, where the criminal efforts of the U.S. government and the CIA joined forces with the military dictatorships of Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil and Bolivia, as well as terrorist groups of Cuban origin based in Miami, with the aim of curtailing the progressive and revolutionary movement in Latin America. Fifty years ago the Nixon-Kissinger administration unleashed a great plot against the Popular Unity government presided by Salvador Allende in Chile, this operation culminated on September 11, 1973 with a coup d’état, the death of Allende and the establishment of one of the most atrocious dictatorships of the entire continent, whose aftermath is still visible in that country today. Also 40 years ago, the Republican administration of Ronald Reagan launched an invasion of the Caribbean island of Grenada on October 25, 1983, where a revolutionary process led by Maurice Bishop was taking place. History as a teacher of life teaches lessons for the present. Fidel’s words to the Chilean people, in Santiago de Chile, on December 12, 1971, warning of the threat posed by the fascist right wing supported from Washington to the revolutionary processes, are especially relevant today: “But what do the exploiters do when their own institutions no longer guarantee their domination? What is their reaction when the mechanisms they have historically counted on to maintain their domination fail them? They simply destroy them. There is no one more anti-constitutional, more anti-legal, more anti-parliamentary, more repressive, more violent and more criminal than fascism. Fascism, in its violence, liquidates everything: it attacks the universities, closes them down and crushes them; it attacks the intellectuals, represses and persecutes them; it attacks the political parties; it attacks the trade union organizations; it attacks all the mass organizations and the cultural organizations. So that there is nothing more violent or more retrograde or more illegal than fascism.”[xiii] VI The fall of the socialist camp unleashed triumphalist airs in Washington about the arrival of the “Pax Americana”, it was no longer just “America for the Americans”, but the world at the feet of the victorious world power of the Cold War as a supposed end of history. However, in addition to the fact that they could not sweep away Cuba, which resisted and emerged victorious again as the main stone in their shoes, popular rebellions and resistances in what the United States considered its safe backyard, immediately began to happen and the least the power elite in that country could have imagined was that there would be a resurgence of the US imperialist regime, which would be the first to be able to take control of Cuba, The least the power elite in that country could have imagined was that there would be a resurgence of Bolivarianism and the arrival to power of progressive and leftist forces, which articulated a change of era where Monroism was called into question, rescuing and updating the Bolivarian ideal for the 21st century. The role of Venezuelan President Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, at the head of the Bolivarian Revolution, undoubtedly marked a turn and a leap in Latin American and Caribbean history. Together with the governments of Nestor Kichner in Argentina, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay, Lula Da Silva in Brazil, Rafael Correa in Ecuador and Fidel and Raúl in Cuba, a regional “Our American” project began to take shape, which included the creation of integration organizations such as ALBA-TCP, UNASUR, CELAC, TELESUR, PETROCARIBE, among other mechanisms that sought to break with the domination schemes that had been imposed from the North for decades. In November 2005, the attempts of US imperialism to recolonize the region under a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) were defeated, when in Mar del Plata, Argentina, during the IV Summit of the Americas, several Latin American and Caribbean presidents stood up to it, among them the very host of the meeting, President Néstor Kirchner, together with Chávez and Lula. The United States had never faced such a break in its domination of the Western Hemisphere since the end of World War II. The administrations of William Clinton, W. Bush and Barack Obama reacted with all their arsenal and allies to stop and overthrow this process: coups d’état, parliamentary coups, oil coups, economic sanctions, blockades, cultural, media, psychological and fourth generation wars, subversion, espionage, interference in internal affairs, encouragement of treason and division, prosecution of progressive and leftist leaders, diplomatic and economic threats, military maneuvers, activation of the IV Fleet, among many other actions that marked the imperial, oligarchic and right-wing counter-offensive throughout the region. However, under the precepts of Smart Power, in 2013, U.S. President Barack Obama expressed that the Monroe Doctrine had come to an end and in a speech before the OAS, the then Secretary of State, John Kerry, stated that the relationship between the United States and Latin America should be that of equivalent partners, and that his government sought to establish a link not based on doctrines but on common interests and values. But the best lie to these declarations came only two years later when a new coup attempt against the Bolivarian Revolution took place, where U.S. interference became evident. A few weeks later, the White House declared Venezuela an extraordinary threat to its national security. In the case of Cuba, despite the announcement of the reestablishment of diplomatic relations on December 17, 2014 and the so-called new policy approach, the purposes of achieving regime change and the overthrow of the Revolution were never abandoned by the Obama administration. Facts, statements and documents of the period prove it. However, his successor in the White House, Donald Trump, and his main foreign policy advisors would unabashedly resume the Monroist discourse. One of the statements that generated the most headlines was that of his Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, who, during a tour of Latin America, stated that the Monroe Doctrine “is as relevant today as the day it was written”. These statements were not only a reaction to a greater presence of China and Russia in the region, but were a response to the non-acceptance of “foreign ideologies” such as those defended by Cuba and Venezuela, although at the heart of the matter we know that the real concern is the disconnection from the system of US imperial domination that the examples of the Cuban and Bolivarian Revolutions signify. VII Today it is becoming increasingly apparent that we are witnessing a world in geopolitical transition and an accelerated decline of US hegemony at the global level. The U.S. power elite in this scenario clings more and more to the Monroist philosophy and, faced with a state of imperial oversizing that prevents it from maintaining control in much more distant geographical areas -as has occurred in Africa and the Middle East-, it is logical that its attention should be focused on the area that for 200 years it has considered its vital space of reproduction and hegemonic expansion: Latin America and the Caribbean. From the imperial logic, what is at stake is to recover the lost ground at any cost in the face of the advance of China, Russia and the progressive and leftist governments themselves. Latin America and the Caribbean continue to be the top priority in U.S. foreign policy. The head of the U.S. Southern Command, Laura Richardson, recently reaffirmed this when, in a conversation with the Atlantic Council think tank, she said: “If I talk about my number two adversary in the region, Russia, I mean, I have, of course, the relations between the countries of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua with Russia. But why is this region important? With all its rich resources and rare earth elements, you have the lithium triangle, which today is necessary for technology. 60% of the world’s lithium is in the lithium triangle: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, you have the largest oil reserves, light sweet crude discovered off Guyana more than a year ago. You have the resources of Venezuela as well, with oil, copper, gold. We have the lungs of the world, the Amazon. We also have 31% of the world’s fresh water in this region. I mean, it’s out of the ordinary. This region matters. It has to do with National Security and we have to step up our game.”[xiv] The scenario that is being drawn is one of opportunities before the gaps and weaknesses of the imperial system itself and the continuous mistakes of the right wing without an alternative project to offer to our peoples, but also of great dangers before the growth of neo-fascist tendencies that are glimpsed on the horizon and also in other parts of the world, especially in Europe. The systemic crisis of imperialism itself leads to increasingly violent and reactionary reactions, given the loss of capacity to maintain the expanded accumulation of capital and the rebellions and rebellions that arise one after another in the periphery and in the very centers of domination, the results of which announce the birth of a multipolar world. In this process, the left forces of the region have a unique moment to relaunch as never before the processes of unity and integration of Latin America and the Caribbean. The conjunctures are very changeable and shifting, tomorrow will be too late. Only united will we be truly free and an international actor with an influential place in the destinies of humanity, which must move urgently, so as not to disappear, towards a change of civilizational paradigm. Otherwise, the United States would once again fall upon our lands in the Americas, breaking the balance of the world, at a time when there may be no way back to save not only the independence and sovereignty of our peoples, but even the human species itself. As the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, pointed out at the first Ibero-American Summit, in Guadalajara, Mexico, on July 18, 1991: “The time has come to fulfill with deeds and not with words the will of those who dreamed one day for our peoples a great common homeland that would be worthy of universal respect and recognition”. In the 21st century, the Monroe Doctrine is as alive as it was in 1823, two hundred years ago. But the ideals and struggles of our peoples are also alive. The ideals and struggles of the Latin American and Caribbean heroes who gave their lives for the independence and unity of Our America are alive today more than ever. In this year 2023, what we truly commemorate is the 95th anniversary of the birth of one of the highest paradigms of revolutionaries for all times, Ernesto Che Guevara, who gave his life to the emancipation of the Latin American, Caribbean, African peoples and the entire global south under the imperialist yoke, our greatest commitment must be, without dogmas and atavisms that hinder the way, the struggle for social justice and the unity and integration of our peoples. Notes [i] Letter from Simón Bolívar to Colonel Patricio Campbell, British Chargé d’Affaires to the Government of Colombia, Guayaquil, August 5, 1829. [ii] James Knox Polk, President of the United States between 1845 and 1849. [iii] Rutherford Birchard Hayes, President of the United States between 1877 and 1881. [iv] Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States between 1901 and 1909. [v] George F. Kennan (1904-2005). American diplomat and government advisor and author of the doctrine of containment against communism. [vi] Indalecio Liévano Aguirre: Bolívarismo y monroísmo, Editorial Revista Colombiana, Bogotá, 1971, pp.40-41. [vii] See Elier Ramírez Cañedo, La miseria en nombre de la libertad, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, Havana, pp.67-74. [viii] Speech by José Martí at Hardman Hall, New York, November 30, 1889. [ix] José Martí, “Congreso Internacional de Washington, su historia, sus elementos y sus tendencias”, Obras Completas, Editorial de Ciencias Sociales, Havana, 1975, t. 6, p. 46. [x] José Martí, “El tercer año del Partido Revolucionario Cubano”, Obras Completas, Editorial Nacional de Cuba, Havana. t. 3, p.142. [xi]Quoted by Juan Nicolás Padrón in: The U.S. war against Cuba in the neocolonial republic (II), La Jiribilla, August 3, 2022. [xii] New World Encyclopedia. “Monroe Doctrine.” New World Encyclopedia. October 18, 2018. http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Monroe_Doctrine. [xiii] Speech delivered by Commander Fidel Castro Ruz, at the farewell ceremony given to him by the people of Chile, at the National Stadium, Santiago de Chile, December 2, 1971. [xiv] See on the Internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBHznUxu2_E AuthorElier Ramírez Cañedo This article was produced by Resumen. Archives July 2023 7/9/2023 Addressing allegations of “Chinese spy base” in Cuba.By: Manolo De Los Santos & Kate GonzalesRead Now On June 8, the U.S. media added to its long storybook of tales to scare people away from normal relations with Cuba. The Wall Street Journal published an article on that day claiming that China has plans to set up a “spy base” in Cuba, to “eavesdrop” on the United States and “identify potential strike targets.” WSJ has already published two more pieces since rapidly ramping up its narrative against the Cuban state and fermenting more paranoia as the news spreads across mainstream news outlets in the United States. Meanwhile, Cuban officials held a press conference on June 8 to completely deny the allegations. Cuba’s Vice Foreign Minister Carlos de Cossío stated that “All these are fallacies promoted with the deceitful intention of justifying the unprecedented tightening of the blockade, destabilization, and aggression against Cuba and of deceiving public opinion in the United States and the world.” Even John Kirby, National Security Council spokesman who was the former press secretary for the Pentagon, has denied the WSJ report, calling it “inaccurate.” This is just one new addition to the long legacy of lies that the United States has been spinning in an attempt to further alienate the Cuban people. One just has to remember the “Havana syndrome” that mysteriously affected diplomats in Cuba; it was first blamed on foreign powers as an attack but was later revealed to have no basis. Or maybe the claims about 20,000 Cuban soldiers supposedly based in Venezuela to maintain the government there, when in reality, the vast majority of Cubans present in Venezuela were medical workers. Or perhaps the idea that Cuban doctors sent across the world are enslaved, when it is simply their understanding that their duty to humanity is to provide health care to those who need it. All of these lies have been told just in the past few years alone. These falsified stories all swirl into fomenting the atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion that prevents normal U.S.-Cuba relations. In the wake of the Havana syndrome myth, Trump was able to interrupt the path Obama set toward normalization, setting 243 additional and comprehensive sanctions, and further preventing the island from meeting its basic needs. The United States continues to live out its Cold War fantasies through these lies, at the cost of the Cuban people’s lives and well-being. And yet, it maintains its hypocrisy. Cossío was careful to point out that Cuba would never allow a foreign military base on their island, as it is a signatory of the Declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace. Cuba is also currently sponsoring and hosting peace talks between Colombia and the National Liberation Army (ELN). As of today, they have agreed to a cease-fire, ending decades of violence in the country. Cuba already suffers from the illegal U.S. occupation of Guantanamo, to further rub salt in the wound. The United States has its infamous military base there, which is known for the inhumane treatment and torture it deals out to its prisoners. While it accuses China of military expansion, the United States has hundreds of military bases all over the globe. Cuba has demonstrated that it desires nothing but peace in the region, and normal relations with its neighbor, the United States. But the United States refuses to accept this proposal. Instead, it maintains the most comprehensive sanctions in history against the small island. Instead, it falsely places Cuba on the state sponsors of terrorism list, even though it is in fact a sponsor of peace. Instead, the U.S. government and its media apparatuses choose to fabricate myths and legends, painting Cuba as the evil monster under the bed. It chooses to scare the U.S. people away from the possibility that normal relations and ending the blockade against Cuba could be good for people from both countries. AuthorManolo De Los Santos is the co-executive director of the People’s Forum and is a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He co-edited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord Books/1804 Books, 2020) and Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord Books/1804 Books, 2021). He is a co-coordinator of the People’s Summit for Democracy. This article was produced by Globetrotter. Archives July 2023  The Communist Party of Cuba is a vanguard political party in a political system of people’s democracy. As such, its role is to educate the people, guiding the people in the construction of socialism. The Party in Cuba possesses the moral authority to guide and educate, but it does not have the legal and constitutional authority to decide. The Constitution grants to the National Assembly of People’s Power, the deputies of which are nominated by the delegates of the people and elected directly by the people, the authority to decide policies and measures, to enact legislation, and to elect and recall the highest members of the executive branch of the government. I have written in previous commentaries concerning the Cuban political process of people’s democracy, different from and in important respects superior to representative democracy (see “Cuba wins the 2023 elections,” March 28, 2023). Whereas the structures of representative democracy initially took form in the context of bourgeois revolutions against the monarchies in the late eighteenth century in North America and Western Europe, the structures of people’s democracy were developed in the context of Third World people’s revolutions against a neocolonial order in the twentieth century. Today, Korea, Vietnam, China, Laos, and Cuba have developed different versions of people’s democracies. Ricardo Cabrisis, Cuban Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of International Commerce and Foreign Investment, has observed that Cuba is passing through one of the most difficult moments in the sixty-two years since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, as consequence of the economic and ideological war being waged against it by U.S. imperialism. Similarly, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, declared that Cuba is in an extraordinary complex scenario that is provoking the deterioration of the infrastructure, shortages of supplies, and lack of goods and services, which also is generating a social deterioration. The Party leadership is calling the Party members and the people to creative resistance, looking for innovative solutions to the economic problems, thus breaking the economic siege of the United States against Cuba. The nation must advance with speed and dynamism, eradicating inertia, bureaucratism, snags, and complacency. Rendering of Accounts On May 23, 2023, the VI Plenary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party was held. A Report of the Rendering of Accounts on the work of the Political Bureau was presented to the Plenary by Roberto Morales Ojeda, a member of the Political Bureau who is also the Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba. The Report notes that the Plenary occurs in the context of increasing socioeconomic complexity, caused by the effects of the intensification of the blockade with 243 new measures of the Trump administration, which includes the arbitrary inclusion of Cuba in the spurious list of countries that sponsor terrorism. There is insufficient understanding among the people, the report observes, of the impact of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade on the economy of the nation. The Report affirms the political victory of the Revolution in the recent national elections, inasmuch as they ratified the unity and the confidence of the Cuban people in the Cuban democratic and socialist system. It also recognizes the implementation of improvements in the conditions national electric energy system, enabling it to overcome instability, although some disruptions of service persist that require continuous attention. The Report considers valuable the recent visit of a Party delegation to Laos, Vietnam, and China, for the purpose of interchanges with the communist parties of said nations. And the Report reaffirms the foreign policy of the government, based in the principles of respect for the sovereignty of all nations and the development of mutually beneficial commercial relations among nations. However, the Report acknowledges a host of problems. A shortage of supplies of gasoline and diesel has generated a fuel crisis, creating serious difficulties in both public and private transportation. In the countryside, housing and transportation have deteriorated, and the service infrastructure is insufficient. A rural exodus has occurred, leading to an insufficient workforce in rural areas. The 2023 sugarcane harvest was insufficient, as a result of undisciplined work, an insufficient number of technically qualified workers, and shortages of fuel, lubricants, and equipment.The Report observes that emigration, essentially of youth and professionals, constitutes a challenge for the present and the future. Emigration aggravates a situation of deficit of medicines, and it contributes to the reduction of availability of medical equipment tied to high technology and of ambulances. The Report recommends improvement of ideological political work in the formation of professionals.The Report refers to an investigation of the problem of persons not connected to either study or work. Fifty percent are adolescents and youth, with the highest incidence occurring in Santiago de Cuba, Havana, Granma, Villa Clara, and Sancti Spiritus. The Report notes that the socialist state companies are far from the full attainment of their potential. In his address to the National Assembly on May 25, Alejandro Gil Fernández, Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning, noted that 84% of the state-managed companies are running in the black, with income greater than expenses. Of those in the red, some are being maintained by the state because of their value to the economy and society. However, the goal is to gradually attain a situation in which all state companies will operate with income greater than costs. The Report noted that inflation and the deprecation of Cuban currency have reduced the acquisitive power of the people, giving rise to an increase in illegalities, criminal behavior, corruption, and social indiscipline. The report notes that passive attitudes before the phenomenon are prevalent, and there is lack of administrative control. There is poor attention to the imposition of fines, and weak vigilance by the directing councils of centers of production. Night watch and vigilance by workers and neighborhood organizations are nearly nonexistent. The report calls for attention to the battle against corruption, crime, illegalities, and indiscipline. In reporting to the Extraordinary Session of the National Assembly of People’s Power on May 25, Minister of Economy Gil noted that the average year-over year inflation of prices is currently 45.4%, with some goods, especially those provided by the state, having no price increase; with the price of other goods increasing at a higher level. Gil explained the three factors that have caused inflation. First, the increase in prices of imported goods, due to inflation in the world economy. Secondly, a decline in Cuban production, particularly agricultural production, including such goods as milk, corn, potatoes, pork, rice, and eggs. Production has declined because of shortages in supplies and fuel, as well as due to undisciplined work. Thirdly, speculation in the retail market, with some intermediaries demanding a price five times what they paid, taking advantage of shortages. Such abusive speculation, Gil observed, contributes nothing of value to the economy. The government is attempting to clamp down on this form of corruption, he noted. Gil concluded his report to the National Assembly with the observation that as of April of this year, the Cuban economy is on track to comply with the objectives defined by the 2023 economic plan. He expressed confidence that the Cuban people are capable of overcoming obstacles, despite the U.S. blockade. Alejandro Gil, it should be noted, regularly provides comprehensive and scientifically informed analyses of the Cuban economy, putting forth clear explanations. He has repeatedly stated that the solution to the economic difficulties of the country is an increase in production, especially agricultural production. He regularly outlines steps being taken by the government to increase production, which include cooperative arrangements with strategic partners and allied nations. He is a key member of the Cuban leadership team, headed President Miguel Díaz-Canel, that through its continuous display of competence inspires confidence and hope. At the May 25 Extraordinary Session of the National Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez spoke from the floor of the Assembly, not in his capacity as foreign minister but as an elected deputy of the assembly. He declared that the fundamental cause of the economic problems of the nation is, by far and without any doubt, the U.S. blockade against Cuba. In his extensive commentary, he reviewed the history of the blockade from 1959 to the present. He noted that the blockade has evolved with increasing intensity, such that the blockade in its early years did not have the impact that it has today, especially in a world context in which Cuba had a cooperative relation with the Soviet Union and the East European socialist bloc. He pointed out that as a result of the measures imposed by the Trump administration in 2019, companies and banks in third countries are sanctioned by the USA for commercial and financial transactions with Cuba, often imposed by the arbitrary inclusion of Cuba in a spurious list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism. The Report concludes with a call for attention to the priorities of the people: housing, speculative and abusive increase of prices, the long lines for the purchase of goods, and the instability of the electric system. The Report calls upon greater involvement of the Party cells in all the processes. It calls for improvement in the schools of the party, tying ideology to knowledge, and for improvement in the theoretical formation of the Party cells. The Implementation of the Party’s Guidelines A report on the compliance with the Guidelines of the Social and Economic Policy of the Party and the Revolution for the period 2021 to 2026 was presented to the Plenary by Joel Queipo Ruiz, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party and Head of its Productive Economic Department. He noted that the report was developed on the basis of ample consultation with the 48,121 Party cells in the country. He observed that the effective implementation of the Guidelines does not correspond with what is needed to guarantee the social and economic development of the country. He maintained that Party cells in centers of production have to become true units of combat that impulse effective compliance with the Guidelines. Alejandro Gil, Minister of Economy and Planning, noted that of the 201 guidelines, 13 are without advancement in implementation, and 67 have low advancement, such that approximately 40% of the guidelines had had little or no implementation. On the other hand, 110 guidelines have had medium advancement (54.7%) and 11 have high advancement (5.4%). He further noted that the thirteen guidelines without advancement in implementation are primarily connected to agriculture and food production. Gil observed that “nothing falls to us from heaven, and there is no magic. We have in our hands a group of measures that have not given results, but they have a great potential.” A Code of Ethics for the Party Cells The Plenary approved the Code of Ethics of the Cells of the Revolution. The Code was formulated on the basis of the Theses and Resolutions of the First Congress of the Party; the definition of revolution expressed by Fidel in 2001; and reflections on the theme expressed by Raúl and Che. The Code expresses the characteristics that a leader ought to possess: the honor and the duty of defending the country; anti-imperialist spirit; the permanent disposition to explain comportment and to submit oneself to public scrutiny; permanent interaction with the citizenry; and to be proactive in the solution of difficulties and problems, confronting them with the available resources. The Code elaborates fifteen values that a good leader ought to have: patriotism, anti-imperialism, fidelity, honesty, honor, discipline, altruism, humanism, solidarity, professionalism, collaboration, integrity, responsibility, transparency, and austerity. Overcoming the blockade without it being lifted Miguel Díaz-Canel, President of Cuba and First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, declared at the closing of the Plenary that the principal challenge confronting the Party today is to search for solutions to the economic challenges that the country confronts. He called for rigorous implementation of the measures and actions proposed at the Plenary. He stressed that it is imperative to increase production, especially the recuperation of agricultural production, and to eliminate the network of intermediaries in the commercialization of merchandise. He called for confronting the present challenges in a spirit of victory, effort, talent, determination, and creativity. He declared that it is not only a matter of resisting, but of resisting and creating at the same time. The Party, Díaz-Canel declared, must stimulate the comprehension and participation of the people and the lifting of hope. He noted that in his most recent trip in the provinces of the country, he found that there had been advances in comparison with five months earlier. We found a capacity to manage production at the local level, a will and persistence despite adverse circumstances, he declared. We found persons that have been disposed to overcome adversity, and they have attained it, taking advantage of existing potentialities. These persons have been blockaded, just like everyone in Cuba, yet they were able to advance, even though they were in the same conditions as everyone else. They are the ones who are challenging the blockade, Díaz-Canel asserted. They are lifting the blockade through creative resistance. They are not complacent or immobile; they confront with intelligence each of the problems that they confront. The President calls for such a spirit of resistance not only from some, but from all. We are calling all, he declared, to overcome the blockade without it being lifted, overcoming it at the local level, taking advantage of existing potentialities in each of the provinces and the municipalities of the country. Convocation of the Second Conference of the Party The Central Committee called for the Second National Conference of the Communist Party of Cuba, to be held in October. The conference is called to critically and objectively analyze compliance with the agreements of the Eighth Congress of the Party, held in April 2021. And it will analyze the transformations of the Social and Economic Model of Socialist Development, approved by the National Assembly of People´s Power in 2012; and the compliance with the Guidelines of the Social and Economic Policy of the Party and the Revolution, emitted by the Party and approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power in 2012. AuthorThis article was republished from Marxism-Leninism Today. Archives June 2023  Rural health care in Cuba (Photo by Carol Foil, 2009). The Cuban socialist healthcare system is internationally recognized as one of the best in the world.1 It is innovative, preventative, people-oriented, comprehensive, community-centered, internationalist, and, of course, de-commodified—treating healthcare as a human right, not a profitable commodity. However, in spite of its extraordinary successes, the United States’ sixty-year long blockade has tremendously detrimental effects on Cuban life in general, and their healthcare system in particular. As Amnesty International reported, the US blockade “limits Cuba’s capacity to import medicines, medical equipment, and the latest technologies, some of which are essential for treating life-threatening diseases.”2 The intentions behind the US blockade on Cuba have always been clear. As Lester Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in 1960: Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy [blockade] is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government . . . the only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.3 The blockade is thus aimed at making the material conditions of Cubans as difficult as possible, creating fertile soil for discontent in the Cuban revolutionary process to arise. However, the United States doesn’t leave the arrival of discontent to chance. As Tracy Eaton from the Cuba Money Project has shown, the United States, through regime change fronts like the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the U.S. State Department, has spent more than one billion dollars funding Cuban opposition groups and media within and outside of the country.4 This combination of blockade and opposition funding is a central component of the hybrid warfare against Cuba (as well as other victims of US imperialism). Notwithstanding the formidable aggression bearing down on Cuba, the island has been able to achieve remarkable success in the fields of medicine, education, sustainable development, sports, etc. In this article, I will briefly highlight how the Cuban healthcare system functions, some of its successes, and how the blockade has affected Cuban medicine and stifled medical development both within Cuba and in the United States. Cuba’s Socialist Healthcare System Speaking to Cuban militias a few months after the revolution, Che, himself a physician by training, would say that Medicine will have to convert itself into a science that serves to prevent disease and orients the public toward carrying out its medical duties. Medicine should only intervene in cases of extreme urgency, to perform surgery or something else which lies outside the skills of the people of the new society we are creating.5 “Such a profound social change demands,” he would argue, “equally profound changes in the mental structure of the people.”6 Socialist society could not limit itself to creating changes in institutions and the material foundations of society, it is equally vital, as he famously says in Socialism and Man in Cuba, “to build the new man and woman.”7 In the field of medicine, this required the formation of a new type of doctor, “a revolutionary doctor, that is to say a [person] who utilizes the technical knowledge of [their] profession in the service of the revolution and the people.”8 In the same year, Fidel Castro would remark that “the future of Cuba will be a future of [people] of science.”9 This visionary statement was uttered on the heels of a massive exodus of professionals, where half of the doctors, as well as many of the teachers, had left the country. For instance, “only 12 of the 250 Cuban teachers at the University of Havana’s Medical School remained.”10 For all the factors pointing otherwise, Fidel’s 1960 proclamation would become true, as today Cuba is the country with the most doctors per capita. This was not a coincidental development. Since 1959, the revolution reorganized the 1909-founded Ministry of Health and Welfare into the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), which created “a single, national, state-run health system that sets short, medium, and long-term policies.”11 With its goal of training generations of humanistic medical professionals dedicated to the revolutionary process, Cuba eliminated university tuition, made textbooks free, developed various scholarship plans, and constructed networks of universities which created dozens of schools capable of educating professionals in every province of the country.12 Universal education and universal healthcare went hand in hand – the development of one was the condition for the development of the other. Cuba’s emphasis on universal education and healthcare within the socialist model allowed the country which lost half of its medical (and other) professionals to develop a surplus which participates in various internationalist missions, almost half of which are done for free (for the poorest countries of the global south), and the other half at a sliding scale.13 Thanks to these internationalist missions (which have been ongoing since the first years of the revolution), millions of human beings from the poorest corners of the planet can say that “they owe their health, if not their lives, to Cuban professionals and the government which trained and sent them.”14 By the middle of the 1970s, after several generations of doctors had been developed within the revolution, Cuba would institutionalize the polyclinic model, a staple of their innovative, community based, socialist healthcare. As Helen Yaffe writes, A new model of community-based polyclinics was established in 1974 to deliver comprehensive care to residents in their neighbourhoods. Polyclinics gave Cuban communities local access to primary care specialists such as obstetricians, gynaecologists, paediatricians, internists and dental services. Training and policy emphasised the impact of biological, social, cultural, economic and environmental factors on patients.15 Far from the reductive and deterministic frameworks often found in Western capitalist medicine, Cuban healthcare emphasizes the dialectical relationship of the individual and their community and of the biological and the social. Such an integrative and relational framework allows for a more comprehensive approach to treatment. With the polyclinics and the 1984 “family doctor” programs, the integration of doctors within the individual’s “everyday environment” allowed, as Che hoped, for the preventative and communal dimension of healthcare to thrive.16 The most interesting dimension of Cuban healthcare, in my view, is its emphasis on prevention. The emphasis on prevention stands as a pinnacle of medical practice, one which would seem like lunacy in the US. When profits are in command, why would anyone do something which might prevent more profits from being realized in the future? When people are what matters, like in Cuba, the goal of medical practice is almost self-destructive, in the sense that the aim is to destroy the conditions, i.e., the sicknesses, which make medical treatment necessary in the first place. The opposite is true when health care is subjected to the same logic as everything else under capitalism. Instead of its natural tendency for self-abolition, the tendency here is towards proliferation, i.e., towards developing more conditions for which treatment is required. The more treatment needed, the more profit there is to be made. Cuban people know that medicine′s first and only goal is to serve the people. This puts the for-profit health care system found in the United States—the only developed country in the world without socialized medicine—in an irreconcilable antagonism with what the essence of medical care entails. It also creates fertile ground, as we saw with regards to the COVID vaccines, for a large portion of the population to develop medical and scientific skepticism. After all, if it is the same pharmaceutical industrial complex that, in collaboration with the US government, proliferated the criminal but profitable opioid crisis which kills seventy thousand Americans yearly, it does not seem irrational for a portion of the population to lack trust in the same pharmaceutical industry’s handling of the pandemic.17 This absence of trust in medical institutions does not exist in Cuba, where people know that medicine′s first and only goal is to serve the people. As Hippocrates (from whom we get the Hippocratic oath that is ingrained in every medical trainee in the United States) argued, “a physician’s aim in dealing with any illness . . . should be to halt the conditions that promote its flourishing.” It shouldn’t be that, as for-profit health care promotes, those conditions are sustained or metamorphized into others so that profitable treatment may continue.18 Cuba’s innovative, preventative, community-centered, and holistic approach to healthcare is the reason why, in spite of the tremendous material difficulties the blockade creates, Cuba is considered to have one of – if not the – most efficient healthcare system in the world. After sixty years of socialism, Cubans are amongst the healthiest and longest-living people in the world, living on average three years longer than Americans.19 Besides the sixteen year increase in life expectancy the revolution has achieved since 1959, it has also had the largest reduction in infant mortality, from 6 to 0.41 percent, the lowest in the whole Western hemisphere.20 “Infectious and contagious diseases like polio, malaria, neonatal tetanus, diphtheria, measles, rubella, mumps, whooping cough and dengue,” which are frequently found in the poorest parts of the world, “have been eradicated.”21 Cuban medical sciences, thanks to the importance and investment the state affords it, has made prodigious inroads in cancer, diabetes, HIV, and other areas of medical study.22 With regards to lung cancer, perhaps the “best-known innovation is the CimaVax vaccine, created by researchers at the Havana’s Center for Molecular Immunology (CIM), which acts on the growth factor of cancer cells to prevent the disease from spreading.”23 The most common cancer death is lung cancer, which killed around 1.8 million people worldwide in 2020.24 With the US blockade in place, thousands of Americans are deprived of the prolongation and enhancement of their lives which the CimaVax vaccine would provide.25 While clinical trials and collaboration had begun during the Cuban thaw, when Obama partially lifted the blockade, the full reinstatement of the blockade with Trump, and its continuation and proliferation with Biden, has once again removed the hope the Cuban vaccine could bring to the hundreds of thousands of Americans with lung cancer.26 Along with CimaVAx, Racotumomab and VSSP are “promising cancer drugs invented by CIM.”27 As Cuba Debate reported, Racotumomab targets a molecule that scientists believe is found in all cancer cells, meaning the drug could one day be effective against leukemia and the tumors that accompany lung, breast, colon and prostate cancers. VSSP, originally designed as a compound to activate the immune response to vaccines, also appears to stimulate the immune response against cancer.28 Recent research into VSSP has shown that it “significantly reduce[s] myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) among people with advanced kidney cancer,” paving “the way for a new treatment” for the disease.29 In addition to its successes in cancer research, “in 2015, the World Health Organization recognized Cuba as the first country to eliminate the transmission of HIV from mother to child.”30 This is a feat that Dr. Margaret Chan, at the time the Director-General of the WHO, said was “an important step towards having a generation free of AIDS.”31 Cuban medical sciences have also succeeded in developing what has been called the diabetes miracle treatment, Heberprot-P. As Cuba Debate reports, When uncontrolled diabetes damages the nerves and blood vessels in a person’s foot, it can cause one of the disease’s most debilitating complications: diabetic foot ulcers, capable of penetrating the bone. These ulcers can even become gangrenous and, in the worst case, cause the amputation of a finger, foot or even a leg. Since 2006, Cuba has had a medicine for ulcers called Heberprot-P, which avoids the need to amputate. Its inventors, scientists from the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Havana, describe this treatment as “an epidermal growth factor” that is injected next to the affected area and can accelerate the skin’s healing process, closing the wound in about three months.32 Heberprot-P has shown nearly an 80 percent success rate in preventing amputation, an incredible fact considering that up to 60 percent of amputations lead to death within five years, and up to 80 percent within ten years.33 In the United States, diabetes is the seventh most common cause of death, affecting more than one in ten adults, and prediabetes affecting one in three. Each year 1.4 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes, and more than one hundred thousand die from the disease.34 Nonetheless, Heberprot-P, a treatment which, according to Manuel Raíces, the Communications Executive at the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), could reduce the risk of US amputations in half, saving tens of thousands of lives a year, is prevented from being used in the US because of the blockade.35 Hardships of the Blockade For thirty consecutive years the United Nations General Assembly has voted in favor of lifting the US blockade on Cuba.36 In the recent vote in November 2022, 185 countries voted in favor of lifting the blockade, and only two countries, the United States and Israel, voted in favor of sustaining the blockade.37 It is estimated that the last sixty years of the US blockade has cost Cuba 1.3 trillion dollars.38 It is impossible to overestimate how difficult this has made the construction of socialism in Cuba, and the development of their healthcare system and medical sciences in particular. As Cuba’s Ministry for Public Health reports, [Cuba] is denied the right to acquire technologies, raw materials, reagents, diagnostic means, medicines, devices, equipment and spare parts necessary for the best functioning of its National Health System, which must be obtained in geographically distant markets or through a third country, with an increase in costs. Technologies from the United States or with more than 10 percent of components from that country cannot be acquired by the Island, which has a negative impact on healthcare. In some cases, it is necessary to send patients abroad at a much higher cost than doing the procedure in national territory, if the technology were available.39 There are a plethora of examples to point to where the blockade prohibits Cuba from accessing medicine, technologies, equipment, etc. that it would need to save or improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of Cubans. American companies and manufactures with more than 10 percent of American capital backing it frequently ignore, and sometimes explicitly reject, Cuba’s requests for purchasing their products. For instance, as Cuba reported to the United Nations: From January to July 2021, the Medical Products Import and Export Company (MEDICUBA S.A.) contacted 65 US companies to inquire about the possibilities of importing medicines, equipment, devices and other supplies necessary for the care of the Cuban people through the national health system. Of these, 56 did not respond to the requests of the Cuban entity, and three responded negatively (OWENS & MINOR, INC., MERCURY MEDICAL and ELI LILLY). The OHMEDA, GENERAL ELECTRIC and HEWLETT PACKARD Companies were asked for multipurpose mechanical ventilators for newborns and infants, as well as multipurpose cardiomonitors (which include blood pressure monitoring, among other parameters). Its acquisition has yet to be made possible. In the same way, the ONE-LAMBDA Company was asked for kits for HLA typing, essential to determine the compatibility of a kidney transplant candidate with possible donors; they could not be acquired either.40 “Some 158,800 Cuban patients,” the report argues, “are harmed by the impossibility of accessing technology for the implantation of percutaneous aortic valves (TAVI)” which would, through a “small surgical procedure,” greatly improve people’s quality of lives and prevent more complex surgeries and longer hospitalizations.41 American companies such as EDWARD LIFESCIENCE (Edwards-SAPIEN valve) and MEDTRONIC (CoreValve valve) have control over the TAVI valves and, because of the blockade, prohibit Cuba from access. Likewise, “if Cuba could access the drug Nusinersen, produced only by the US multinational company BIOGEN,” more than half of its children who struggle with infantile spinal atrophy could survive much longer and attain a better quality of life.42 The IQ 577 Laser System model, produced by the US company IRIDEX CORPORATION, could treat “retinal disorders and glaucoma” for dozens of Cuban babies born with retinopathy from prematurity who are at risk of going blind; because of the blockade, those Cuban babies will not be able to receive that treatment.43 While Cuba was helping the world fight COVID-19, the United States was busy preventing the world from helping Cuba. In many instances, additional licenses are required to sell to Cuba, even when the companies are not American and have less than 10 percent of American capital. As the Cuban Ministry for Public Health reports, shortages were caused in blood bags because the usual supplier, UNFAMED, “reported that the company Terumo BCT of Japan had its bank account blocked, since they must have an Additional License that allows them to sell to Cuba products that are not produced in the United States.”44 The “US’s exploitation of the pandemic to increase pressure for regime change” also affords a variety of examples for how the blockade affects Cuban healthcare.45 For instance, at the height of the pandemic, while WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus asked for countries to put their sanctions “in quarantine” because “thousands of lives are at stake,” the US company Vyaire Medical bought ventilator manufacturers IMTMedical and Acutronic, immediately banning all sale of ventilators to Cuba.46 Around the same time, Jack Ma’s foundation tried to send Cuba one hundred thousand facemasks, ten Covid diagnostic kits, ventilators, and gloves, all of which was stopped by Avianca, a Colombian Airline whose “major shareholder is a U.S.-based company subject to the trade embargo on Cuba.”47 Similarly, the donations from Swiss solidarity organizations MediCuba-Suiza and Asociación Suiza-Cuba to help Cuba fight COVID where refused to be transferred by the Swiss banks UBS, Cler, and Cantonal Bank of Basilea.48 While Cuba was helping the world fight COVID-19 through the Henry Reeve Brigade (for which it was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize), the United States was busy preventing the world from helping Cuba, banking on the pandemic-blockade dual force to fulfill the conditions Lestor Mallory proposed for regime change.49 Despite the difficulties, Cuba was able to develop five viable vaccines, vaccinating over 90 percent of its population, and delivering hundreds of millions of doses to the global south free of charge.50 However, because of the US blockade, the early days of the pandemic saw Cuba lacking access to the syringes needed to effectively vaccinate its population with the vaccines it developed.51 The internationally denounced blockade on Cuba by the United States is a gross violation of human rights, one which affects both Cubans and the hundreds of thousands of Americans who would have better quality of lives, and even their lives saved, had the United States not prevented their people from having access to novel treatments in cancer, diabetes, and advances in other fields of research developed by Cuban scientists. The spirit of science and scientific inquiry is nourished with openness and collaboration. The US blockade prevents this from occurring, stifling scientific progress. However, if there is something the last sixty years have demonstrated, it is that the Cuban people are committed to their revolutionary process and unwilling to compromise their socialism and sovereignty. Lestor Mallory’s hope for the blockade would not bear fruit. Even in the periods where the US warfare on Cuba has produced the most formidable of challenges in attaining the necessary materials to ensure the subsistence of the Cuban people, the mass of Cubans have brazenly defended the revolutionary process, with the slogan of their Bronze Titan Antonio Maceo engraved on their chest: “Whoever tries to take over Cuba will only collect the dust of their blood-soaked soil, if they do not perish in the fight.”52 With the initial goal of the blockade unable to concretize, the only reason for its proliferation is to perpetuate senseless suffering, both of Cuban and American people. As those who recognize the emancipatory potential of science and believe that science should serve the people, we have a duty to stand in solidarity with the Cuban people and mobilize to #EndtheBlockade on Cuba. Notes
AuthorCarlos L. Garrido is a Cuban American PhD student and instructor in philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (with an MA in philosophy from the same institution). His research focuses include Marxism, Hegel, early nineteenth century American socialism, and socialism with Chinese characteristics. He is an editor of the Marxist educational project Midwestern Marx and the Journal of American Socialist Studies. This article was republished from Science for the People. Archives March 2023 2/18/2023 Chomsky and Prashad: Cuba Is Not a State Sponsor of Terrorism By: Noam Chomsky & Vijay PrashadRead Now Cuba, a country of 11 million people, has been under an illegal embargo by the United States government for over six decades. Despite this embargo, Cuba’s people have been able to transcend the indignities of hunger, ill health, and illiteracy, all three being social plagues that continue to trouble much of the world. Due to its innovations in health care delivery, for instance, Cuba has been able to send its medical workers to other countries, including during the pandemic, to provide vital assistance. Cuba exports its medical workers, not terrorism. In the last days of the Trump administration, the U.S. government returned Cuba to its state sponsors of terrorism list. This was a vindictive act. Trump said it was because Cuba played host to guerrilla groups from Colombia, which was actually part of Cuba’s role as host of the peace talks. Cuba played a key role in bringing peace in Colombia, a country that has been wracked by a terrible civil war since 1948 that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. For two years, the Biden administration has maintained Trump’s vindictive policy, one that punishes Cuba not for terrorism but for the promotion of peace. Biden can remove Cuba from this list with a stroke of his pen. It’s as simple as that. When he was running for the presidency, Biden said he would even reverse the harsher of Trump’s sanctions. But he has not done so. He must do so now. AuthorNoam Chomsky is a linguist, philosopher, and political activist. He is the laureate professor of linguistics at the University of Arizona. His most recent books are Climate Crisis and the Global Green New Deal: The Political Economy of Saving the Planet and The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of U.S. Power. This article was produced by Globetrotter. Archives February 2023 1/30/2023 US funds ‘independent journalists’ in Cuba to spread propaganda, ex CIA spy admits By: Ben NortonRead Now
Former CIA analyst Fulton Armstrong told The Guardian that, in Cuba, “a lot of the so-called independent journalists are indirectly funded by the US”. They spread anti-government disinformation with the support of the NED.
A former top CIA spy has admitted that the United States funds anti-government propagandists in Cuba who portray themselves as “independent journalists”.
Major British newspaper The Guardian spoke with CIA veteran Fulton Armstrong, whom it described as “the US intelligence community’s most senior analyst for Latin America from 2000 to 2004”. Armstrong stated that, in Cuba, “a lot of the so-called independent journalists are indirectly funded by the US”. The ex CIA analyst pointed out that, today, the Joe Biden administration bankrolls anti-government opposition forces in Cuba with at least $20 million in annual support for supposed “democracy promotion” activities. The Guardian acknowledged that the CIA has a history of spreading disinformation inside Cuba, as part of a US information war aimed at destabilizing the revolutionary government. The newspaper wrote: Financing media has long been part of Washington’s diplomatic toolkit.
Still today, Washington funds another prominent Spanish-language, anti-Cuba disinformation outlet called Radio y Televisión Martí, which is part of the government’s propaganda arm the US Agency for Global Media (formerly known as the Broadcasting Board of Governors).
Armstrong, the former CIA agent, explained to The Guardian the US destabilization strategy in financing opposition media outlets in foreign countries like Cuba: US programs are designed with a win-win strategy. We win if the opposition media gain a foothold, and we win if they provoke government repression.
In addition to spying for the CIA, Armstrong worked for the State Department’s US Interests Section in Cuba (a diplomatic office located inside Switzerland’s embassy in Havana).
Armstrong served as the US “National Intelligence Officer for Latin America”, the intelligence community’s top analyst focused on the region. He also oversaw Latin America for the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The Guardian – which is itself closely linked to and collaborates with the UK’s intelligence services – portrayed the Cuban government as repressive for cracking down on foreign-funded disinformation agents. The British newspaper gloated over the large revenue streams that anti-government media outlets in Cuba have, writing, “Tiny state salaries have also been unable to compete with the private sector”. While The Guardian praised two right-wing Cuban opposition media outlets, called El Toque and El Estornudo, it admitted that both are bankrolled by the US government. El Toque disclosed to The Guardian that “it has received US federal funds ‘indirectly’ as part of a mix of money from corporations and foundations”. El Estornudo is financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a notorious instrument of US regime-change operations that has meddled in the internal politics of countries all around the world. A co-founder of the NED, Allen Weinstein, told the Washington Post in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA“. The NED reported that it gave El Estornudo $180,000 in 2021 – a huge sum of money in any Latin American country, but especially in Cuba, which has trouble getting access to dollars due to Washington’s illegal, six-decade blockade against it. 
In a 1977 report titled “Worldwide Propaganda Network Built by the C.I.A.“, the New York Times admitted that the CIA had established a media outlet in the early 1960s called Free Cuba Radio, whose “propaganda broadcasts against the Government of Prime Minister Fidel Castro were carried over radio stations” in various cities inside the US and in the Caribbean.
The prominent newspaper explained: One motive for establishing the Free Cuba radio network, a former C.I.A. official said he recalled, was to have periods of air time available in advance in case Radio Swan, meant to be the main communications link for the Bay of Pigs invasion, was destroyed by saboteurs. US funds opposition media propaganda in Venezuela and Nicaragua
The United States has used the same tactics to try to destabilize the leftist governments in Venezuela and Nicaragua.
The NED has spent hundreds of millions of dollars funding right-wing opposition media outlets and so-called “civil society organizations” in Venezuela. Many of these groups have been complicit in violence and participated in coup attempts against democratically elected Presidents Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. In Nicaragua in the 1980s, the CIA supported far-right death squads known as the Contras (short for “Counterrevolutionaries”), who burned down schools and hospitals and waged a campaign of terror to try to overthrow the socialist Sandinista government. A key part of the US hybrid war on Nicaragua in the 1980s, and still today, included the dissemination of disinformation through NED-funded newspapers like La Prensa, which is owned by the Central American nation’s most powerful right-wing oligarch family, the Chamorro dynasty. After the Sandinista Front returned to power in 2007, through democratic elections, the US again began pouring millions of dollars into opposition media outlets in Nicaragua. During a bloody coup attempt in 2018, US-funded Nicaraguan opposition media outlets spread extreme propaganda and fake news, openly inciting violence and encouraging people to murder President Daniel Ortega and hang his body in public.
AuthorBen Norton is an investigative journalist and analyst. He is the founder and editor of Geopolitical Economy Report, and is based in Latin America. (Publicaciones en español aquí.)
This article was republished from Geopolitical Economy.
ArchivesJanuary 2023 1/27/2023 The U.S. Blockade of Cuba Hurts Medical Patients in Both Countries By: Natalia MarquesRead NowThe blockade of Cuba limits its ability to share its scientific and technological advances with the rest of the world.  Scientists in Cuba believe that the breakthroughs they have made in the health care and technology sectors should be used to save and improve lives beyond the country’s borders. This is why the island nation has developed important scientific and medical partnerships with organizations and governments across the globe, including with those in Mexico, Palestine, Angola, Colombia, Iran, and Brazil. However, such collaborations are difficult due to the blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States, which has now been in place for the last six decades. In a conference, “Building Our Future,” held in Havana in November 2022, which brought together youth from Cuba and the United States, scientists at the Cuban Center of Molecular Immunology (CIM) stated during a presentation that the blockade hurts the people of the United States, too. By lifting the sanctions against Cuba, the scientists argued, the people of the United States could have access to life-saving treatments being developed in Cuba, especially against diseases such as diabetes, which ravage working-class communities each year. A Cure for Diabetes Cuban scientists have developed both a lung cancer vaccine and a groundbreaking diabetes treatment. The new diabetes treatment, Heberprot-P, developed by the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), can reduce leg amputations of people with diabetic foot ulcers by more than four times. The medication contains a recombinant human epidermal growth factor that, when injected into a foot ulcer, accelerates its healing process, thereby, reducing diabetes-related amputations. And yet, despite the fact that the medication has been registered in Cuba since 2006, and has been registered in several other countries since, people in the United States are unable to get access to Heberprot-P. Diabetes was the eighth leading cause of death in the United States in 2020, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, killing more than 100,000 patients in that year. “Foot ulcers are among the most common complications of patients who have diabetes,” which can escalate into lower limb amputations, according to a report in the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Each year, around 73,000 “non-traumatic lower extremity amputations” are performed on people who have diabetes in the U.S. These amputations occur at a disproportionate rate depending on the race of a patient, being far more prevalent among Black and Brown people suffering from diabetes. Many point to racial economic disparities and systemic medical racism as the reason for this. “If you go into low-income African American neighborhoods, it is a war zone… You see people wheeling themselves around in wheelchairs,” Dr. Dean Schillinger, a medical professor at the University of California-San Francisco, told KHN. According to the KHN article, “Amputations are considered a ‘mega-disparity’ and dwarf nearly every other health disparity by race and ethnicity.” The life expectancy of a patient with post-diabetic lower limb amputation is significantly reduced, according to various reports. “[P]atients with diabetes-related amputations have a high risk of mortality, with a five-year survival rate of 40–48 percent regardless of the etiology of the amputation.” Heberprot-P could help tens of thousands of patients avoid such amputations, however, due to the blockade, U.S. patients cannot access this treatment. People in the U.S. have a vested interest in dismantling the U.S. blockade of Cuba. “So after five years [post-amputation], that’s the most you can live, and we are preventing that from happening,” said Rydell Alvarez Arzola, a researcher at CIM, in a presentation given to the U.S. and Cuban youth during the conference in Havana. “And that also is something that could bring both of our peoples [in Cuba and the U.S.] together to fight… to eliminate [the blockade].” Cuban Health Care Under Blockade Perhaps one of Cuba’s proudest achievements is a world-renowned health care system that has thrived despite economic devastation and a 60-year-long blockade. After the fall of Cuba’s primary trading partner, the Soviet Union, in 1991, the island saw a GDP decrease of 35 percent over three years, blackouts, and a nosedive in caloric intake. Yet, despite these overwhelming challenges, Cuba never wavered in its commitment to providing universal health care. Universal health care, or access to free and quality health care for all, is a long-standing demand of people’s movements in the United States that has never been implemented largely due to the for-profit model of the health care industry and enormous corporate interests in the sector. As other nations were enacting neoliberal austerity measures, which drastically cut social services in the 1980s and 1990s, Cuba’s public health care spending increased by 13 percent from 1990 to 1994. Cuba successfully raised its doctor-to-patient ratio to one doctor for every 202 Cubans in the mid-1990s, a far better statistic than the United States’ ratio of one doctor for every 300 people, according to a 2004 census. As the blockade begins its seventh decade, Cuba is not only upholding universal health care but also continues to be at the forefront of scientific developments globally. This was evident during the COVID-19 crisis. Cuba, faced with the inability to purchase vaccines developed by U.S. pharmaceutical companies due to the U.S. blockade, developed five vaccines. The nation not only achieved its goal of creating one of the most effective COVID-19 vaccines but also launched the first mass COVID-19 vaccination campaign for children from two to 18 years old in September 2021. To Share Knowledge Without Restrictions Despite its achievements, Cuban health care still faces serious, life-threatening limitations due to the economic blockade. CIM, for example, has struggled to find international companies willing to carry out vital services for them. Claudia Plasencia, a CIM researcher, explained during the conference that CIM had signed a contract with a German gene synthesis company which later backed out because it had signed a new contract with a U.S. company. “They could not keep processing our samples, they could not keep doing business with Cuba,” Plasencia said. Arzola explained how it is virtually impossible to purchase top-of-the-line equipment due to trade restrictions. “A flow cytometer is a machine that costs a quarter-million dollars… even if my lab has the money, I cannot buy the best machine in the world, which is from the U.S., everyone knows that,” he said. Even if CIM were to buy such a machine from a third party, it cannot utilize the repair services from the United States. “I cannot buy these machines even if I have the money, because I would not be able to fix them. You cannot spend a quarter-million dollars every six months [buying a new machine]… even though you know that this [machine] is the best for your patients.” I spoke to Marianniz Diaz, a young woman scientist at CIM. When asked what we in the U.S. could do to help CIM’s scientists, her answer was straightforward: “The principal thing you can do is eliminate the blockade.” “I would like us to have an interaction without restrictions, so we [Cuba and the U.S.] can share our science, our products, [and] our knowledge,” she said. AuthorNatalia Marques is a writer at Peoples Dispatch, an organizer, and a graphic designer based in New York City. Archives January 2023  Photo composition in sepia with the face of Ana Belén Montes, a document labeled “top secret” and another sheet of paper containing a complex diagram. Photo: CNN. On January 8, 2023 the US has to release one of its many political prisoners, most being fighters against its repression of Third World peoples. Ana Belén Montes, heroic defender of Cuba’s sovereignty, will be freed after over 21 years in a federal military prison. She was a top official on Latin America in the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) who, solely out of moral conviction, gave Cuba information on top secret US military plans and operations. Unrepentant in her trial, she defended herself saying, “I obeyed my conscience rather than the law. … I felt morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it.” She is one of the many exemplary people who have taken an honorable and moral stance, opposing the reprehensible actions of the government, and have been accused of being traitors or spies. Edward Snowden was another, who exposed how the National Security Agency spied on the US population and leaders of other countries, now forced to live in exile to avoid facing life in prison. While the US movement in defense of Cuba did not champion her case as with the very similar case of the Cuban Five, she is recognized as a hero in Cuba. In 2016, famous Cuban singer Silvio Rodriguez dedicated a song to her, explaining, “The prisoner I mentioned yesterday… is Ana Belén Montes and she was a high official of the US secret services. When she knew that they were going to do something bad to Cuba, she would pass on the information to us. That is why she is serving a sentence of decades…Much evil did not happen to us because of her. Freedom for her.” She did not receive any money from Cuba for her 16 years of work. Knowing the dire risks she faced, she acted out of love for justice and solidarity with Cuba. For over 60 years, the country has suffered under a US blockade – repeatedly condemned by the United Nations – imposed in retaliation for choosing national sovereignty over continued neo-colonial status. US supported terrorism against Cuba killed 3,478 and caused 2,099 disabling injuries. One of the charges brought against Ana Belén was having helped assure Bill Clinton and George W. Bush that Cuba represented no military threat to the US, and therefore contributed to avoiding another US imperial war that would have meant the death of countless Cubans. She also acknowledged having revealed the identities of four American undercover intelligence officers working in Cuba. Who is Ana Belén Montes? Born in West Germany on February 28, 1957, a Puerto Rican citizen of the United States, and a high official in the Defense Intelligence Agency, she was convicted as a spy for alerting Cuba to the aggressive plans that were being prepared against the Cuban people. In 1984 while working as a clerk in the Department of Justice, she began her relation with Cuban security. She then applied for a job at the DIA, the agency responsible for foreign military intelligence to the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The DIA employed her in 1985 until her arrest at work 16 years later. She became a specialist in Latin American military affairs, was the DIA’s principal analyst on El Salvador and Nicaragua, and later Cuba. Because of her abilities, she became known in US intelligence circles as “the Queen of Cuba”. Montes’ work and contributions were so valued that she earned ten special recognitions, including Certificate of Distinction, the third highest national-level intelligence award. CIA Director George Tenet himself presented it to her in 1997. “She gained access to hundreds of thousands of classified documents, typically taking lunch at her desk absorbed in quiet memorization of page after page of the latest briefings,” which she would later write down at home and convey to Cuba. How did US Spy Agencies Uncover Her? On February 23, 1996, the Cuban Ministry of Defense asked visiting American Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll to warn off Miami Brothers to the Rescue planes that planned to again fly over Havana. Carroll immediately informed the State Department. Instead of ending the provocations, the US let the planes fly, and two “Brothers to the Rescue” planes were shot down over Cuba the next day. The US used this to sabotage the growing campaign to moderate the US blockade on the island. The US official who arranged Admiral Carroll’s meeting was Ana Belén. Her explanation that the date was chosen only because it was a free date on the Admiral’s schedule was accepted. Nevertheless, a DIA colleague reported to a security official that he felt Montes might be cooperating with Cuban intelligence. He interviewed her, but she admitted nothing. She was given, and passed a polygraph test. She had access to practically everything the intelligence community collected on Cuba, and helped write final reports. Due to her rank, she was a member of the super-secret “inter-agency working group on Cuba”, which brings together the main analysts of federal agencies, such as the CIA, the Department of State, and the White House itself. The Washington Post reported, “She was now briefing the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the National Security Council and even the president of Nicaragua about Cuban military capabilities. She helped draft a controversial[!] Pentagon report stating that Cuba had a “limited capacity” to harm the United States and could pose a danger to U.S. citizens only “under some circumstances.” Rolando Sarraff Trujillo, a US agent in Cuba’s Ministry of Interior that Cuba had uncovered and imprisoned, was released and traded for three of the Cuban 5 in 2014. He had “provided critical information that led to the arrests of those known as the “Cuban Five;” of former State Department official Walter Kendall Myers and his wife, Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers; and of the Defense Intelligence Agency’s top Cuba analyst, Ana Belén Montes.” In 1999 the National Security Agency intercepted a Cuban communication. It revealed a spy high in the hierarchy, who was associated with the DIA’s SAFE computer system. It meant the person was likely on staff of the DIA. The suspect had also traveled to Guantánamo Bay in July 1996. Coincidentally, Montes had traveled to the Bay on DIA business. The NSA knew the person was using a Toshiba laptop, and it was discovered she had one. The FBI decided to break into her apartment and copy the hard drive. Since the case being put together indicated she was providing information to Cuba, she was arrested by FBI agents on September 21, 2001 while in her DIA office. She was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage for Cuba. “She told investigators after her arrest that a week earlier she had learned that she was under surveillance. She could have decided then to flee to Cuba, and probably would have made it there safely.” But her political commitment made her feel “she couldn’t give up on the people (she) was helping.” Owei Lakemfa presented ten reasons he thought Ana Belén Montes avoided detection during her 16 years in the DIA. She was extremely discreet and kept to herself. She lived alone in a simple apartment north of the US capital, and memorized documents, never taking any home. She never received unexplainable funds. Ironically, her brother was an FBI special agent, and her sister an FBI analyst who “played an important role in exposing the so-called Wasp Network of Cuban agents [the Cuban 5 and 7 others] operating in Florida.” Ana Belén avoided the death penalty for high treason, highly likely in the post September 11 atmosphere, by pleading guilty before the US federal court handling her case. Since she acknowledged her conduct, and told the court how she worked, she was sentenced to “only” twenty-five years. However, she was imprisoned in conditions designed to destroy her, as the case with Julian Assange today. She was sent to special unit of a federal prison for violent offenders with psychiatric problems. Ana Belén Montes’ Noble Defense of her Conduct In her October 16, 2002 trial statement, she declared that she obeyed her conscience: “There is an Italian proverb that is perhaps the one that best describes what I believe: The whole world is one country. In that ‘world country’, the principle of loving your neighbor as much as you love yourself, is an essential guide for harmonious relations between all our ‘nation-neighborhoods’. This principle implies tolerance and understanding for the different ways of others. It mandates that we treat other nations the way we wish to be treated – with respect and compassion. It is a principle that, unfortunately, I believe we have never applied to Cuba. Your Honor, I got involved in the activity that has brought me before you because I obeyed my conscience rather than the law. Our government’s policy towards Cuba is cruel and unfair, deeply unfriendly; I feel morally obligated to help the island defend itself from our efforts to impose our values and our political system on it. We have displayed intolerance and contempt for Cuba for four decades. We have never respected Cuba’s right to make its own journey towards its own ideals of equality and justice. I do not understand how we continue to try to dictate how Cuba should select its leaders, who its leaders cannot be, and what laws are the most appropriate for that nation. Why don’t we let Cuba pursue its own internal journey, as the United States has been doing for more than two centuries? My way of responding to our Cuba policy may have been morally wrong. Perhaps Cuba’s right to exist free of political and economic coercion did not justify giving the island classified information to help it defend itself. I can only say that I did what I thought right to counter a grave injustice. My greatest wish would be to see a friendly relationship emerge between the United States and Cuba. I hope that my case in some way will encourage our government to abandon its hostility toward Cuba and work together with Havana in a spirit of tolerance, mutual respect and understanding. Today we see more clearly than ever that intolerance and hatred – by individuals or governments – only spreads pain and suffering. I hope that the United States develops a policy with Cuba based on love of neighbor, a policy that recognizes that Cuba, like any other nation, wants to be treated with dignity and not with contempt. Such a policy would bring our government back in harmony with the compassion and generosity of the American people. It would allow Cubans and Americans to learn from and share with each other. It would enable Cuba to drop its defensive measures and experiment more easily with changes. And it would permit the two neighbors to work together and with other nations to promote tolerance and cooperation in our one ‘world-country,’ in our only world-homeland.” Her Brutal Prison Conditions were Designed to Destroy Her Jürgen Heiser of the German solidarity Netzwerk-Cuba reported that “Ana Belén has been isolated in conditions that the UN and international human rights organizations describe as ‘cruel and unusual punishment.’ and torture. Her prison conditions were further exacerbated after her trial, when she was placed in the Federal Medical Center (FMC) in Carswell, outside of Fort Worth, Texas. The FMC is located on a US marine compound and previously served as a military hospital… It includes a high security unit set aside for women of “special management concerns” that can hold up to twenty prisoners. A risk of “violence and/or escape” are specified as grounds for incarceration in the unit. This is where the “spy” Ana Belén is being held in isolation, in a single-person cell.” Her cell neighbors have included one who strangled a pregnant woman to get her baby, a longtime nurse who killed four patients with massive injections of adrenaline, and Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, the Charles Manson follower who tried to assassinate President Ford. The Fort Worth Star Telegram has regularly covered the abuses against the women inmates at Fort Carswell Carswell prison, which has also housed two other political prisoners Reality Winner and Aafia Siddiqui. Detainees have suffered gross violations of their human rights, including documented cases of police abuse, suspicious deaths where the investigations into them have been blatantly obstructed, deaths due to the denial of basic medical attention, rape of prisoners by guards, and exposure to toxic substances. In July 2020, 500 of the 1400 prisoners had Covid. The Star Telegram reported “the facility showed a systemic history of covering misconduct up and creating an atmosphere of secrecy and retaliation…” Ana Belén wrote, “Prison is one of the last places I would have ever chosen to be in, but some things in life are worth going to prison for, or worth doing and then killing yourself before you have to spend too much time in prison.” She has been subjected to extreme conditions in that prison, akin to those imposed on Assange. The Federal Bureau of Prisons has reported that: She can only have contact with her closest relatives, since her conviction is for espionage. No one can inquire about her health or know why she is in a center for people with mental problems, when she does not suffer from them. She cannot receive packages. When her defenders sent her a letter, it has been returned by certified mail. Only people on a list (no more than 20 who have known her before her incarceration and have been approved by the FBI) can correspond, send books, and visit Ana. Few people have visited her besides her brother and niece. She cannot interact with other detainees in jail, and was always alone in her cell. She is not allowed to talk on the phone, except to her mother once a week for 15-20 minutes. She could not receive newspapers, magazines or watch television. After a dozen years in prison, this was slightly modified. Karen Lee Wald noted in 2012, “If she is taken out of her cell in the isolation unit for any reason, all other prisoners are locked in their cells so they cannot speak to her. Basically, she has been buried alive.” Soon to be freed, Ana Belén Montes embodies the very essence of solidarity with the peoples of Latin America. She sacrificed her personal safety and comfortable life to serve her conscience. She is a hero and example not just for Cuba solidarity, but for all people fighting for a better world in the face of the US empire. David Rovics, our present day working class songwriter, was moved to pay tribute to her in song. Oscar Lopez Rivera, former Puerto Rican political prisoner, and honorary Chair of the Free Alex Saab campaign, said, “I think that every Puerto Rican who loves justice and freedom should be proud of Ana Belén. What she did was more than heroic. She did what every person who believes in peace, justice and freedom and in the right of every nation to govern itself in the best possible way and without the intervention or threat of anyone, would have done.” Indeed, the famous statement of Che Guevara, “the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love … love of humanity, of justice” is meant for her. AuthorStansfield Smith is a Chicago based anti-imperialist activist. He was active for over a decade in the Chicago Committee to Free the Cuban 5. His work is now on ChicagoALBASolidarity.wordpress.com. He has written on Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador for the Council on Hemispheric Affairs and on North Korea for Counterpunch and others. This article was republished from Orinoco Tribune. Archives January 2023 |
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