[NYTr] Lamrani: Bush’s new threats to Cuba

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Rebelión via CubaNow - Nov 5, 2007
http://www.cubanow.net/global/loader.php?&secc=12&item=3629&c=2


Bush’s new threats to Cuba

By Salim Lamrani

Translated by Karen López

Cubanow.- On October 24, 2007 at the venue of the State Department in
Washington, President George W. Bush pronounced a long and very
virulent discourse against the Havana government. While a great number
of Californians are prey to fire and Iraq is being buried down under a
bloody and never ending war, the White House brought back something
that has it obsessed since 1959-and which justifies almost fifty years
of terrorist aggressions, a cruel and inhuman economic punishment
together with a political and diplomatic war: Cuba. (1)

“Few problems have defied this Department-and our nation- like the Cuba
situation,” declared Bush, highlighting the unacceptable character of
such a reality. Since Fidel Castro’s rise to power, Washington has not
ceased in its attempt to overthrow the revolutionary government at any
cost. But this government, thanks to the support of most of the
population, has managed to resist the state of siege imposed
successively by ten U.S. presidents. (2)

Bush started its speech showing of his deep knowledge of Cuban reality:
“In Cuba it is illegal to change your job, to move from one house to
the other, to travel to a foreign country and to read books and
magazines without the specific permission from the state.” Also,
according to the U.S. President, “It is illegal for more than three
Cubans to sit together without authorisation” and “the programs of the
Comités de Defensa de la Revolución (Committees for the Defence of the
Revolution) do not fight criminality. Instead they control the
citizens, watch the comings and goings of the visitors and investigate
to which radio station they listen to.” In a word, “the sense of
community and basic confidence between human beings has
disappeared.” (3)

The current occupant of the White House did not stop there. Since he is
not afraid of making a fool of himself, he had no doubt when he
expressed the situation of the press: “A Cuban journalist asked for
something to the foreigners who were visiting him: a pen. Another one
uses shoe polish as ink,” declared the U.S. leader with all solemnity.
(4)

“The Cuban regime uses the U.S. embargo as the scapegoat of Cuban
miseries,” stated Bush. So, the inhumane economic sanctions that
gravely affect the everyday life of every person in the population
would just be an excuse. But, in that case, the President does not
explain why he “advises the Congress to show its support and its
solidarity for a fundamental change in Cuba while maintaining the
embargo.” (5)

Bush requested the international community to join him in his
irrational and inefficient policy and to apply sanctions to Cuba. He
named the examples of the European nations that humbly follow all of
Washington orders, that is the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, who
do not doubt in meddling in Cuban internal affairs and boost
subversion. (6)

The president, always very much aware of Cuban reality, proposed grants
for Cuban students “so that they might have better educational
opportunities,” when every international institution-from United
Nations to the World Bank- agree at the time of praising Cuban
excellence in the field of education. To this respect, 157 countries
out of the 175 have just selected Cuba for UNESCO’s Executive Council.
On the other hand, ironies of history, currently there are 500 poor
American students, excluded from the university system of the first
democracy of the world, follow a totally free of charge degree in
medicine in Cuba. But this aspect apparently escaped the President’s
shrewdness. (7)

The occupant of the White House also announced the creation of a “Fund
of Freedom for Cuba,” with some thousand millions dollars, under the
direction of State Secretary Condoleezza Rice and the Commerce
Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez, destined to overthrow the Havana government
and to bring back Cuba to a U.S. influence sphere. Bush said it clear:
“the key word in our future relations with Cuba is not ‘stability’ but
‘freedom’.” He might have been making reference to the one existing
currently in Iraq and Afghanistan. (8)

As a conclusion, Bush made a call to insurrection destined to the
military: “When the Cubans rise to ask for their freedom . . . . you
will have to decide. Will you defend a dying and shameful order using
the force against your own people? Or will you embrace the desire of
your people for change?” Finally, he used this occasion to talk to the
“Cubans who were listening to him-maybe under great risk”-through Martí
Radio and TV, two U.S. media that illegally broadcast subversive
programs to Cuba: “We want nothing of you but to welcome you to hope
and the happiness of freedom.” (9)

But contrary to Bush’s statement, Cubans were not “under great risks”
listening to his speech. It was broadcasted in Cuba through the radio,
television and the written press, for example Granma, the official
newspaper from the Cuban Communist Party. The New Herald, an extreme
right newspaper from Miami controlled by the former Cuban oligarchy,
expressed its surprise when it pointed out that Bush’s speech were
spread with “no interruptions.” (10)

The inhabitants of the island, who hate all sort of attack to their
national sovereignty and independence, could realize in this way how
much was Washington proposing a fanatical intervention in their
internal affairs, something which is unacceptable as well as contrary
to international legality. They were also able to observe how
disconnected is the U.S. president from the Cuban reality. In his
speech, with a strong colonialist stink, Bush destroyed the right of
auto-destruction of the people. Instead of offering them “the hope and
the happiness of freedom,” the U.S. President promised them to increase
even more the economic sanctions against them and to increase in this
way the sufferings and everyday hardships.

Felipe Pérez Roque, the Cuban Minister for Foreign Affaires, vigorously
condemned “the unprecedented increase in the U.S. government’s politics
against Cuba.” According to him, it is “a confirmation that the current
policy . . . is the change in regime in Cuba, even by force.” The
discourse in Washington is “an irresponsible act that offers an idea of
the level of frustration, despair and personal hate of President Bush
for Cuba; an evocation for violence, a call, even to the use of force
to overthrow the Cuban revolution to impose its plans upon Cuba.” (11)

But Cuba, since 1959, has not been very sensible to the threat language
and blackmail has only managed to radicalize the Cuban revolutionary
process along the years. In 1962, Cubans were ready to suffer a nuclear
holocaust before renouncing to their sovereignty. Basically, nothing
has changed. Pérez Roque insisted much on this point: “if the aim of
the U.S. President’s speech is to intimidate the people, to scare the
leaders, I should tell him now that it has been a total failure.” (12)
For Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban National Assembly, “it is
nothing else but a proof of the delirium (of Bush). He will never have
Cuba.” (13)

The current U.S. government which has just destroyed two countries,
which is responsible for the Guantánamo and Abu-Ghraib crimes as well
as for the massacre of nearly a million people in Iraq and Afghanistan,
for the secret prisons, for the clandestine flights, which legalized
torture, has no moral authority to discourse on liberty and human
rights.

Bush’s declaration prompted different reactions, among them the one
from the democratic candidate to the presidency, Barack Obama, who
criticized the words of the occupant of the White House: “The cause is
freedom will not advance with counterproductive threats or conventional
discourses. We have to allow U.S. citizens with a Cuban origin to visit
their relatives in the island and for them to send them money. It is
time to break George W. Bush statu quo.” (14)

Wayne S. Smith, former U.S. ambassador in Cuba, classified the measures
as “absurd.” “This supposed fund for freedom with several millions is
simple the product of the President’s imagination,” he highlighted.
Cuba “has already several thousand millions dollars from Venezuela and
China. Cuban economy is not going badly,” he concluded. (15)

Also, the Associated Press recognized that the politics to produce and
finance an internal opposition was nor new: “For several years, the
U.S. government has been spending millions of dollars to support Cuban
opposition.” (16) No nation in the world would accept for agents under
the service of a foreign power to act freely in their territory.

The European Union, once again, showed of their political cowardice by
maintaining a conspiratorial silence. They didn’t even condescend to
reply to the words of President Bush, inadmissible for international
right. Would they have been so discreet if China, Russia or Iran had
made a call to overthrow the government of another sovereign nation?

Any good analyst knows for sure that Bush’s objectives are not feasible
in Cuba. Washington insists in the same politics that has failed sadly
for almost half a century. The revolutionary government has the massive
support of the population and is far from being isolated in an
international arena. Apart from this, even the unsatisfied sectors in
Cuban society join together in a united front with the leaders of the
country when they have to preserve their national identity and
sovereignty. Foreign destabilizations only reinforce the cohesion of
the people around the government. If we talk about an eventual armed
intervention, the popular reaction would be such that the Vietnam war
and the current Iraq conflict would seem to be simple walks in the park
compared to what would happen to the U.S. troops if they were to be
crazy enough to disembark in Cuba. This is not an exaggeration. Cuban
people are politically and ideologically ready to make any sacrifice to
defend the integrity of their homeland. It will not negotiate its
independence and the United States has to accept this reality.

Notes

(1) George W. Bush, "Remarks by the President on Cuba Policy," Office
of the Press Secretary, The Miami Herald, October 24, 2007.

(2) Ibid.

(3) Ibid.

(4) Ibid.; Wilfredo Cancio Isla, "La Cámara da sólido apoyo a la
democracia en Cuba," The New Herald, June 22, 2007.

(5) George W. Bush, "Remarks by the President on Cuba Policy," op. cit.

(6) Ibid.

(7) Ibid.

(8) Ibid.

(9) Ibid.

(10) Wilfredo Cancio Isla, "Transmiten en la isla el discurso
presidencial," The New Herald, October 25, 2007.

(11) Felipe Pérez Roque, "Nosotros estamos claros de qué significa la
'libertad,'" Cuba Debate, October 25, 2007.

(12) Ibid.

(13) Alexandra Valencia, "Cuba’s Alarcon Uncertain on Castro’s
re-election," The Miami Herald, October 25, 2007.

(14) El Nuevo Herald, "Opiniones sobre el discurso," 25 de octubre de
2007.

(15) Antonio Rodriguez, "Bush Call for Cuba Democracy Fund Likely to
Fall on Deaf Ears," Agence France-Presse, October 26, 2007.

(16) Ben Feller, "Bush Touts Cuban Life After Castro," Associated
Press, October 24, 2007.


[Salim Lamrani is a French professor, writer and journalist. He is a
specialist in Cuba-United Status relations. He has published the
books: Washington contre Cuba (Washington against Cuba) (Pantin: Le
Temps des Cerises, 2005), Cuba face à l’Empire (Genève: Timeli, 2006)
and Fidel Castro, Cuba et les Etats-Unis (Pantin: Le Temps des Cerises,
2006).

Caty R. belongs to the staff of Rebelión, Cubadebate and Tlaxcala. This
article may be freely reproduced under the condition that it has to be
reproduced completely and it has to mention its author, its reviewer
and the source.