Enemy, still

POSTERS CALLING for the release of the Cuban Five in Washington, D.C.-CHIP SOMODEVILLA/AFP

The United States is in no mood to soften its policy of blockade and continues to undermine the revolution though Cuba has been making conciliatory approaches while underlining its independence and moral authority.

THERE were expectations that under President Barack Obama the United States administration would take a more realistic approach to relations with Cuba and at least modify some of the draconian sanctions imposed on the country since the early 1960s. In his first term in office, Obama did remove several restrictions on travel and remittances by Cuban American citizens to their motherland. The Cuban government has described the measures taken by the Obama administration as positive but insufficient and extremely limited. In fact, as Obama seeks a second term in office, he has been pandering to right-wing Cuban emigre groups in his efforts to carry the key State of Florida in the 2012 elections.

The economic blockade started in earnest in 1962 when John F. Kennedy was the President of the U.S. The Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations further strengthened it. The Cuban government maintains that the blockade can be qualified as an act of genocide under the 1948 Geneva Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Cuba has estimated that the economic damage it has sustained in the last 50 years as a result of the blockade amounted to a whopping $1,066 trillion. The blockade has failed dismally in its primary goal of dislodging the revolution in Cuba but has succeeded in inflicting huge collateral damage on millions of ordinary Cubans.

Cuba, as a result of the blockade, has not been able to achieve its full potential for development. Among the sectors most affected are health and agriculture. Medicines and laboratory equipment, for instance, have to be imported from far-away locations at prohibitive prices. Some critical drugs such as the inhalant agent Sevoflurane, which is used to extend general anaesthesia to children, are produced only in the U.S. and, therefore, not available for sale in Cuba. Children suffering from lymphoblastic leukemeia cannot use the lifesaving medicine Elspar since the U.S. manufacturer, Merck and Co, is banned from selling it to Cuba. The country has even been denied access to medical literature on the U.S. Internet sites created to facilitate the free flow of information.

The Cuban authorities estimate that they had to spend an additional $131.573 million in the past financial year as a result of purchasing foodstuff from distant markets. Cuba has no access to cheap credit or insurance because of the American sanctions. The U.S. does allow Cuba to import limited amounts of foodstuffs and grain but they are subjected to complex licensing mechanisms.

The Bush administration had given high priority to the efforts to undermine the revolution. The economic blockade was tightened, more money was earmarked for promoting democracy, and the Cuban exiles in Florida were given a free hand to plan and execute their plots. Among the Cuban exiles living in the U.S. were certified terrorists such as Luis Posada Carriles, the man responsible for placing on a Cuban airliner the bomb that killed all 78 people on board in 1976. The U.S. chose to put Cuba 30 years ago on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism. Cuba at that time was actively involved in supporting liberation movements such as the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa and the Peoples Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in Angola while the U.S. was backing apartheid South Africa and its proxies in the region.

Rigid stance

The inflexible positions adopted by successive Presidents, including the current one, on Cuba have come in for scathing criticism from many world leaders. Bolivian President Evo Morales, speaking at the U.N. General Assembly in September, said that the U.S. had unilaterally put Cuba on the terrorist list as an excuse to continue the blockade. Morales said that the vast majority of nations had rejected the U.S. position. The real terrorist is the United States, he said. It is not possible that the blockade should continue to exist in the 21st century.

The Bolivian President also called on the Obama administration to release the Cuban Five, who have been incarcerated in American jails for the past 14 years. The five Cuban intelligence agentsGerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino and Rene Gonzalezwere jailed on spurious charges. They had infiltrated a right-wing Cuban exile group in Florida and exposed its plans to bomb tourist spots in Cuba. Hotels in Havana were targeted in 1997. In one incident, a foreign tourist was killed.

The real crime of the Cuban Five was that they alerted Havana about the plans of the terrorist outfits in Miami. The Cuban authorities, in turn, used to convey credible information in their possession to their counterparts in Washington. Many terrorist plans were thus foiled. But the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) never arrested the masterminds behind the terror plots against Cuba. They continue to operate with impunity on American soil.

The Cuban Five were only concerned about collecting information that was important to Cubas national security. Their case has received support not only from heads of governments and national parliaments but also from eminent personalities from around the world, including 10 Nobel laureates. President Obama, himself a Nobel Peace laureate, has so far refused to use his executive authority to release the five Cubans. However, there is talk about the possibility of a swap deal between Havana and Washington.

A U.S. citizen, Alan Gross, working as a subcontractor for the U.S. State Department, was arrested in Havana in 2010 after being caught distributing laptops and cell phones to anti-government activists. He has been given a lengthy sentence, but Cuban officials have indicated that they would not be averse to a deal that could see the return of the five Cuban heroes back to their homeland.

U.S. terrorism

The Obama administration is trying to put further pressure on the Cuban government as it tries to implement wide-ranging reforms to improve the quality of life of a people who have been under an unremitting blockade. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, speaking at the recent U.N. General Assembly meet, said that the real purpose of the U.S. keeping Cuba on the spurious terrorist list was to fabricate pretexts to increase the persecution of Cubas financial transactions and justify the policy of blockade.

He said that it was the U.S. that was in fact using terrorism as a tool in its policy of isolating Cuba.

Rodriguez said that U.S. state terrorism was directly responsible for the death of 3,478 persons and the maiming of 2,099 of our compatriots. Rodriguez condemned the U.S. double standards on terrorism, saying that the blockade was an outrage against the Cuban people and the international community and discredits the cause of battle against terrorism.

When U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens was killed in Libya, Cuba was quick to send in a condolence message and condemn the terror attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. The Cuban government, the Foreign Minister reminded the international community, had time and again voiced its eagerness to normalise relations with the U.S. through dialogue, on an equal footing and with absolute respect for our independence.

The Obama administration has, however, refused to have a rethink on its Cuba policy, despite being in splendid isolation internationally on the issue. A recent opinion poll showed that 70 per cent of the people in America were for normalising relations between the two countries. Since 1992, the U.N. General Assembly has been passing resolutions condemning the U.S. blockade; in 2011, only Israel supported the blockade. A total of 186 countries voted in favour of the Cuban resolution, The necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States of America.

The U.S. is trying to use issues relating to human rights in a desperate attempt to garner support for its policies. The Cuban government insists that nobody is repressed by reason of thinking differently in its country. Cuban officials say that it is one thing to disagree and another to be funded by an enemy state to promote subversion. The Obama administration continues to allocate millions of dollars to finance a very small group of dissidents in the ongoing efforts to destabilise the revolution.