Cuba deserves Africa's solidarity
Cuba deserves Africa's solidarityBy editor
Monday September 10, 2007 [04:00]
The economic blockade against Cuba must cease. Depriving millions of people, including women, children and elderly of food, medicine and the means to make a living is an extremely cruel act of terrorism, a real genocide. It should be considered a war crime and punished by the international courts of law.
We welcome Ugandan Vice-President Gilbert Bukenya's campaign for an end to the United States' blockade of Cuba and his clarion call to African countries to oppose and denounce this blockade.
The United States' blockade of Cuba has been opposed by all fair-minded people, by all people with a sense of justice in the world.
Pope John Paul II called for an end to the United States' embargo against Cuba during his 1979 pastoral visit to Mexico, and again during his 1998 visit to Cuba. Patriarch Bartholomew I called the embargo a "historic mistake" while visiting the island on January 25, 2004.
The United States' religious leaders have also opposed the embargo. A joint letter in 1998 from the Disciples of Christ and the United Church of Christ to the United States Senate called for the easing of economic restrictions against Cuba. Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton, and Minister Louis Farrakhan have also publicly opposed the embargo.
On May 15, 2002, former United States president Jimmy Carter spoke in Havana, calling for an end to the embargo, saying "our two nations have been trapped in a destructive state of belligerence for 42 years, and it's time for us to change our relationship".
The United States' embargo against Cuba is an economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed on Cuba on February 7, 1962.
The embargo was enacted after Cuba instituted its agrarian reforms which expropriated the properties of United States citizens and corporations, notably those that belonged to the United Fruit Company and ITT.
The embargo was codified into law in 1992 with the stated purpose of bringing democracy to the Cuban people, and in fact is entitled the Cuban Democracy Act.
In 1996, the United States Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act which further restricted United States citizen from doing business in or with Cuba, and mandated restrictions on giving public or private assistance to any successor regime in Havana unless and until certain claims against the Cuban government are met.
In 1999, United States president Bill Clinton expanded the trade embargo even further by ending the practice of foreign subsidiaries of United States companies trading with Cuba in dollar amounts totaling more than US$700 million a year.
As for this year, the embargo which limits United States businesses from trading or conducting business with Cuban interests is still in effect, making it one of the few times in history that United States citizens have been restricted from doing business abroad, and is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history.
The Cuban Assets Control Regulations imposed restrictions on imports to the United States from Cuba and exports from the United States to Cuba, including gifts of goods and cash, and on transactions with Cuba or Cuban nationals, imposed a total freeze or block on Cuban assets and financial dealings with Cuba that enter the United States or come under the United States jurisdiction, and restrict travel to Cuba - subject to certain exceptions and licencing.
They also make it illegal for United States citizens or permanent residents to purchase Cuban goods for consumption outside the United States.
These regulations are still in force and are administered by the United States Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control. Criminal penalties for violating the embargo range up to ten years in prison, US$1 million in corporate fines, and US$250,000 in individual fines; civil penalties up to US$55,000 per violation may also be imposed.
It is estimated that the total direct economic impact caused to Cuba by the United States embargo is US$86 billion, including loss of export earnings, additional import costs and limiting the growth of the Cuban economy.
This embargo has been the source of almost unanimous international criticism. Annual votes in the United Nations General Assembly that call on the United States to lift its sanctions pass with exceptionally large margins - 173 to 3 in 2002; 179 to 4 in 2004 - in the 2006, only the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau voted against the resolution - with federated states of Micronesia abstaining.
Clearly, the reasons for these sanctions are being questioned by many people. Others wonder why the United States maintains sanctions against Cuba but not against China or Vietnam.
According to Noam Chomsky, the true reason for this embargo was revealed in "a declassified 1964 State Department document which declares Fidel Castro to be an intolerable threat because he 'represents a successful defiance of the United States, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century and half,' since the Monroe Doctrine declared that no challenge to the United States dominance would be tolerated in the hemisphere."
When one looks at the United Nations General Assembly votes, it is clear that these sanctions are opposed by the great majority of the countries of the world. But the United States, as we witnessed over the Iraq war, has no respect for world opinion.
It has continued to impose these criminal sanctions against Cuba despite overwhelming world opposition to them. Imagine what would happen if it was another country, a Third World country for that matter, which was defying world opinion in this way!
There is no alternative the world, especially our poor world, Africa, has to wage a relentless struggle at every forum to oppose and denounce the United States blockade against Cuba.
This island and its people deserve our support because they have been with us throughout our struggles; they have supported in all ways our independence and liberation struggles without paying any attention to what we would do for them.
Many Cuban lives were lost in Angola, defending that country's independence and altering the balance of forces in southern Africa, which opened new prospects for the defeat of apartheid and colonialism in our region.
Truly, as Vice-President Bukenya has correctly observed, Africa owes Cuba a debt which needs to be repaid.
And what Cuba needs most now is the removal of these sanctions. Let us pay our debt to Cuba by demonstrating the highest levels of solidarity with this heroic, selfless and revolutionary people who helped us liberate our continent with their blood - with everything they had.
They still today continue to share with us the fruits of their achievements in health and education, among other areas of human endeavour. They truly deserve our solidarity; let us unconditionally give it to them.
posted by MrK @ 3:40 AM
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