The guest of stone in Port-of-Spain

By
Manuel E. Yepe                                                                 Read Spanish Version  

The
great corporate media have been prodigiously fanciful of late when
explaining the unusual presence of Cuba as an inevitable topic during
the debates prior to the Summit that will take place April 17-19 in
Trinidad & Tobago, without identifying the nation responsible for
the absurd situation.

How
to explain "the problem of Cuba" and try to solve it
without revealing the real origin of the "isolation" of a
member of the community of Latin American nations that has gradually
established normal diplomatic relations with all the members of the
organization that calls for a Summit, as their governments have
recovered the sovereignty of their respective nations?

The
"big media" put imaginative spins in their news and news
analyses to the events that caused Cuba’s absence from the regional
forums.

"Cuba
was separated from the organization in 1962 when the member states
said its communist system was contrary to the inter-American
principles," all corporate media say almost without exception,
without mentioning that — with the honorable exception of Mexico —
all member states unwillingly obeyed a command from Washington.

With
the passing of years, the imposition became ever more insufferable,
especially for the new governments that emerged after the U.S.-backed
military dictatorships were knocked down. The exercise of sovereignty
over their foreign relations allowed their links to Cuba to be
established, one after another, as a growing tendency toward
independence spread throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.

Washington’s
hegemonic abuses in Latin America were the reason why more and more
new leaders of Latin America were politicians with more points of
contact with Havana than with the White House, notwithstanding the
enormous influence that economic, technological and military power
grants the U.S. leaders.

Not
even the discredited argument of a violation of civil rights in Cuba
serves as an excuse for the international isolation of Cuba. The
economic and commercial blockade with which the United States tried
to strangle the Cuban Revolution was explicitly and unanimously
repudiated by the community of world nations. The vote at the United
Nations caused one of the most humiliating defeats of U.S. diplomacy
in the entire post-war period.

In
a categorical public document released by Amnesty International’s
international secretariat, based in London, the organization recalls
that the United States is today the only country in the American
continent without diplomatic relations with Cuba and rejects the
argument that the attempted isolation of Cuba served in any way the
cause of human rights in the world.

The
exclusion from Cuba of the Fifth Summit of the Americans, to be held
in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, makes evident the
irrationality of a Washington policy that has lasted more than half a
century. No one is unaware that that policy will have to cease,
sooner rather than later, without achieving a single one of its
objectives, neither real nor alleged.

When
the national sovereignty of the Caribbean island and its right to
maintain the social order and the political system its people have
elected are effectively acknowledged and respected by the North
American superpower, the Cuban people will achieve a historic
victory.

Surely,
when that time comes, there will be a call for protocol formulae and
media skullduggery to conceal or attenuate the loud defeat of that
imperial policy, but the undisputable fact (which will serve as an
example to all people) is that when a nation, small and poor though
it may be, unites so closely to defend its rights and is as willing
to sacrifice itself as the Cuban nation has been since 1959, there is
no empire or power capable of thwart it.

Everything
seems to indicate that the new U.S. president has the option to
accept or postpone that pivotal moment. Ten of his predecessors opted
for the latter. Barack Obama appears to be different from the other
leaders, but it remains to be seen if the empire itself, its banks
and military industry have learned the lesson and accept a change.

It
seem inevitable that a "guest of stone" will be present in
Port-of-Spain.

Manuel
E. Yepe Menéndez is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He works as
a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in
Havana.