The United States intervenes in Cuba

From La Jornada

The United States government immediately expressed its support for the anti-government protests taking place in Cuba due to the crisis in that country, but did not acknowledge that U.S. measures designed to suffocate the island’s economy, and which the international community just recently condemned for the 29th time at the UN, have that exact purpose. In other words, the measures are meant to generate that type of crisis, not to mention the millions of dollars that Washington dedicates to intervene in the internal affairs of Cuba, including promoting just these types of protests.

President Joe Biden expressed “our support for the Cuban people and their cry for freedom and relief from the tragic consequences of the pandemic and the decades of repression and economic suffering to which they have been subjected by Cuba’s authoritarian regime.” He added, “the Cuban people are acting with courage in claiming their fundamental and universal rights” and called for the “Cuban regime to listen to its people and attend to their needs in this vital moment instead of enriching itself.”

At a press conference, Secretary of State Antony Blinken commented that “tens of thousands” of Cubans took to the streets to “exercise their rights of peaceful assembly and express their perspectives … calling for freedom and human rights” and criticizing the “Cuban authoritarian regime for failing to meet the most basic needs of the people, including food and medicine.” He urged the Cuban government not to repress the protesters and allow these people to “determine their own future.”

Both statements, like several more of his subordinates in the administration, were notable for what they did not mention: that the policies of the six-decade embargo along with the more than 243 measures enacted during the Trump administration are designed exactly for that: to suffocate the Cuban economy and to cause shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Precisely because of their effects on the Cuban people, they were condemned by an overwhelming majority of the United Nations General Assembly on June 23, including almost all of Washington’s allies with the exception of Israel.

Nor did they mention that Washington continues to distribute more than $20 million annually in “assistance” to Cuban anti-government groups. In the federal budget bill for the next fiscal year, the U.S. government intends to grant another 20 million for “construction of democracy, human rights and civil society programs in Cuba.” Almost 13 million are also proposed for Radio and TV Martí, among other propaganda channels (it is not public how many more million in secret operations).

What has surprised several experts and observers of the bilateral relationship is the decision of the new Biden administration, to date, not to make a turn in policy towards the island, which Biden promised to do in his electoral campaign where it stated that the Cuba’s policies of isolation had failed.

Blinken — without mentioning the economic sanctions and funds to assist dissent and even less the long and dark history of interventions — ruled out that the incidents in Cuba have anything to do with Washington. “It would be a serious mistake for the Cuban regime to interpret what is happening … as a result or product of whatever the United States has done,” he said.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki reiterated that “there is every indication that yesterday’s protests were spontaneous expressions of people who are exhausted with the economic mismanagement and repression of the Cuban government.” But she seemed to immediately contradict herself, adding that the Biden government “is evaluating how we can directly help the people of Cuba.”

It drew the attention of some observers that the events in Cuba did not seem to surprise Washington, least of all Miami.

Lawyer José Pertierra, a veteran specialist on the United States-Cuba relationship, told Mexico’s La Jornada that “this is a perfect storm” in which the consequences of the U.S. measures “to tighten” even more the blockade have combined with a lack of food and electricity (in the heat of summer), and a pandemic that among other things has forced the closure of tourism, and have resulted in desperate conditions for the population. When this malaise is manifested by various sectors in Cuba, “the United States seeks to encourage these expressions” and recalls that this was always the explicit purpose of the blockade from the beginning: “to cause despair among the people.”

Promoters of these policies in the United States are always prepared to use the crises that they foment, and “they have a script, including threats against those who denounce them.” They have the immediate objective of preventing the blockade from being lifted, and perhaps — with what has just happened — they have succeeded, for now, with Biden,” added Pertierra.

That script does not come from Cuba but from Miami, he affirms, and as an example he says that he was threatened on Sunday during the demonstrations on the island. He received a call from an “unknown number” that dialed him insistently, and when he finally answered, a voice warned: “Communism is falling today in Cuba. We are watching you Pertierra. You are going to have to take care of yourself.” He wasn’t the only one to receive such a call.

Although lawmakers from both parties, especially Cuban-Americans, expressed their usual condemnation of the Cuban government — including powerful head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Robert Menendez, stating that “this could be a time to change the course of history;” and Republican Senator Marco Rubio urging Biden to demand that Cuban forces not repress violently protesters — not everyone joined the official chorus.

Veteran Democratic Congressman Jim McGovern declared that “the Cuban government has to respect the rights of its people to protest peacefully and legitimately. And the United States government has to end our embargo, which has been a miserable failure and has caused great suffering for the Cuban people.”

The head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Gregory Meeks, notably joined his colleague’s position and called on Biden to “help alleviate the suffering in Cuba by rescinding the Trump-era sanctions and offering additional vaccine and humanitarian assistance to the Cuban people.”

At the same time, there was also a diverse chorus of progressives in the United States who demanded “hands off Cuba.”

Translation to English by Progreso Weekly.