Cuba-“Confusion”

Cuba appears “confusing”. Contradictory claims, blames, assertions, imaginations, opinions are making a cloud of confusion.

Claims are being made: Cuba has compromised, Cuba has capitulated. Hopes are thrown in the air: Cuba is going to be sold out. Assertions are being made: the Castros are bad brothers, we told; revolution is being betrayed.

Even Barack Obama, the US president, is being blamed and being praised. It seems the Castro brothers and Obama have conspired together either to cease Cuba’s struggle for establishing a prosperous and sustainable socialism or to strengthen the Castro brothers’ “brutal” rule.

A look into a camp in the Empire gives an amazing view as the camp finds Cuban ayatollahs in Havana.

Right-camp in the US is divided over the Cuba question. It’s now busy with argument and counter-argument: Which is hurting the Cuban people most: the embargo the Empire imposed or the lack of the Empire defined democracy? Hot debates, even war of words are flying around as US law makers were heard saying: “I won’t shy away from battle”, and “I’m happy to finish a fight.”

Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, two leading Republicans, in a joint statement denounced Obama’s Cuba-move: “Unfortunately, today’s chapter … is one of America and the values it stands for in retreat and decline. It is about … diminishing America’s influence in the world.” Senator Roy Blunt considered the move as the latest in a string of poor policy decisions by the US president, and greater trade with Cuba would help Castro stay in power. “I don’t think you can effectively do that as long as the Castro brothers are in charge of Cuba”, he said. “By seeking to normalize relations,” Senator Kelly Ayotte said, “the administration is rewarding the very behavior we want to end”. Senator Robert Menendez, a top Democrat, slammed: “President Obama’s actions have vindicated the brutal behavior of the Cuban government”. Senator Ted Cruz and former Florida governor Jeb Bush were also critical of Obama’s Cuba-move.

Most dissatisfied was Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American. He considered the Obama-move as a victory for the Cuban government. His criticism was wider. He criticized Senator Rand Paul as Paul supported Obama’s move. Rand “has no idea what he’s talking about”, said Rubio.

Rand Paul countered: “The 50-year embargo hasn’t worked. If the goal is regime change, it sure doesn’t seem to be working”. He expressed hope: “I think trade might loosen things up and might help to topple the Castros.”

Two religious organizations – the Baptist World Alliance, a 42-million member international alliance of Baptist churches and groups, and the Catholic League, an American civil rights organization – praised the Obama-move. A leader of the Catholic League said: “Economic liberty does not guarantee political liberty, but it does work to undermine the forces of repression,” he said. “More important than markets is the exchange of ideas that this rapprochement will bring.”
Some Cuban exiles, fogey anti-Castro elements, in Miami stand against Obama’s Cuba-plan. Some Cuban-Americans are deeply disappointed with the move. To the elements, Obama’s announcement gives recognition to the illegitimate Castro regime, a dictatorship. Many of these elements took part in attempts to assassinate Castro.

These elements pledged to oppose Obama’s plan. They feel let down by Obama. “When the Bay of Pigs was abandoned, we were sad. And now we feel abandoned again, betrayed by the president”, said the head of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association, a group of diehards.

These are the CIA-backed mercenaries pressed into the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion to foil Fidel-led revolution. With death of about 100 mercenaries the CIA-organized invasion turned into a disaster. Revolutionary forces captured about a thousand mercenaries trained by the CIA in Nicaragua and Guatemala. “Americans have a habit of betraying friends and then letting them drop. We’ve all faced it, we’re used to it by now”, said a pilot, who participated in three missions to foil the Cuba revolution. It seems these elements engaged in criminal activities have now turned “anti”-imperialist.

There are dozens of anti-Castro organizations, media companies, terror gangs, drug and arms rings, lobbying organizations, aid groups floated and run with tax payers’ millions of dollars. There are the US-run Radio Marti and TV Marti. The business is being run for decades. Their target: Overthrow Castro. The anti-Castro groups include the Cuban American National Foundation, a lobbying group engaged with the job of toppling the Cuban government, and the Cuban Democratic Directorate that runs a Miami-based shortwave radio program targeting the Cuban people, and supports Cuban anti-people forces. These anti-Castro elements keep their hope on the US Congress to push back Obama’s promise to lift the Cuba-embargo.

Obama hopes his new plan gives the US a chance to influence events in Cuba as 50-years’ of non-stop attempts to topple the Castro government haven’t worked. “If we engage, we have the opportunity to influence the course of events at a time when there’s going to be some generational change in that country”, Obama told a CNN interview.
A motive is clearly spelled out: Foil the Cuban people’s revolution.

On the other hand, there is criticism from a part of “left”: Castro has capitulated. All is going to be sold.
Thus confusion is being created. Castro brothers – Fidel and Raul – are everywhere irrespective of controversy, claim and blame. The two individuals, according to “left” adventurist analysis, create and mould society. “Really two powerful” guys! “Left” adventurists consider individuals only and deny contradictions and class forces in society.
In between the two camps, right and adventurist “left”, Raul Castro outlined a future and a hope.

President Raul Castro said in the Cuban National Assembly: Cuba wouldn’t renounce its socialist system despite the normalization of ties with the US. Detente with the US won’t change the system the Cuban people are building up. “We must not expect that in order for relations with the United States to improve, Cuba will abandon the ideas that it has struggled for.”

Raul insisted Cuba would not give up its socialist principles. “In the same way that we have never demanded that the United States change its political system, we will demand respect for ours”, Raul told the National Assembly.

The Cuban leader said: “We always have been willing to engage in respectful dialogue on equal terms to address any issues without a shadow over our independence and without renouncing a single one of our principles.” “We reiterate our willingness for respectful and reciprocal dialogue concerning disagreements”, said Raul. He added: Cuba “accepted dialogue... on any topic about all things here but also in the United States.” It’s an assertion of position.
Another assertion came. It was from Mariela Castro, daughter of Raul.

Mariela asserted: Cuba will defend its socialist principles and will not return to capitalism just because it has agreed a detente with the US. She told: “The people of Cuba don’t want to return to capitalism.” She dispelled any notion that US companies would be free to roll into Cuba.

Other parts of Mariela’s statement are significant also: “We’ve been at this 56 years and ... we love saying that we are a country in revolution, trying to create socialism, and we form part of a single party called the Communist Party.” She added: “Sometimes people say Fidel is hard-headed, that the Cuban leaders are hard-headed, but experience has taught us something important, that we should never give in on our principles.”

Mariela said moves by the US president won’t lead to the downfall of the system in Cuba. “If the US thinks these changes will bring Cuba back to capitalism and return it to being a servile country to hegemonic interests of the most powerful financial groups in the US, they must be dreaming.”

With the cited statements the effort, the path ahead, and the struggle waiting keep no room for imagination. It’s, hasta la victoria siempre.

It’s easier to make sweeping remarks, formulate theories isolated from reality, ask for adventurist actions without bearing any responsibility for results and implications of the actions, have no accountability to people, and have no electorate. Adventurism thus wins a moment of present time.

But adventurism has no place in the life of people, who struggle, sustain, build up, face hardship and make sacrifice. The reality Cuba now faces, and faced for years has to be taken into consideration. Cuba’s reality doesn’t allow adventurism.
The Cuban people face sabotage. It’s part of their daily life, part of a “long and difficult struggle”. The Empire-imposed embargo is in place. There is international financial transaction limits imposed on Cuba. Cuba’s access to credit and international investment is blocked. At the same time, the Cuban people need respite, space for sustainably building up their way of life.

The Cuban people are struggling to properly handle contradictions within their society, in the spheres of agriculture, industry, trade, urban and rural life, political participation, etc., and in between these. The people are reckoning balance of forces within their society, and in the spheres of the continent and the world. They are to take into account the space available for maneuvering.

A straight path would have been nice. But class reality doesn’t always allow the desired straight path. The path moves in a zigzag way. All are to traverse a path repeatedly turning and bending, a compromise. Engels and Lenin discussed the meaning of zigzag path, which doesn’t allow adventurism. “Every zigzag turn in history is a compromise, a compromise between the old, which is no longer strong enough to completely negate the new, and the new, which is not yet strong enough to completely overthrow the old. Marxism does not altogether reject compromise. Marxism considers it necessary to make use of them …” (Lenin, “Against Boycott”)

One can blame the Castro brothers; one can brush off Cuba’s struggle, its journey through a zigzag path. The journey would have been better had the adventurists organized widespread Cuba-solidarity campaign among people in respective societies so that political pressure mounts on to import Cuba’s medical knowledge and medicines, so that political pressure is created to defy the embargo and enter into wider trade relations with Cuba, so that educational exchanges with Cuba are increased. It would have been nice had the adventurists organized boycott of loading fuel into warships, had they organized a ship load of cement or an oil tanker destined for Havana. It would have been nice had they made their people aware of Cuba’s efforts to heal its soil, its urban agriculture efforts, its revolutionary doctors, its achievements in the area of medical science. These would have widened Cuba’s breathing space, the country’s friends-circle, strengthened the society’s struggle, provided moral ground to criticism of the Castro brothers’ “capitulation”, and would have taken away a bit of “confusion”.

Cuba-Question: A Major US Retreat

A major US retreat on Cuba-question is evident in the US president Barack Obama's December 17, 2014 announcement: “In the most significant changes in our policy in more than 50 years, we will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests …”

The “failed”, “outdated approach” has compelled the US to announce taking steps for “changing its relationship with the people of Cuba.” Announcement is not everything required for any change as actual politics is determined by forces far away from announcement, and economy and politics spells out announcement.

It's an announcement of failure in an Empire's power. With the announcement it has been proved empires can't do and undo all the “things” in all the times in all the places as there is another power – people power, the power of people's political awareness, unity, sense of dignity that makes many powers crumble down. It's virtually Cuba's, the Cuban people's victory in their long steadfast struggle for creating a dignified life. 

Raul Castro, the president of Cuba, reiterated this in his reciprocal statement made from Havana on December 17, 2014: “I have reiterated in many occasions our willingness to hold a respectful dialogue with the United States on the basis of sovereign equality, in order to deal reciprocally … without detriment to the national Independence and self-determination of our people.”

Nostalgia was not overpowering the US president as he was briefly referring to the history of futile US policy on Cuba: “I was born in 1961, just over two years after Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, and just a few months after the Bay of Pigs invasion, which tried to overthrow his regime. Over the next several decades, the relationship between our countries played out against the backdrop of the Cold War, and America's steadfast opposition to communism.”

It was his effort to construct logic for making a shift. And, it was conceding a fact: Steadfast opposition. And, with the word “communism” he meant the political-economic system the Cuban people are struggling to build up, which is still far away from communism. It's, to quote Raul, “to build a prosperous and sustainable Socialism.”

The US president admits the US policy was “aimed to isolate the island,” Cuba. And he admits: “[N]o other nation joins us in imposing these sanctions”. It's – “no other nation joins us” – conceding an empire's utter failure. With the mightiest military machine in the world, with an efficient and experienced political and diplomatic machine, with wide economic and financial power, an empire failed to pull along any other nation against an “island”, actually, a nation. So, the US president said: “Today, Cuba is still governed by … the Communist Party that came to power half a century ago.”

It was not only a failure. The Empire was increasingly getting isolated in the world. Voting results over the years in the UN General Assembly on Cuba issue is the example.

The empire's failure comes as there are the Cuban people. Raul says in his statement: “The heroic Cuban people, in the wake of serious dangers, aggressions, adversities and sacrifices has proven to be faithful and will continue to be faithful to our ideals of independence and social justice. Strongly united throughout these 56 years of Revolution, we have kept our unswerving loyalty to those who died in defense of our principles since the beginning of our independence wars in 1868.” A people's soul comes to light: Faithful to ideals of independence and social justice, strongly united, unswerving loyalty to those who died in defense of principles.

The US president's announcement tells an irrational policy implemented for decades: “[F]or more than 35 years, we've had relations with China, a far larger country also governed by a Communist Party. Nearly two decades ago, we re-established relations with Vietnam, where we fought a war that claimed more Americans than any Cold War confrontation.”

If this is the fact, why the Empire kept on going with its policy on Cuba? The policy was followed for decades. It's not only the Cuban people; people in other lands also had to pay for the policy. The Bangladesh case may be cited. Bangladesh exported jute products to Cuba. The Bangladesh people had to pay a high price: thousands of death in an empire-made famine.

The Cuba policy had its parts spread over the entire hemisphere, and even in Africa. One can recollect organizing the Contra mercenaries, and burning of crop fields, forests, destruction of schools, hospitals, food storages in Nicaragua. One can recollect blood bath by death squads in El Salvador. One can recollect the Grenada invasion. One can recollect incidents engineered in Haiti. One can recollect deaths and interferences in Panama, Peru, Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia. Chile and Bolivia are among other examples. In all the cases, peoples in those lands paid with blood. And, all the cases were charged with the Empire's Cuba policy: Wipe out Castro's Cuba and all its vestiges.    

Is the policy failure rational with the intellectual capacity the Empire commands? What's the reason for failure to identify and rectify the policy failure?

It was not a policy failure. It was not also a failure in intellectual capacity as intellectual capacity was dictated by interests. It was part of safeguarding an interest vested in large property and unquestionable privilege. It was property and privilege of individuals tied together spanning countries and companies. They all make elites, dominant classes. Cuba stood as an example of depowering those classes within its border.

The US president said: “Cuba has sent hundreds of health care workers to Africa to fight Ebola, and I believe American and Cuban health care workers should work side by side to stop the spread of this deadly disease.” The position, it seems, has shifted. Once, dirty tricks were played to oppose health workers from Cuba in countries. And, people had to pay for those tricks played by vested quarters tied to the Empire.

President Obama has instructed the US secretary of state John Kerry to review Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. He said: “Terrorism has changed in the last several decades.”

It seems the Empire is standing in front of a mirror to have a clear view of self. It knows best the roots, the collaboration, the fund, the training, the arms, the ideological, propaganda and diplomatic support extended to today's terrorism; but it's not that, to which he was referring, that “has changed in the last several decades.”     

Cuba is fighting terrorism for 50 years. There were bombings, killings of Cuban citizens including children, violations of Cuban air space, air dropping of leaflets provoking people to resort to unlawful acts, bombing of the Cuba Flight 455 over the Caribbean in 1976 that killed 73 passengers including teenage members of the Cuban national fencing team, a series of hotel bombings in Havana in 1997 that killed an Italian businessman and disrupted Cuba's tourist industry. These were organized and carried out by terrorist groups sheltered and patronized across the Cuban frontier. Is there any state that doesn't defend itself against terrorist acts? The US is the burning example.

Important question is the embargo. Raul says: “We have … agreed to renew diplomatic relations. This in no way means that the heart of the matter has been solved. The economic, commercial, and financial blockade, which causes enormous human and economic damages to our country, must cease.”

Obama also raises the embargo issue: “The embargo that's been imposed for decades is now codified in legislation.” He adds: “[W]e should not allow US sanctions to add to the burden of Cuban citizens that we seek to help.” He said: “[I]t does not serve America's interests, or the Cuban people, to try to push Cuba toward collapse.” And, he assures: “I look forward to engaging Congress in an honest and serious debate about lifting the embargo.”

Raul's statement makes specific proposal on the issue: “Though the blockade has been codified into law, the President of the United States has the executive authority to modify its implementation.” Raul moves further: “We propose to the Government of the United States the adoption of mutual steps to improve the bilateral atmosphere and advance towards normalization of relations between our two countries, based on the principles of International Law and the United Nations Charter.” President Raul said in his statement: “Obama's decision deserves the respect and acknowledgement of our people.” A posture is revealed. And, reciprocity is expected. 

A crucial test is in the wings with the changed numbers-power in the US Congress. There are strong opponents to Obama's Cuba move. To Republican House Speaker John Boehner, Obama's move is “another in a long line of mindless concessions to a dictatorship that brutalizes its people and schemes with our enemies.” Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American, and the Florida Republican, now considers Obama as the “worst negotiator” of Rubio's “lifetime.” To anti-Castro hard-liners, “the deal is a betrayal and capitulation to communist tyranny.” The strong tone tells something.

The occasion was historic as Obama spoke with Raul Castro over telephone to finalize Alan Gross's release and the exchange of prisoners, and other related issues.  Raul echoed the positive tone: “As a result of a dialogue at the highest level, which included a phone conversation I had yesterday [December 16, 2014] with President Obama, we have been able to make headway in the solution of some topics of mutual interest for both nations.” The conversation, now part of history, was the first such contact since the Cuban revolution.   

Interests including business in the US are willing to deal with Cuba. This is Obama's one area of support. There's a run for Cuba-oil. Already a few countries have gained better position about the prospective oil. The US can't ignore this.  Discussions on maritime boundaries with Cuba and Mexico in the Gulf of Mexico will be ensued.

Release of the three Cuban prisoners is a major victory for Cuba. Raul's statement reminds: “Fidel promised on June 2001…: ‘They shall return!' Gerardo, Ramon, and Antonio [the rest three of the five Cubans] have arrived … to our homeland.”

Raul's statement carries a significant indication:

“While acknowledging our profound differences, particularly on issues related to national sovereignty, democracy, human rights and foreign policy, I reaffirm our willingness to dialogue on all these issues.

“As we have reiterated, we must learn the art of coexisting with our differences in a civilized manner.”

Now, it's for the US to decide: whether or not to coexist in a civilized manner with Cuba, an example of a positive alternative socio-economic-political system only 90 miles from the US mainland. The fear of the example led the super power to put Cuba on the chessboard of the Cold War that experienced near-hot days with the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Cuba exists as an example to the downtrodden people of the world whatever the Empire decides. It's an example of courage with dignity for the ideals of peace and prosperity. It's an example of a geographically small country's struggle to live with honor, which is possible with a politically aware and united people imbued with sense of dignity.