Africa Speaks Reasoning Forum

Throwing down the gauntlet for Cuba

By Osvaldo Cardenas
Wednesday, Mar 12, 2014


I feel moved to respond to the article written by Anton Edmunds, titled “Cuba — A growing threat to the Caribbean?” in the Jamaica Observer of February 17.

Mr Edmunds’ article is based on unsubstantiated assumptions that have been repeated with few seriously challenging them. As a Cuban, and as a Jamaican, I throw down the gauntlet on the issue.

Throughout half a century I have read hundreds of articles and statements that describe Cuba as a threat to the US.

The US argument in the early years of the Cuban Revolution was that Cuba was a surrogate of the Soviet Union. The US imposed an economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba in the early 1960s. The real aim was to remove the Cuban government by any means.

The threat now, according to Mr Edmunds, seems to be the Caribbean leaders’ call during the Latin American and Caribbean State Summit in Havana for equality, the creation of a zone of peace, and the lifting of the more than half-century-old US embargo against Cuba. Those are legitimate concerns of the leaders and the people of Latin America and the Caribbean, and I do not see any reason for Caribbean leaders to be silent on these issues.

The Caribbean Community heads were the first in this hemisphere, after the governments of Mexico and Canada, to challenge US policy to isolate Cuba, when in 1972 the four independent Caricom governments established diplomatic relations with Cuba. I believe those leaders were proven to be visionaries when, in October 2013, for the 22nd consecutive time, the vast majority of the countries of the world in the United Nations General Assembly voted to end the US embargo against Cuba, and on this occasion only the US and Israel voted against.

I know there are people who believe everything in this world is about money, but fortunately most of us know that is not the case; justice, decency, human solidarity, and love are fundamental to human existence and well-being.

The idea that Cuba will take away the investments from other Caribbean territories is preposterous firstly because those investments do not belong to Jamaica, Caricom, or anyone. Why is Cuba the threat and not Mexico that has a free trade agreement with the US and is the second largest country in size and population in Latin America and the Caribbean, just to mention a case?

It is interesting that the manipulation of the issue of human rights by the international media, dominated by the US and some EU countries, allows a double standard. When nationals of the US, England and other EU states support activities organised by countries considered to be enemies of these states they can easily be considered to be criminal offenders against state security. This is continuously demonstrated in the “war on terror”. Yet, in Cuba, when its citizens are supported by the US in acts that seek to destabilise Cuba, any attempt by the Cuban government to sanction this conduct is labelled by the international media as breaches of human rights.

As obtains in any other country, not everybody agrees with the government, but the so-called opposition or dissidents in Cuba are a very small group of people, most of them financed and supported by the US Interests Section, as the US Mission in Havana is called.

The persistence of confrontation in the relations between the US and Cuba introduced the possibility of a conflict that could even take a military dimension, as was shown during the Bay of Pigs Invasion in 1961 or the missile crisis in 1962. Such a situation could affect the security of all the region. I am sure no one in their rational mind want something like that to happen.

Recent information indicates the majority of the US population, Cubans and Cuban Americans in US favour the resumption of the relations between both countries. The US and Cuba will eventually normalise relations in a complex process that may take years. They will have to deal with a socialist and revolutionary Cuba that will preserve the best of its achievements with a dynamic and patriotic private sector with foreign investments, and the dominant heights of the economy in the hands of the state in representation of the society, and as a guarantee of social justice and equality of opportunities for all. In all, a more democratic Cuba with greater freedoms socially and individually.

Full article: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Throwing-down-the-gauntlet-for-Cuba_16214105 (http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/Throwing-down-the-gauntlet-for-Cuba_16214105)