Lift Cuba embargo, activist says

<clips>

BRUNSWICK - If the impact of the United States' trade embargo on Cuba approximates $72 billion since it was enacted more than 40 years ago, "you can imagine how all of Cuba has been affected," said Andrés Gomez.

Gomez, who for decades has argued that economic sanctions hurt rather than help the United States' cause in Cuba, presented his case to an audience of about 30 people at Bowdoin College on Monday. In addition to arguing against the U.S. trade embargo, he has also been a vocal advocate for "the Cuban five," who were arrested by U.S. officials in 1998. The five men were charged with being spies for Fidel Castro's Cuban government, but Gomez asserts that they are political prisoners who were working to prevent "terrorist attacks" on Cuba by anti-Castro forces based in Miami.

Speaking of the effect of the embargo on Brunswick's sister city, Trinidad, a small coastal city in central southern Cuba, Gomez said that retirees and children with cancer and other diseases are hardest hit by the embargo. While there's universal health care in Cuba, the embargo limits the availability of medicines. People are forced to pay higher prices for their drugs — if they can even get them.

At the age of 13, Gomez emigrated from Cuba with his family in 1960 — one year after Castro came to power and months before the U.S. embargo of the Caribbean island took effect.

<http://www.timesrecord.com/website/main.nsf/news.nsf/0/CC344064C9384EC905256DBF005B3ABF?Opendocument>

The sooner, the better, not only for the U.S., but for Cuba, also.

detainees at Gitmo are confined to cages without being charged, having no access to family, and no lawyer. It's time the USA started taking care of their own problems and let other countries take care of theirs. F*ck'n hypocrites.

<>
Detainees at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) official Christophe Girod denounced the indefinite detention of "war on terror" suspects at the US naval base.(AFP/File)

Bush wrong to target Cuba travel
October 14, 2003

The United States has had a trade and travel embargo on Cuba for 41 years, and as a critic of that policy, Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., puts it, "At some point, we need to concede that our current approach has failed and try something new." Exactly.

But President Bush, perhaps with an eye to the Cuban-American vote in states such as Florida and New Jersey critical to his re-election, has opted to revert to the same old, same old.

He intends to impose tighter travel restrictions on Americans wanting to travel to Cuba.

This is wrong in principle. Absent compelling reasons of national security, clearly not at issue in hapless Cuba, Americans should be free to travel wherever they want.

.... Bush says he will instruct the Department of Homeland Security to increase its questioning and surveillance of American visitors to Cuba and "target" those going through third countries. So this is what Homeland Security is for? To monitor a free people's movements? Say it isn't so.

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/opinion/article/0,1299,DRMN_38_2345111,00.html

Tue, Oct. 14, 2003
BY SANDY PAPPAS AND PHYLLIS KAHN
Guest Columnists

Most people in Minnesota — and in this country — think Americans should be allowed to travel to Cuba. Our embargo against Cuba, which dates back over 40 years, has done nothing to improve the human rights or democracy situation there, while it restricts Americans' right to travel and hurts our agricultural and other commercial interests.

... We, too, have visited Cuba for significantly longer periods than Coleman's weekend trip. We believe that engagement — trade and travel, and real dialogue between Cubans and U.S. citizens — is far more likely to have an impact on the situation than is continuing our current failed embargo. We have met with members of religious communities, academics, ordinary citizens and both Cuban and U.S. government representatives in Cuba.

In fact, continuing current U.S. policy seems more like cutting off our nose to spite our face than anything else. Minnesota farmers, travel agents and business people are losing opportunities; and researchers, academics, and ordinary citizens from Minnesota and across this country are being denied the opportunity to visit Cuba and draw their own conclusions about the country, simply in order to continue an embargo that no one else in the world supports. That's not improving the human rights situation.

More... http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/news/opinion/7005262.htm

:hi: I thought you'd like to read them

http://www.visi.com/~sandypappas/biography.html

http://ww3.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/members.asp?district=59B

abject poverty, lack of medicines, major diseases, lack of basic sanitation (complete lack of chlorinated water or any sewage treatment)....

although there is no visible starvation (as I have seen in Tanzania and Kenya), there certainly is third-world medical care, sanitation, education (complete lack of books, paper, pencils, etc.), and housing...

it's time to drop the failed Helms-Burton Act...it hasn't worked....it's another failed reTHUGlican embargo....

Cuba may be poor by US standards but it is by no means the "abject poverty" stricken slum that you portray by any stretch of the imagination:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/new-for-you/top-sellers/-/books/16893/ref=br_b_ts_mor/002-6688211-8321658

Btw, it was the Dems who passed the Helms-Burton Act during Clinton's administration in 1996!

but I encourage that the Helms-Burton Act be dropped, so that everyone can go see for themselves the abject poverty, then we won't need to argue about it here on DU.......

Cuba is not just "poor by U.S. Standards"...Cuba has been under an embargo for many years, so NOTHING gets in....Cuba lacks medicines for their diseased people, books for their schools, and chlorine for their water/sewage treatment....that's what Helms-Burton Act did...Helms-Burton not only bans OUR ships from delivering anything to Cuban ports, but it also blocks ALL foreign ships from delivering anything to OUR ports after docking in Cuba...the result is that few ships will dock in Cuba, preferring to dock in the USA where there is money....complain about the USA embargo on Iraq killing millions of Iraqi children, but pretend that the USA embargo on Cuba is just peachy keen and all the Cuban children are healthy and educated...who are you trying to fool???? Abandon Helms-Burton so Americans can see the abject poverty....


BTW, if I recall, Clinton did not hold the majority in the Congress during most of his adminstration (unlike bush* who holds both the House and the Senate)...Clinton was a President who managed Congress despite his lack of a Democratic Majority...I would disagree with your stuffing that whole Helms-Burton mess on Democrats....

with a better Cuba policy to offer then Dems don’t have a leg to stand on.

Do you remember where Gore and Lieberman stood on the embargo?

Do you know where your favorite 2004 presidential candidate stands?

Dems have no one to blame but themsleves for their lack of a progressive Cuba policy after all these years.

Btw, I'm among the millions of people who freely visit Cuba each year and you don't fool me for a second.

visit as a tourist in such an impoverished country...

the tourist industry there is a very sick situation, that I am certain most Americans would be disgusted by if they could see it themselves...

however, why not just drop Helms-Burton and let everyone see the abject poverty themselves???? then you wouldn't need to diss Dems and put out your spin....

and spew ignorant bigotry deserve all the dissing they can get.

I've seen them before.

In fact, five minutes in Cuba will do it, blow a ton of the Batistiano "exiles" lies and bullshit right out the water in a flash.

Funny thing about Cuba policy is that not one of the people who dictate it to us have ever been there in over 40 years!

Gotta wonder where all the "humanitarian" ones were 10 years ago when the Soviets collapsed and the US tightened the embargo, or where they were 5 years ago when the Pope was pleading with them!

As you can see, money from such "humanitarians" is good, money from you or me is bad, just like the CANF manual says!

attack Cuba...

Jesse is right on...the attack will come....your post creates the best environment for Jesse's predictions to come true....sad...

there will be no countries to stand for Cuba against the USA...

of gusanoitis often found in the vicinity of Calle Ocho!

I agree that the trade sanctions and travel ban should end immediately.


Helms-Burton, in a nutshell, is the foundation of the myriad of trade embargo laws.

The travel ban on us Americans is OFAC and treasury (and now DHS) enforcing the trading with the enemy act.

There's no question the embargo has made it very difficult for the island and that some medicines are lacking, but the Pan American World Health Organization--without an ax to grind politically--paints a different picture than what you describe. Below Cuba is a description of the US, which is dispicable given our wealth. In the US almost a fifth of all children under the age of 6 years were living in poverty in 1999.

<clips>
Cuba:

* SPECIFIC HEALTH PROBLEMS

Analysis by population group

Children (0-4 years). Infant mortality reached 7.2 per 1,000 live births in 2000. 63% of deaths occurred in the neonatal period. Perinatal disorders, birth defects, sepsis, influenza, pneumonia and accidents accounted for more than 80% of all deaths in this age group. Deaths among children under 5 years of age (1.7% of all deaths) represented 9.1 per 1,000 live births in 2000. The leading causes of death were: accidents, birth defects, malignant neoplasms, influenza, pneumonia and meningitis. The percentage of low birth weight fell to 6.1% in 2000.

Schoolchildren (5-9 years): Of total deaths 0.3% occurred among children 5-9 years in 2000, with a mortality rate of 0.3 per 1,000. The five leading causes of death (73% of total) included accidents, malignant neoplasms, birth defects, homicide, influenza and pneumonia.

Adolescents (10-19 years): In 2000, adolescents constituted 14% of the population. The fertility rate among adolescents decreased to 52.3 per 1,000 women in 2000. The mortality for all causes among adolescents decreased to 0.48 per 1,000 in the same year and deaths represented less than 1% of all deaths, 1996-2000.

Adults (25-59 years): Adults represented 50% of the population and accounted for approximately 20% of deaths in this age range. The crude death rate was 2.8 per 1,000 population in 2000. The leading causes of death were malignant neoplasms, heart disease, and accidents, accounting for 57% of all deaths. Excess male mortality was observed for all causes except malignant neoplasms. Almost all mothers gave birth in a health institution and the average number of prenatal visits exceeded 10 per birth, and 95% of first visits occurred before the 14th week of pregnancy. The maternal mortality rate was 34.1 per 100,000 live births in 2000, mainly due to other complications of pregnancy, of childbirth and of the puerperium.

http://www.paho.org/English/DD/AIS/cp_192.htm#problemas

---

* SPECIFIC HEALTH PROBLEMS

Analysis by population group

Children (0-4 years of age): Almost a fifth of all children under the age of 6 years were living in poverty in 1999. In 1998, infant mortality was 7.2 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. The five leading causes of infant death in 1998 were congenital anomalies (22 % of all infant deaths), disorders relating to short gestation and unspecified low birthweight (15%), Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (10%), maternal complications of pregnancy (5%) and respiratory distress syndrome (4%). Washington , D.C. had a substantially higher infant mortality rate than any state at 15.0 infant deaths per 1,000 live births. From 1995 to 1997 neonatal mortality rates decreased from 4.9 to 4.8 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births. Like infant mortality, this rate also remained unchanged from 1997 to 1998. For postneonatals, mortality rates dropped from 2.6 postneonatal deaths per 1,000 live births in 1995 to 2.4 in 1997. From 1997 to 1998 they remained unchanged. In 1998 the death rate of 1-4 year olds was 35 deaths per 100,000. The highest rates were among Black children at 62 deaths per 100,000 children in this age group. The leading cause of death for these children in 1998 was unintentional injuries at close to 26 deaths per 100,000, responsible for 37% of all deaths among 1-4 year olds. The second leading cause of death for this age group was birth defects at 4 deaths per 100,000, representing 11% of all deaths. The next three leading causes of death for these children were homicide (8% of all 1-4 year old deaths), cancer (7%) and heart disease (4%). The sixth leading cause of death was the first infectious diseases pneumonia and influenza, representing 3% of all the deaths in this age group.

Schoolchildren (5-9 years of age): Schoolchildren of ages 5-9 years had the lowest death rate of any age group. The death rate for this group dropped slightly during 1998 - 1999. The leading cause of death for these children was external causes and most of these deaths were due to motor vehicle accidents. In 1998, 1 out of 6 children of all ages were estimated to suffer from asthma. In 2000, about a million children in the U.S. under the age of 6 had blood lead levels high enough to adversely affect their development, behavior and ability to learn.

Adolescence (10-14 and 15-19 years of age): In 1998, 17% of all adolescents came from families living in poverty and another 20 % came from families near poverty. Among 17-18 year-old high school seniors', illicit drug use dropped from 26 % to 25 %. However, the use of MDMA, called ecstasy, increased in both groups. Adolescent alcohol use is of particular importance because of its association with increased vehicular injuries and fatalities. Alcohol use by high school seniors dropped from 53 % to 50 % between 1997 and 2000. In 1976-80, 5 % of all 12-19 year olds were overweight. By 1988-94, almost 11 % were overweight. In 1999, one-half of all high school students were sexually active. The number of male adolescent AIDS cases declined by 11% to 126 cases in 1999, new female adolescents AIDS cases increased by 17% to 168 cases. Female adolescents ages 12-19 years were four times more likely to be victims of reported sexual assault and rape than all other age groups of females. In 1999, a fifth of all high school students reported that they had seriously contemplated suicide. Suicide was reportedly attempted by 8 % of all high school students, ages 14-18, in the prior 12 months.

Adults (20-59 years of age): The broad age group of adults ages 20-59 makes up the majority of the U.S. population. In 1999 deaths caused by diseases of the circulatory system for 25-34 year olds totaled 4,700. The 45-54 years olds had 48,600 deaths due to diseases of the circulatory system. Deaths due to neoplasms for 25-34 year olds totaled only 4,200 in that same year while in the year 1999, neoplasm deaths for 45-54 year olds totaled 90,200.

http://www.paho.org/English/DD/AIS/cp_840.htm#problemas

A quick look told me that Cuban men and women can expect to live to 74 and 78, American men and women, 74 and 80! Now that's remarkable, isn't it?

There's a ton to absorb there. Those statistics tell quite a lot. Oh, yeah. The infant mortality in Washington D.C. is alarming.

Do you remember hearing once Cubans mentioned, as in to point out a real problem, they should send some of their doctor teams to our inner cities? It's easy to see why.

Despite the embargo and the bottomless money pit to try to bring down the Cuban government, the achievments of the Cubans, known around the globe--but not in the USSA, are truly remarkable. One has to wonder what they might have achieved if Uncle Sam would have minded his own business and left them alone. In addition to this PAHO article, I think I remember something about a cure for meningitis a few years back as well.

<clips>

The Pedro Kourí Institute, founded in 1937, has evolved into a world-class player in the global fight against tropical and infectious diseases.

A turnoff at kilometer 6 of Havana’s Novia del Mediodía ("Noontime Bride") highway leads through the gates of the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), one of Cuba’s institutional crown jewels. Inside the modern 10-building complex, the island’s top medical scientists carry out research in more than a dozen fields, from biotechnology to treatment of HIV/AIDS.

In his office, the institute’s director, Gustavo P. Kourí, receives a visitor with a smile that brightens his chiseled face. On the wall behind him are myriad international and national commendations received by him and his institute over the years, including his most recent prized possession, a medal from the Vatican.

Kourí wears his white lab jacket like a family coat of arms. Continuing the work of his father, the late Pedro Kourí, he has transformed the 66-year-old institute into not only Cuba’s leading research and treatment center in tropical medicine and infectious diseases, but also a leading player in these fields worldwide.

http://www.paho.org/English/DD/PIN/Number17_article4_1.htm

Cuba Still Leading the Way in Health Technologies


By Patricia Grogg*

The vaccine for meningitis type B has opened a crack in the US embargo that for the last 40 years has prohibited all companies from that country from doing business with this Caribbean island.

HAVANA - At the beginning of the 21st century, Cuba stands out among the countries of the developing South for its great progress in health technologies, which this socialist-run island has pursued despite economic difficulties and material and human resource shortages.

Among the many scientific discoveries made here, one is particularly noteworthy, not only for its social benefits, but also for its political significance: the vaccine for the deadly meningitis type B.

The only vaccine of its kind, VA-MENGOC-BC has paved the way for the rare occurrence of technological transfer from Cuba, a developing country, to the industrialized North.

The British-US SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals in June 1999 won authorization from the US Treasury Department to sign a contract with the Havana-based Finlay Institute for introducing the vaccine on the European market.

Still underway is the complicated process that would allow sales in Europe, and later in the United States, of the antidote for meningitis B, an illness that ignores the social class and levels of economic development of its victims. (snip)

(snip) Furthermore, its scientists created the recombinant vaccine for hepatitis B, (Heberbiovac HB), as important as VA-MENGOC-BC as far as its beneficial social impacts, as both treatments form part of the vaccination program that protects Cuban children against 13 diseases. (snip/...)

http://www.tierramerica.net/2001/0930/iarticulo.shtml

when someone who had traveled throughout Latin America stopped by one day and said if you are in Central American countries, and a lot of South American ones, you'll see the marks of true poverty revealed in a defeated, depressed attitude in their citizens you can spot instantly.

He said the very tone and attitude of Cuba Cubans is unique, and totally different.

He also said Americans make a BIG mistake by not remembering Cuba was once a Spanish controlled plantation slave nation and that it should be compared to other Latin American and Caribbean countries for adequate measure, and NOT to the U.S., which developed in a totally different way.

People who need an example, can try to remember the difference in U.S. standards, and in the standards they recognize in Mexico, just across the border. You do NOT compare Mexico to the U.S., if you have your wits about you, right?

Do you have quick access to an extensive chart showing comparisons between Cuba and other countries in not only health-related matters, but education? I've seen a ton of these babies, but I can't find one quickly enough tonight.

Here's a small chart, which is slightly useful, for comparison of life expectancy and infant mortality, which can tell VOLUMES about the quality of life in a nation:

http://www.worldmarketsanalysis.com/InFocus2002/articles/health_Cuba.html

Cuba does very well in this short chart.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Impressive information from the World Bank President, James Wolfensohn concerning Cuba:

Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank
By Jim Lobe
Inter Press Service
April 30, 2001

(snip)
"Cuba has done a great job on education and health," Wolfensohn told reporters at the conclusion of the annual spring meetings of the Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). "They have done a good job, and it does not embarrass me to admit it." His remarks reflect a growing appreciation in the Bank for Cuba's social record, despite recognition that Havana's economic policies are virtually the antithesis of the "Washington Consensus", the neo-liberal orthodoxy that has dominated the Bank's policy advice and its controversial structural adjustment programmes (SAPs) for most of the last 20 years. Some senior Bank officers, however, go so far as to suggest that other developing countries should take a very close look at Cuba's performance. "It is in some sense almost an anti-model," according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank's Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators. Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank's dictum that economic growth is a precondition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not downright wrong.

The Bank has insisted for the past decade that improving the lives of the poor was its core mission. Besides North Korea, Cuba is the one developing country which, since 1960, has never received the slightest assistance, either in advice or in aid, from the Bank. It is not even a member, which means that Bank officers cannot travel to the island on official business. The island's economy, which suffered devastating losses in production after the Soviet Union withdrew its aid, especially its oil supplies, a decade ago, has yet to fully recover. Annual economic growth, fuelled in part by a growing tourism industry and limited foreign investment, has been halting and, for the most part, anemic. Moreover, its economic policies are generally anathema to the Bank. The government controls virtually the entire economy, permitting private entrepreneurs the tiniest of spaces.

It heavily subsidizes virtually all staples and commodities; its currency is not convertible to anything. It retains tight control over all foreign investment, and often changes the rules abruptly and for political reasons. At the same time, however, its record of social achievement has not only been sustained; it's been enhanced, according to the WDI. It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations.

It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank's Vice President for Development Policy who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999; Chile's was down to ten; and Costa Rica, 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999. Similarly, the mortality rate for children under five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50 percent lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba's achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999. "Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable," according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. "You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area."

http://www.foodfirst.org/cuba/news/2001/wb-ips.html

poverty in Cuba...the embargo has really destroyed Cuba, and that means medical care without medicines, schools without books, and water without chlorine....it is a real horror that needs to be seen by all Americans, rather than just 'interpreted' by special interests on this board...

let everyone see it, so you won't need to promulgate your spin anymore...let everyone SEE the truth, by dropping the Helms-Burton Act...the effects of the embargo will be clearly evident, and it will cost lots of money to bring up to even Guatemalen standards...

".. and it will cost lots of money to bring up to even Guatemalen standards..."


This is a sickening lie. Period!


Guatemala is rife with tens of thousands of abandoned kids in glue huffing street gangs. Crime is rampant. Murder is rampant. Aids is an epidemic. Health care is nonexistent for the poor. Unemployment is staggering. Inflation is killing off the poor and middle class. etc etc.


NONE of this misery exists in Cuba.

<clips>

Cuba

No outbreaks, from this country have been posted to Disease Outbreak News from 2000 - present.

http://www.who.int/disease-outbreak-news/country/CUB.htm

Statistics:

Total population: 11,236,000
GDP per capita (Intl $): 2,712
Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 74.7/79.2
Healthy life expectancy at birth m/f (years): 64.7/68.5
Child mortality m/f (per 1000): 11/8
Adult mortality m/f (per 1000): 142/90
Total health expenditure per capita (Intl $): 186
Total health expenditure as % of GDP: 6.8

http://www.who.int/country/cub/en/

Poor, poor things. No doubt the government officials told them to pretend to look happy, or they would kill them.

Wouldn't these kids be the same ones the Miami gusanos swear are taken away from their families, owned by the state, and forced to spend their summers cutting sugar cane in the fields?

Did you notice the second from the right, in the first row resembles the king of Jordan?

There is so much energy in that photo it almost shoves you over!

"A picture's worth a thousand words." Or more.

<clips>

HAVANA--In neighborhoods across this city, an army of volunteers going door-to-door in groups of three or four is visible. The volunteers wear distinctive T-shirts marking out the different groups. Shirts reading "Special Detachment" and "Social Workers" identify the 2,000 students from the School for Social Workers in the eastern city of Holguín. Like other volunteers, these students have spent the week talking to Havana residents, checking household water tanks, talking to residents again, and fumigating homes. Sometimes they would help out an elderly person get to the doctor or solve another problem as they carried out their work.

These teams of youth--preceded by similar numbers arriving from Santa Clara and followed by a large contingent from Santiago de Cuba, each with their distinctive T-shirts in different colors--are part of a gigantic popular social mobilization that is being organized to eradicate dengue fever on the island.

Dengue is carried by a particular mosquito, the Aedes aegypti, that breeds especially in unsanitary accumulations of water in towns and cities.

The last dengue outbreak in Cuba occurred in 1981, when 158 people died, mainly children. In 1981, the government reported at the time, the disease was deliberately introduced from outside Cuba. There were huge billboards depicting the mosquito inside the letters CIA, with the slogan, "We'll smash it!" The current outbreak is different, they explain--the result of a increase in the disease in the Caribbean and other regions with tropical and subtropical climates. The capitalist economic and social crisis in the semicolonial world today breeds the kinds of conditions in which this disease can flourish.

http://www.themilitant.com/2002/6610/661051.html

Yet another in the slew of editorials on this topic in today's papers:

Travel, trade, not another crackdown, can aid Cuba
Tue Oct 14, 7:14 AM ET
Op/Ed - USATODAY
By DeWayne Wickham

The Bush administration's reasoning for tightening travel restrictions to Cuba needs a reality check.

... Illegal travelers to Cuba (about a third of the roughly 200,000 Americans who visit annually) aren't propping up the Castro regime. Most of the dollars that end up in Cuba come from Americans largely, Cuban-Americans who travel there legally and from people in the U.S. who send legal "remittances" of up to $1,200 a year to family members and friends. The State Department reports that those remittances total $800 million to $1 billion annually.

If Bush is serious about fostering change in Cuba, he will end both the restrictions that keep most Americans from traveling to Cuba and the long U.S. economic embargo. The vast majority of Cubans I've met during reporting trips to the island long for a better life there. Many even say the Castro government could do a better job. But most of them like most Americans are patriotic. They rally to support their government in the face of the United States' decades-old effort to topple Castro.

Even many of the dissidents and so-called independent journalists I've talked to in Cuba oppose the embargo. While it offers false hope to the aging vanguard of anti-Castro Cubans in South Florida, the embargo holds little promise of ever actually dislodging the island's communist government.

... Castro's alleged oppression of dissidents is not what keeps him firmly in power. Instead, the Cuban people continue to circle the wagons around him in response to the ill-conceived efforts of a long succession of U.S. administrations to bring down his government.

More...
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=679&ncid=742&e=14&u=/usatoday/20031014/cm_usatoday/11900585

Bush looking for trouble in Cuba?
October 14, 2003
BY JESSE JACKSON

A car bomb kills six and wounds 35 in Baghdad. Al-Qaida reportedly is planning new assaults on the United States. Clearly, Fidel Castro is in trouble.

Fidel Castro? What does he have to do with Iraq and Osama bin Laden? Nothing, of course, but that may just be the point.

... But if what the military is now calling a ''classic guerrilla war'' continues to escalate, if U.S. troops continue to die in an occupation for which they are not trained, the president's political operatives will be looking for a way out -- and a little cover. Iran might be too dangerous. But with Castro 77 years old, the Cuban economy ground down from mismanagement and from the embargo, the Cuban people increasingly restless, Florida in play in 2004, Cuba just might be auditioned as a modern-day Grenada.

The Cuba experts I've talked to are skeptical. Cuba is just too tough. Castro still has too much support. The international community would be outraged. They are probably right.

But if the president isn't cooking up a crisis over Cuba, why are we spending the resources of the already overwhelmed Homeland Security Department inspecting shipments going in and out of Cuba rather than those coming in and out of the United States?

More...
http://www.suntimes.com/output/jesse/cst-edt-jesse14.html

It sounded like a real case of "misdirection" the very minute Condoleeza Rice started making the rounds, calling for the world to bear down on Cuba now.

The WORLD has been opposing the U.S. annually for 13 years in the U.N. by almost unanimously condemning the U.S. embargo on Cuba.

I hope the leaders of other countries are going to send the message along to _Bush that they would NOT support any new agression against Cuba, no matter WHAT.

bush*'s attack on Cuba would certainly be fully supported, and if you want to know why...just read the posts on this thread, and Jesse's remarks again...

...Jesse is right...it's coming...and there will be no countries that will stand against the USA...

Dream on kiddo.

I don't think Jesse is trying to fool anyone. IMO, Jesse is dead serious, and wise people would pay attention....

Jesse states:
..."Cuba just might be auditioned as a modern-day Grenada".


so, Osolomia, read the history of reagun's attack on Grenada, and you might be rudely awakened to the reality of Cuba...and why Jesse's remarks are not trying to 'fool' anyone...

Jesse is trying to wake up some people about Cuba....

" read the history of reagun's attack on Grenada, and you might be rudely awakened to the reality of Cuba.."



Who's version of history?

LOL. Anyone who thinks that Cuba will go down the way that Granada did is seriously deluded.

Granada was a last minute distraction by Raygun admin's f-ups getting 250 marines killed sleeping in their barracks in the M.E.. Granada hadn't been the subject of decades of threats and attacks by the USA. Granada never had the level of foreign (our allies) joint ventures that Cuba now has.

Cuba is ready. Prepared. HUGE civillian militia. Well trained military.

Cubans have been at the ready, getting prepared for 40+ years, and unlike Granada, are always looking for signals of attack. (I might add that Cubans kicked ass in the Bay of Pigs invasion.) Casualities would be very high. Cubans aren't about to just hand over their country or their sovereignty to the jackals to the north.


While this admin might be demented enough to try such an attack, the body count created by resistance would be a real wake up call to Americans. In the long run, Americans will never rule Cuba.

went to Cuba recently, got a formal relationship established, made some great trade arrangements, and Argentina, after not having speaks with Cuba for a couple of years, SUDDENLY reversed course, and showed up, as indicated in Say_What's thread, to reopen, and deepen the Argentina-Cuba bond, establish some lines of trade, and make arrangement for repayment of Cuba's debt to Argentina, redesigned to allow repayment at a more comfortable pace.

That makes TWO monster Latin American countries showing up as Cuba's allies. I think this's interesting, don't you?

bush's Grenada....

as Jesse wrote so eloquently:

.."Cuba just might be auditioned as a modern-day Grenada."


and Jesse knows.....and bush* knows too that a little 24 hour 'shock-and-awe' could save his pResidency....there will be no salvation from Brazil or Argentina or other countries....

"The international community would be outraged. They are probably right."....but that's different from sending troops to protect Cuba from an American invasion...do you really think bush* is afraid of the Brazil's and Argentina's Army, Navy and Air Force...???

IMO, Jesse knows all about crisis...he's been around for a long long time...and Cuba's time is coming around with bush* in charge...only fools will ignore Jesse's ominous words or expect salvation from South American countries...

nor Argentina's. I believe he would hesitate to make things far worse for himself in the eyes of the rest of the world, which would be sympathetic to Cuba. (Note Condoleeza's been sent around to try to spread propaganda to stir people against Cuba. Sure it sounds dirty, and it is.)

Almost unanimously, the U.N. General Assembly has voted AGAINST the U.S. for around 13 years, annually, in condemning the U.S. embargo.

What the chimpster would do to Cuba could lose him far more support than it would be worth.

I'm sure he'd do ANYTHING to devastate the country and take it, if he thought there would be no consequences he couldn't handle. I have such a poor opinion of his ethics, nothing hideous he could do would surprise me. I don't think he's STOOPID enough, however, to try this.

Besides, if he smashes and grabs Cuba, a lot of his Cuba voting bloc might get up and relocate, leaving him with PHYSICAL FLORIDA, but without all the nice votes/contributions from the Cubans who tend to vote Republican in the majority.

What would he do without his enormous Cuban-American voting bloc?

Sure, many people worry, but why would he let his support base slip away from him? They are known for corrupt voting practices (specialists in absentee voting crimes) in South Florida, which you can verify, but even they couldn't pull off voting from Cuba!

insignificant compared to the majority of Americans that would support a glorious bush* victory over Fidel (long-time tin pan dictator, removal of the embarrassment would thrill most Americans)...

IMO, Jesse Jackson makes the point very blunt....the situation for bush* is not good and Cuba could truly be bush*'s "modern-day Grenada"...solve all of bush* problems in one shock-and-awe day....

in consideration of the tiny Cuban-American voting block, there are many people in that voting block who would truly benefit from bush* re-taking of the seized oil refineries, land, American companies... Fidel's 'nationalization' of American interests is the real reason that Cuba relations are stalled...with bush* returning American assets, Cuban-American beneficiaries would be thrilled to return the favor in votes, get-out-the-vote-drives, and massive campaign funds....IMO, bush* base would flock to him even more...and living in Cuba or Florida, one can still send in your absentee vote since many Americans live oversees...most would like stay in America because Cuba is already in abject povery, and will not improve under the bush* attack...bush* is noted for his 'cheap labor conservative' approach to empire....

Jesse is exactly on the money for this one: here comes bush*'s modern-day Grenada...it's called Cuba....

Surely you're aware that most Americans support dropping the embargo, dropping the travel ban, and putting the Cold War away.

We DON'T live on anti-Castro hate radio 24 hours a day, outside Miami.

Start reading the articles flowing out of the Midwest, the West Coast, the East Coast on getting on with business with Cuba trade.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no point in debating it. American businesses, and American food producers, etc. are working around the blocks the _Bush misadministration has thrown in their way, and they are NOT going to turn back.

Each year more and more Representatives and Senators get on board on votes against the travel ban and the embargo. This is no FAD. It's been in the works, for real, since the mid-'90's. Even Miami Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart said, YEARS AGO, that this subject was a true battle he had to fight continually. That was before Elián, and before Americans started waking up and getting educated on this subject.

Miami's position is going down the tubes. Miami is going to lose. Surely you know this.

not even close...sad...

The problem is the lack of any democratic opposition in the USA especially considering that there’s a bipartisan majority in Congress and State legislatures and board rooms all across the country who want the embargo and travel ban lifted now.

Dems have no one to blame but themselves if your fantasy becomes reality.

the pResidency....the Jesse Jackson prediction could easily be decided soon, since bush* modern-day Grenada (Cuba) will be done by this reTHUGlican majority...the Democrats have nothing to say about it at all...sad...I don't know why you even think that Dems will blame themselves when Cuba is attacked by bush*....there will certainly be no blame onto the Democrats by anyone who know how Congressional and military decisions are made....

None of it obviously!

Under w*, US/ OAS relations are breaking down now - what do you think would result from a US attack of Cuba?

During the past several years Castro has met with just about every leader on the planet, either he went to them or they came to him, including a steady stream of US Congressional and State officials.

For several years now every country has had to diplomatically pay lip service to the US to some extent to keep Washington happy but just like Americans are starting to do, the more they see of Cuba the more they want to travel and trade with the island.

Cuba has its problems but they're no reason for the USA's hostile embargo to this day. The real reason lies in the USA and not just Miami.

What's happening in the Rest of the Americas shouldn't be surprising considering what they all had to say at the Summit of the Americas and elsewhere in recent years.

I'm inclined to think that Cuba and the world have waited over 10 years for the US to get it's act together and time's up. If GM can't build us new buses we'll get them from Brazil, if Hilton can't build that new hotel on the Malecon we'll let the Chinese do it, etc., etc.

bush* will make Cuba a modern-day Grenada....

after the 'shock-and-awe', there will be no rebuilding, simply the standard bush* 'cheap-labor conservative' approach to empire...and happy Americans, re-claiming their 'nationalized' assets....

Jesse knows...he's old and wise and has seen these things before....wise people should listen to Jesse....and of course, posting that America's 'time's up' and threatening to send business to our competitors does really help fuel the atmosphere to make bush* attack happen....

Osolomia...your posts are helping create the proper atmosphere for Cuba to become a 'modern-day Grenada'...sad...Americans will cheer the victory and removal of one tin pan dictator that has been bothering the USA for decades...

And if that’s the way Dems want to go then the party sure as hell won’t get my support.

BTW, Jesse Jackson is a long-time Democrat like me, and everyone on this board....this board is for Democrats and progressives only....it is not for people who dis dems, as you seem to be so fond of doing....have you thought of going off onto other boards where dissing dems is more acceptable? you might be happier elsewhere....

bush* admires reagun and reagun's sleezy exit from Lebanon under cover of the glorious American attack on the tiny island of Grenada...Americans went wild with Patriotism as the attack on Grenada was so successful...nobody even complained when a USA missle demolished a hospital...reagun was gloried forever as a great battlefield president....wow!!

and Cuba will work well for the shrub...

Cuba: a third-world impoverished nation with no military of any significance...it will be a push-over for the USA and a glorious victory for the shrub (and we all know how badly shrub needs a real glorious victory)....and even better, the American take-over will protect the interests of the BIG money American Corporations to further shrub's campaign donations (let's not forget that in 1959-1960, Castro seized the oil refineries (Texaco, Standard Oil, and Shell), the United Fruit Company, the American-owned telephone and electic companies and 36 sugar mills, including $800 million in US Assets...this is the only reason that the situation in Cuba has been stale-mated for so long....these American corporations want their land and money back with interest from Cuba)....the whole mess could be solved by a simple 24 hour American 'shock-and-awe' attack....

shrub could gloss-up Castro's body, like Saddam's two sons...

Americans would certainly rally for the shrub re-election....count on it...Jesse is right on....and bush* would do it, too...watch out...

Started to do a search on him, and the very first item I found says he's in Maine now, until October 25th.



David and Goliath:

Cuba’s Struggle Today

Andrés Gomez emigrated from Cuba in 1960, with his family at the age of 13, one year after the victory of the revolution. Since then he has lived in Miami, returned many times to Cuba, and traveled throughout Latin America. He initiated the "Antonio Maceo" Brigade, a Miami-based organization of Cubans living in the U.S. who favor normalized relations with Cuba. He has been a prominent voice in the struggle for open discussion in the Cuban American community, at great personal risk. For many years he edited the journal Arieto.

In recent years, opinion within the Cuban- American community on U.S. policy toward Cuba has shifted, with some surveys indicating that a majority of the Florida Cuban community now opposes important aspects of that policy. Andrés Gomez has had a significant hand in bringing about that change.(snip/...)

http://www.letcubalive.org/GOMEZ.html

at the very WORST Castro was put in power under equal circumstances and has most likely murdered less people than Bush.

I think Fidel got it right in saying it was all about votes and (my note) that he truely is a shitty president.

but what is it that pisses the US off when it comes to cuba??...live and let live..

Hostility to the Castro regime doesn't stem from its failings, but from its achievements

Seumas Milne
Thursday July 31, 2003
The Guardian

… … Which only goes to reinforce what has long been obvious: that US hostility to Cuba does not stem from the regime's human rights failings, but its social and political successes and the challenge its unyielding independence offers to other US and western satellite states. Saddled with a siege economy and a wartime political culture for more than 40 years, Cuba has achieved first world health and education standards in a third world country, its infant mortality and literacy rates now rivalling or outstripping those of the US, its class sizes a third smaller than in Britain - while next door, in the US-backed "democracy" of Haiti, half the population is unable to read and infant mortality is over 10 times higher. Those, too, are human rights, recognised by the UN declaration and European convention. Despite the catastrophic withdrawal of Soviet support more than a decade ago and the social damage wrought by dollarisation and mass tourism, Cuba has developed biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries acknowledged by the US to be the most advanced in Latin America. Meanwhile, it has sent 50,000 doctors to work for free in 93 third world countries (currently there are 1,000 working in Venezuela's slums) and given a free university education to 1,000 third world students a year. How much of that would survive a takeover by the Miami-backed opposition?

The historical importance of Cuba's struggle for social justice and sovereignty and its creative social mobilisation will continue to echo beyond its time and place: from the self-sacrificing internationalism of Che to the crucial role played by Cuban troops in bringing an end to apartheid through the defeat of South Africa at Cuito Cuanavale in Angola in 1988. But those relying on the death of Castro (the "biological solution") to restore Cuba swiftly to its traditional proprietors may be disappointed, while the Iraq imbroglio may have checked the US neo-conservatives' enthusiasm for military intervention against a far more popular regime in Cuba. That suggests Cuba will have to expect yet more destabilisation, further complicating the defence of the social and political gains of the revolution in the years to come. The greatest contribution those genuinely concerned about human rights and democracy in Cuba can make is to help get the US and its European friends off the Cubans' backs.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/cuba/story/0,11983,1009473,00.html

I'm certain that finding material like this is as important to some posters as it is to me.

I started out several years ago with no grasp of the elements of US/Cuban relations, didn't know that the U.S. actually admits Cuban immigrants happily if they arrive without getting caught first, and extend a whole assortment of benefits to them. They BRIBE them, don't toss them in jail, don't round them up and send them back, like Haitians, Mexicans, etc., who actually often come from very severe conditions. Nope, they hand out Section 8 taxpayer subsidized housing, food stamps, welfare, medical treatment, education financial assistance, green cards, work visas, instant legal status, and god only knows how many additional perks.

Because of reading the posts from people exactly like you, I became committed to finding out as much as I could, and I'll never turn back. I lived in utter ignorance about Cuba, and I know almost everyone I know did, as well. We have been kept in the dark about some of our gummint's darker actions.

Change is happening DAILY in US-Cuba relations, and it's not going to be left up to the Miami gusano "exiles" and the blood-thirsty hogs of the extreme right-wing lunatic fringe.

This is a great paragraph from your article:

(snip) The historical importance of Cuba's struggle for social justice and sovereignty and its creative social mobilisation will continue to echo beyond its time and place: from the self-sacrificing internationalism of Che to the crucial role played by Cuban troops in bringing an end to apartheid through the defeat of South Africa at Cuito Cuanavale in Angola in 1988. But those relying on the death of Castro (the "biological solution") to restore Cuba swiftly to its traditional proprietors may be disappointed, while the Iraq imbroglio may have checked the US neo-conservatives' enthusiasm for military intervention against a far more popular regime in Cuba. That suggests Cuba will have to expect yet more destabilisation, further complicating the defence of the social and political gains of the revolution in the years to come. The greatest contribution those genuinely concerned about human rights and democracy in Cuba can make is to help get the US and its European friends off the Cubans' backs. (snip/)

or seized all American interests, including oil refineries, land, businesses, bank accounts...millions and millions of dollars of American property and money were taken by Fidel in the name of the Cuban people (but mostly for Fidel)....

and that was over 40 years ago...now, these same American businesses and people still want their property and money back (and with interest)...so that is the main problem between Cuba and America...

the rest of what you read is just spin....lots and lots of spin...Fidel spins as well as any American President, so it's really been over 40 years of gas-bags duelling, while the Cuban people suffer in abject poverty, caused by being stuck in the middle of a big money fight...

The USA is also the only country in the world that refuses to come to the table to negotiate a settlement to its expropriation claims.

Cuba has amicably settled such claims with Spain, Mexico, Canada, Britain, Germany, Italy etc. etc. etc.

Again, the problem lies in the USA not Cuba.

to U.S. interests. One I read in a conversation between an advisor to John F. Kennedy and Che Guevara, in a declassified paper. I've been looking through my files, but I've got so many articles it would take a while to locate, and I don't have too much longer tonight. AT that time they discussed compensation for confiscated properties, in very civilized, rational terms.

It's available on the internet.

Here's an article I located quickly, which gives a quick look, and this information is available through TONS of other sources, as well, some at great length:

(snip) In January 1960, Cuba began expropriating property owned by U.S. sugar companies and the United Fruit Company. Reasonable compensation was offered by Cuba, but the U.S. government and companies refused. In contrast, property owners and governments in countries such as Great Britain, France, Canada, Italy, Sweden, Mexico, and Spain accepted the terms of compensation for their confiscated property. (snip/...)

http://www.brianwillson.com/awolcuba.html#kennedy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's been asked before, and it's still a valid question. "Why did the other countries take the compensation, and the U.S. refuse?"

To expand your education, you really should read up on the normal procedure followed by countries in cases involving nationalized properties. You'll see the same pattern was employed by Cuba.

Another quick grab from google on compensation:

(snip) Four UN resolutions, adopted between 1952 and 1974, establish
>>adequate compensation for the owners of nationalized properties, and
>>Cuban compensation offers were made within that framework.
>> Instead of applying the 1961 Cuban legislation, persons who had
>>property expropriated went to the U.S. courts and were thus subject
>>to negotiations between the governments, -legal expert Olga Miranda
>>explained.
>>
>>Cuba continues to recognize their rights, contemplated in
>>Decree(c)Law 80 of December 1996, called the Reaffirmation of Cuban
>>Sovereignty Act, but these rights are linked to our compensation for
>>economic and human damages caused by the blockade over more than 40
>>years.
(snip/...)
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/leninist-international/2000-March/006713.html

(snip)

Because you asked...
What about compensation for U.S. property that was confiscated by the Cuban government in 1960?
Cuba's government has always acknowledged its obligation to compensate U.S. property owners and has indicated its willingness to sit down and negotiate. It has long since worked out satisfactory compensation agreements with all other countries that had similar claims.

Back in 1960 the U.S. imposed the embargo because Cuba had nationalized all U.S. properties. In 1977 the U.S. insisted that the embargo would not be lifted until the compensation issue had been worked out.

Cuba has repeatedly stated its willingness to negotiate a just compensation once the embargo is lifted and normal relations established. But on November 30 2001 the U.S. government turned down a Cuban offer to negotiate compensation for properties confiscated by the Revolution 40 years ago. (snip/...)

http://www.historyofcuba.com/faqcuba/cfaq5.htm

Cuba simply took back what belonged to them.
Before the Revolution:

<clips>

American firms make profits of $77 million from their Cuban investments, while employing little more than 1 percent of the country's population.

By the late 1950’s, American capital control:
90% of Cuba’s mines
80% of its public utilities
50% of its railways
40% of its sugar production
25% of its bank deposits

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl3.htm

in this case sugar and tobacco, to send outside the area, at the great expense of life-sustaining, locally grown food crops for the Cubans' use, which meant wealthy people could afford the higher prices of imported food, and poor people were simply screwed.

I recall reading that peasants tried to plant small crops by the sides of railroad tracks which ran to the plantations to transport sugar and tobacco, and that when the authorities ever spotted them, they destroyed them.

In the present, Cuba is undergoing a transformation, with people producing food for their OWN consumption, including a phenomenal surge in city gardens. The organic systems they are developing are attracting study from countries all over the world.