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Jeff Mackler Correspondent
In simultaneous Press conferences in Washington, DC, and Havana on Wednesday, December 17, President Barack Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro announced an agreement that included the immediate release of the three remaining Cuban political prisoners held in US jails since 1998 — Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, and Antonio Guerrero.
Two other Cubans – Fernando González, and René González – having completed long jail terms, had been released in recent years.
The Cuban Five, as they are known with great admiration worldwide, were charged in 1998 and convicted in 2001 in Miami of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, and acting as agents of a foreign government. The US government-orchestrated trial included the illegal manipulation of reporters and the media more generally, forged documents, and the exclusion of exculpatory evidence. It was a classic US political frame-up, aimed at poisoning public opinion and the jury pool while characterizing Cuba, the victim of US terrorism for decades, as a terrorist state.
A December 19 statement by the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), which has been monitoring US-backed terrorist attacks on Cuba, stated: “For more than 30 years after Fidel Castro took power, over 3 400 Cubans have died and over 2 000 have been wounded in terrorist attacks by extremist anti-Castro exile groups based in South Florida.
“In 1990, the Cuban government sent the five men to Miami to monitor and disrupt such groups and prevent future attacks.” The Cuban Five [long ago granted Cuba’s highest award, “Heroes of the Revolution”], remained non-violent throughout their mission.”
Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now!” radio and television programme described one such US-trained terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, as “one of the most notorious Cuban exiles who applied for political asylum in the United States several years ago”. Goodman reported that Carriles, a former CIA operative trained by the US Army at Fort Benning, Ga., “has been trying to violently overthrow Fidel Castro’s government for four decades . . . Posada was responsible for the 1976 downing of a civilian airliner that left Venezuela bound for Cuba. The bombing killed 73 passengers, including the gold medal-winning Cuban Olympic fencing team.”
In recent years the US ruling class has been divided on the issue of the most effective methods to employ to bring down the Cuban workers’ state, established in 1959 when the forces led by Fidel Castro organised a popular revolution that removed the hated US-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and opened the way to a socialist revolution in Cuba.
One wing of the US ruling class, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and a number of “liberal” Democrats, as well as Midwest Republicans who wish to sell cheap grain and other foodstuffs to Cuba, argue that a healthy dose of American capitalist investment aimed at undermining and underselling Cuba’s largely nationalised economy, is the best way to proceed. Clinton’s view is clearly stated in her new book, “Hard Choices”.
While Obama officials asserted that the secret negotiations with the Cuban government that resulted in the present agreement were facilitated by Pope Francis and Canadian diplomats, presumably those with interests in exploiting Cuba’s significant nickel resources, ruling-class debates over the effectiveness of the Cuban embargo/blockade have been underway for decades.
Today, with the same intentions, the Obama administration has come on board. The president made clear in a December 19 press conference that “the whole point of normalising relations is that it gives us a greater opportunity to have influence with that government.” That “influence” includes US corporate intentions to penetrate Cuban markets with an ongoing flow of cheap commodities aimed at undermining Cuban government enterprises.
US imperialism’s relations with Cuba, and all other poor nations, always include such economic penetration based on imperialism’s capacity to set prices for vital resources far cheaper than their actual value. US imperialism, for example, was able to effectively reduce the world market price of nickel, previously an important component of Cuba’s income, by 50 percent.
This kind of economic robbery is inherent in the imperialist system, wherein the nation that employs the highest levels of technology in the production of any commodity effectively devalues competing products produced with considerably more labour input. U.S. agri-business, utilising the most advanced technologies in the world and very few workers, regularly produces rice more cheaply than any nation on earth. In every instance, the threat or actual export of rice in significant quantities has the effect of undermining the national rice markets worldwide.
The heinous US embargo/blockade of Cuba has been annually condemned as illegal in United Nations General Assembly resolutions in each of the past 23 years. The most recent vote on this issue was 188-2, with only the US and Israel voting against.
Commenting on the embargo/blockade and the new US-Cuba agreement, and reaffirming Cuba’s socialist course, Raul Castro stated emphatically: “An important step has been taken, but the essential thing remains — the end of the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, which has grown in recent years particularly in terms of financial transactions.” In short, Cuba, unlike virtually every nation on earth, has been denied credit from almost all of the world’s major banking institutions.
While Obama declined to lift the embargo, with the assertion that this required congressional action — that is, rescinding the Helms-Burton Law and other anti-Cuba legislation — what will soon become clear is that the US government will seek to use its embargo leverage to extract important concessions.
Similarly, after a century of colonial occupation, including torture of so-called terrorists captured in the course of US wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, Obama made no reference to the US-occupied naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The Cuban government continues to demand an end to this colonial occupation, a product of the 1898 American war and occupation of Cuba based on the infamous “Remember the Maine!” pretext, when Spanish authorities were charged with blowing up the US battleship Maine in Havana harbour.
Obama’s Press conference also announced several additional executive orders aimed softening relations with Cuba.
Dependent on expected new and soon to be enacted Treasury and Commerce Department revisions of current policy and their formal publication in the Federal Register, Obama and his administration officials indicated that rules on visits to Cuba by Americans will be liberalised to allow for travel in categories that have in the past required special licenses. These include family visits, as well as travel regarding official US or foreign government business, journalism, research and professional meetings, educational and religious activities, performances workshops, competitions, expeditions, and humanitarian support. Specific licences will no longer be required for business related to telecommunications and Internet linkages with Cuba.
Further, remittances by Americans with family members in Cuba will now increase to US$2 000 every three months, up from US$500. Americans visiting Cuba will be allowed to legally import merchandise bought there with a value of up to US$400, including up to US$100 in tobacco and alcohol purchases.
In the same vein, Obama — declaring the US approach to Cuba “outdated” and stating that “these 50 years have shown that isolation has not worked”—proclaimed that his objective was the normalisation of relations with Cuba, including the construction and establishment of a US embassy in Havana and an Obama administration effort to remove Cuba from the U.S. terrorist list. Secretary of State John Kerry indicated his intention to pay a formal visit to Cuba along with other top administration officials.
Liberal apologists for US imperialism have been effusive with praise for Obama’s recent policy initiatives, characterising them as sincere efforts to portray his “legacy” as that of a progressive, liberal-minded — if not humanistic — head of state.
Mindful of the need to attract to its 2016 electoral efforts the unprecedented millions who did not vote in the recent mid-term elections—two-thirds of the eligible electorate and especially Blacks, Latinos, and youth who saw no significant difference between the twin parties of the ruling rich — the president has engaged in a flurry of executive pronouncements aimed at burnishing his tattered image.
These include his fraudulent immigration reforms, his “success” in negotiating the new US$1,1 trillion congressional funding Bill (that granted additional billions to the corporate elite), his tepid criticisms of the now internationally exposed CIA torture practices, and his most recent release/transfer of four Guantanamo prisoners who had been held for decades without charges or legal represen- tation.
All these measures, as with Obama’s “new” Cuba policies, are in their essence the dressing of the government’s ongoing reactionary policies in more presentable garb. They are aimed at maintaining and advancing the interests of the US rulers at the expense of the world’s people, including the American working class.
The classic maxim of over 3000 years past applies with full force today: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts!” Obama’s Trojan Horse belies wicked intentions. Nevertheless, the hard-fought winning of the freedom of the Cuban Five, and all other measures aimed at ending the monstrous imperialist embargo/blockade, are important victories for revolutionary Cuba and all humanity.
Jeff Mackler is a staff writer for Socialist Action. SocialistAction.org. He can be reached at [email protected].
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