Cuba: Forty Years of Revolution and Evolution
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Since 1993, the Cuba Support Group-Ireland has been lobbying and
demonstrating against the United States' blockade against Cuba. The
Council of State of the Republic of Cuba has recently awarded the
Medal of Friendship to Declan McKenna, Co-ordinator of Ireland's Cuba
Support Group. The award was made in recognition of the work carried
out by the Irish group in promoting a better understanding of issues
related to Cuba and for work associated with opposition to the U.S.
blockade. This is the first time an Irish person has been decorated by
the Cuban Government since the Revolution in 1959.
The award was presented at a ceremony in Havana by Sergio Corrieri,
President of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples, and
was attended by the Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister, Angel Dalmau. In
the following article, Declan discusses Cuba's achievement of survival
against all odds.
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Cuba is a defiant country. Not only defiant of the United States but
defiant of the new world order. Defiant of capitalism. Defiant in the
protection of its sovereignty. Defiant to ensure the continuation and
improvement of the welfare of its people. Defiant in its protection of
socialism.
As Cuba enters the 41st year of its Revolution, the confidence of the
Cuban people in their future is unshakeable despite the difficulties
that continue to face them. This confidence arises from the fact that
they have survived the devastating collapse of their trading
arrangements with the Soviet Union and the countries of Eastern Europe
in the early 1990s and the deliberate intensification of the US
blockade in 1992 and 1996. At that time, there was a widespread belief
(outside Cuba) that Cuba would collapse within the sandwich of the
loss of trade and the effects of the intensified blockade. The fact
that Cuba survived is a tribute to the will of the Cuban people to
preserve the gains of their Revolution and explains the confidence
with which they now face the future. Last year, the economy grew by
about 6.5% - a much higher rate than any other country in the
Caribbean.
However, while infant mortality and life expectancy rates continue to
improve, life is still very difficult for the Cuban people. There are
shortages of most of the basic necessities of life and they endure a
continious struggle to provide for their needs. And while not a single
public facility was closed down and no teachers, medical staff or
other public service workers were laid off, many supplies necessary
for the provision of social services are in short supply or are simply
not available.
Despite US propaganda to the contrary, there is no indication that
there is any sign of a relaxation of the blockade. In the face of
worldwide revulsion towards the inclusion of food and medicine in the
blockade legislation, the US responded with a propaganda campaign
which appeared to soften the blockade but which allowed almost no
practical benefit to Cuba. US hostility towards Cuba is vented at any
and every opportunity. The most recent act of hostility relates to the
virtual state kidnapping of Elian Gonzales, the six-year-old boy who
was picked from the sea by the US Coastguard after his mother and
step-father attempted to reach the US illegally, having taken the boy
without the permission of his father.
Under international law and under the terms of the current migration
agreement between the US and Cuba, the boy should have been returned
immediately to his father in Cuba. Instead, the boy was kept in the US
and used as a propaganda weapon against Cuba. The boy was picked up on
25 November and at the time of going to print the child has still not
been returned to his father in Cuba. Any other child from any other
country in the world would have been returned to his family within 48
hours.
Whatever about individual attacks on Cuba such as in the case of Elian
Gonzales, US hostility towards Cuba must still be measured by the
terms and intensity of the continuing blockade. The blockade is
intended to smash the economy and break the will of the Cuban people.
But while the US can claim `success' in causing massive damage to the
Cuban economy and untold hardship to the civilian population, the war
to break the will of the people has been a complete failure.
Remarkably, the Cuban people do not harbour generalised ill-feelings
against the US or against the American people. Reports of
``anti-American'' demonstrations in Cuba over the Elian Gonzales case
are false: the demonstrations are very focused on the particular
policies being applied by the US Government. Anti-Americanism and
opposition to US foreign policies are two distinct matters - matters
between which the Cuban population have no problem distinguishing.
Cuba has shown that the countries of Latin America need not be
condemned to poverty and backwardness, that progress can be made and
the highest standard of health care and social welfare achieved. Cuba
is now struggling valiantly to defend the gains of its Revolution -
there is no time to waste in supporting that struggle.
How You Can Help
International Work Brigade to Cuba
10-30 July 2000
For an experience of a lifetime, join the International Work Brigade
to Cuba. Participate in work, political social and cultural events,
visit schools, hospitals, clinics, workplaces and meet Cuban people
from all walks of like in the company of Brigidistas from all over
Northern Europe.
Second World Solidarity Conference
Havana 10 - 14 November 2000
Join friends of Cuba from all over the world at this major
international conference. The first conference held in 1994 was
attended by more than 5,000 delegates from 113 countries.
Join Cuba Support Group
15 Merrion Square
Dublin 2
Tel: (01) 8436448 / (01) 6761213
Fax: (01) 6611738
e-mail: cubasupport@clubi.ie
Website: http://www.clubi.ie/csg/
New York
For the first time since it was created, the UN's Security Council met
on Monday 10 January, to talk about health. The 15 council members
discussed how the HIV virus is decimating Africa's population. As
Richard Holbrooke, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., pointed out, Aids is
claiming more victims than armed conflict on this continent. A UN
report states that every minute, ten people are infected with the HIV
virus in Africa. At least 50% of HIV positive cases are registered in
Africa, and 60% of Aids victims are living on this continent.
Tibet
The flight of the 17th Karmapa Lama from Chinese-ruled Tibet has been
a blow for the Peking government, which had been using him as a symbol
of religious freedom in Tibet. He is the third highest leader of the
Tibetan faith, after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.
East Timor
East Timor's Nobel Laureate Bishop Carlos Belo criticised the UN on
Friday last for dragging its heels in bringing home thousands of
refugees stuck in Indonesian West Timor. "In Rwanda in one week they
saved one million people. Why here, after months, are there still more
than 100,000 refugees in West Timor?" he said. Belo added that it is
now more than four months since nearly 250,000 East Timorese fled or
were forced from their homes and all those who wished to return should
have done so by now. The United Nations estimates that more than
125,000 East Timorese, who fled the territory when violence erupted
following last August's independence ballot result, have since
returned.
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