Cuba

One Step Forward, One Step Back In US-Latin America Policy

December 24, 2014 Alexander Main, www.thehill.com Educate! Cuba, Latin America, Sanctions, usa, Venezuela

Venezuela has just joined Cuba as one of only two countries in the Western Hemisphere subject to U.S. sanctions. Legislation mandating sanctions against Venezuelan officials was approved by voice vote in the Senate on Dec. 8 and then sailed through the House on Dec. 10. On Dec. 18, just one day after his speech on a "new course" on Cuba, Obama signed the sanctions bill into law. Cuban-American Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who authored the legislation, called it "a victory for the Venezuelan people." The trouble is, the people of Venezuela don't seem to agree with Menendez. A survey carried out by independent pollster Datanalisis showed that nearly three quarters of Venezuelans oppose U.S. sanctions. The Caracas-based human rights organization PROVEA — a frequent critic of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — also vigorously rejects the measure. Other Latin American governments oppose the sanctions as well.

The Problem With Obama’s Cuba Speech

December 19, 2014 Matt Peppe, www.mattpeppe.blogspot.com Educate! Cuba, usa

Six years into his Presidency, Barack Obama has finally taken steps he campaigned on in 2008 to normalize relations with Cuba. The new policy towards Cuba will include important changes including establishing formal diplomatic relations, removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and expanding trade relations. However, Obama is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. His rationale for finally abandoning the hard-line Cold War stance demonstrates his belief that the morality and legality of United States actions are beyond reproach. "In the most significant changes in our policy in more than fifty years, we will end an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests, and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries," Obama said in a live televised speech from the White House.

President Obama Begins US Coexistence With Cuba

December 18, 2014 Kevin Zeese, www.PopularResistance.org Educate! Blockade, Cuba

President Obama, as part of a prison swap has released the remaining members of the Cuban 5 and lifted some restrictions on the US relationship with Cuba. President Obama said "We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries." The US economic blockade of Cuba began 51 years on in 1961. The change in relations follows 18 months of negotiations over the release of prisoners by both countries that led to a fuller negotiations on the relationship between the two nations. It included secret negotiations in Canada, a meeting in the Vatican, and a final 45-minute telephone call between Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro on Tuesday. Not getting enough attention in discussion of this significant shift is the ongoing campaign to Free the Cuban 5.

Chomsky: America Is the World’s Leading Terrorist Nation

November 4, 2014 Noam Chomsky, www.inthesetimes.com Educate! CIA, Cuba, ISIS, Noam Chomsky, Syria, Terrorism, usa

“It's official: The U.S. is the world's leading terrorist state, and proud of it.” That should have been the headline for the lead story in the New York Times on October 15, which was more politely titled “CIA Study of Covert Aid Fueled Skepticism About Helping Syrian Rebels.” The article reports on a CIA review of recent U.S. covert operations to determine their effectiveness. The White House concluded that unfortunately successes were so rare that some rethinking of the policy was in order. The article quoted President Barack Obama as saying that he had asked the CIA to conduct the review to find cases of “financing and supplying arms to an insurgency in a country that actually worked out well. And they couldn't come up with much.” So Obama has some reluctance about continuing such efforts.

Ebola: US Sends Troops, Cuba Sends Doctors

September 17, 2014 Dave Lindorff, www.thiscantbehappening.ne Educate! Cuba, Ebola, Healthcare, Militarization, Wars and Militarism

How’s this for a juxtaposition on how nations respond to a global health catastrophe. Check out these two headlines from yesterday’s news: Cuba to Send Doctors to Ebola Areas [1] US to Deploy 3000 Troops as Ebola Crisis Worsens [2] Reading these stories, which ran in, respectively, the BBC and Reuters, one learns that the Cuban government, which runs a small financially hobbled island nation of 11 million people, with a national budget of $50 billion, Gross Domestic Product of 121 billion and per capita GDP of just over $10,000, is dispatching 165 medical personnel to Africa to regions where there are ebola outbreaks, while the US, the world’s wealthiest nation, with a population of close to 320 million, a national budget of $3.77 trillion, GDP of $17 trillion, and per capita GDP of over $53,000, is sending troops -- $3000 of them-- to “fight” the ebola epidemic.

US Failed Attempt To Create Unrest In Cuba

August 10, 2014 Desmond Butler, Jack Gillum, Peter Osri and Andrea Rodriguez, www.AP.org Educate! Cuba, Imperialism

Beginning as early as October 2009, a project overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development sent Venezuelan, Costa Rican and Peruvian young people to Cuba in hopes of ginning up rebellion. The travelers worked undercover, often posing as tourists, and traveled around the island scouting for people they could turn into political activists. Both ZunZuneo and the travelers program were part of a larger, multimillion-dollar effort by USAID to effect change in politically volatile countries, government data show. But the programs reviewed by the AP didn’t appear to achieve their goals and operated under an agency known more for its international-aid work than stealthy operations. The CIA recently pledged to stop using vaccine programs to gather intelligence, such as one in Pakistan that targeted Osama bin Laden. The travelers program was launched when newly inaugurated President Barack Obama’s administration was talking about a “new beginning” with Cuba after decades of mistrust, raising questions about whether the White House had a coherent policy toward the island nation. Drawing on documents and interviews worldwide, the AP found the travelers program went to extensive lengths to hide the workers’ activities. They were to communicate in code: “I have a headache” meant they suspected they were being monitored by Cuban authorities; “Your sister is ill” was an order to cut their trip short.

Activities In September In Support Of The Cuban 5

August 9, 2014 Jamaicans In Solidarity With Cuba, www.youthandeldersja.wordpress.com Resist! Cuba, Prison, Protest

From September 12 to October 8, supporters of the Cuban 5 will be organizing activities in cities all over the world and in the United States to bring attention to their 16 years of cruel imprisonment. While Rene Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez are back in Cuba after serving their entire sentences, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramón Labañino and Antonio Guerrero remain in U.S. Prisons. These three men are paying a high price for defending their country against terrorism. Instead of the continuation of their imprisonment they deserve to receive medals of honor for their actions. It is long overdue for President Obama to negotiate in good faith with Cuba to reach a humanitarian solution to this case and allow them to return to their loved ones. null The International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 is returning to Washington D.C. after 5 days of activities for the Five in June. Members of the Committee, other solidarity friends and personalities will visit Capitol Hill to follow up on their June visits and organize other activities, including a rally in front of the White House and a Public Forum. Also in San Francisco, CA the committee is organizing a Bicycle Ride in Support of the Cuban 5.

Chomsky: The US Should Face Sanctions From The World

April 26, 2014 Mark Hirst, www.en.ria.ru Resist! Chomsky, Cuba, Ukraine

The US should face much harsher sanctions than those being sought against Russia for the ongoing presence of American forces in Cuba's Guantanamo, political thinker and MIT professor Noam Chomsky told RIA Novosti. Chomsky pointed to the occupation of Guantanamo Bay which he said was “stolen at gunpoint from Cuba in 1903 and still held despite constant Cuban efforts since independence to recover it.” In relation to Crimea the political philosopher added that, “the invasion and annexation were clearly unlawful, hence the referendum too, though no informed observer doubts that it was probably not too far from reality.” Chomsky added that he would “pay attention to those who call for sanctions [against Russia] when they call for much harsher actions against the US" for the only current case that he can think of "that’s at all comparable” is Guantanamo. In February, the Ukrainian parliament backed by far-right movements ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, amended the constitution and scheduled an early presidential election for May 25. The coup sparked concerns, including in Crimea, about the dangers of ultranationalist forces in the country's central government.

2014 People’s Choice Award: The Cuban Five

April 5, 2014 Global Exchange, www.humanrightsaward.org Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Cuba, Human Rights

n 1998, five Cuban intelligence agents were arrested following their surveillance by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They were brought up on multiple charges including conspiracy to commit espionage. These five men were sent from Cuba to investigate and report on right-wing groups in Miami planning attacks against the Castro government and the Cuban people. Their presence in the U.S. was in response to several attacks in Cuba for which these U.S.-based groups claimed responsibility, including bomb attacks at many popular tourist hotels and restaurants in Havana. The trial for the Cuban Five was conducted in Miami, despite objections that the city’s legacy as a bastion of anti-Castro extremists was not conducive to an impartial hearing. The men received lengthy prison sentences, and when jailed, were kept in isolation for extended periods of time.

US-backed ‘Cuban Twitter’ Funded Through USAID

April 4, 2014 Desmond Butler & Jack Gillum, www.bigstory.ap.org Educate! Cuba, Surveillance

In July 2010, Joe McSpedon, a U.S. government official, flew to Barcelona to put the final touches on a secret plan to build a social media project aimed at undermining Cuba's communist government. McSpedon and his team of high-tech contractors had come in from Costa Rica and Nicaragua, Washington and Denver. Their mission: to launch a messaging network that could reach hundreds of thousands of Cubans. To hide the network from the Cuban government, they would set up a byzantine system of front companies using a Cayman Islands bank account, and recruit executives who would not be told of the company's ties to the U.S. government. McSpedon didn't work for the CIA. This was a program paid for and run by the U.S. Agency for International Development, best known for overseeing billions of dollars in U.S. humanitarian aid.

US Secretly Built ‘Cuban Twitter’ To Stir Unrest

April 4, 2014 NBC News, www.nbcnews.com Educate! Cuba, Surveillance

The U.S. government masterminded the creation of a "Cuban Twitter" — a communications network designed to undermine the communist government in Cuba, built with secret shell companies and financed through foreign banks, The Associated Press has learned. The project, which lasted more than two years and drew tens of thousands of subscribers, sought to evade Cuba's stranglehold on the Internet with a primitive social media platform. First, the network would build a Cuban audience, mostly young people; then, the plan was to push them toward dissent. Yet its users were neither aware it was created by a U.S. agency with ties to the State Department, nor that American contractors were gathering personal data about them, in the hope that the information might be used someday for political purposes.

How the West Manufactures ‘Opposition Movements’

February 4, 2014 Andre Vltchek, , www.counterpunch.org Educate! Cuba, Egypt, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela

The West is continuously manufacturing and then supporting oppressive forces, be they feudal or religious. The more oppressed people are, the less disposed they are to fight for justice and for their rights. The more scared they are, the easier it is to control them. Feudalism, religious oppression and cruel right-wing dictatorships, all that serves perfectly well both the market fundamentalism of the Empire, and its obsession with controlling the planet. But such an arrangement of the world is abnormal, and therefore temporary. Human beings are longing for justice and, in their essence, are a sharing and decent species. Albert Camus, correctly, arrived at the conclusion in his powerful novel “The Plague” (analogy to fight against fascism): “there is more to admire than to despise in humans”. What the West is now doing to the world; igniting conflicts, supporting banditry and terror, sacrificing millions of people for its own commercial interests, is nothing new under the sun.

Cuba’s Raul Castro backs asylum offers for Snowden

July 8, 2013 www.timesdispatch.com Educate! Cuba, Edward Snowden, NSA

Raul Castro stood shoulder-to-shoulder Sunday with Latin American countries willing to take in NSA leaker Edward Snowden, but made no reference to whether Cuba itself would offer him refuge or safe passage. Venezuela and Bolivia both made asylum offers to Snowden over the weekend, and Nicaragua has said it is also considering his request. "We support the sovereign right of .... Venezuela and all states in the region to grant asylum to those persecuted for their ideals or their struggles for democratic rights," Castro said in a speech to Cuba's national assembly.

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