Cuba

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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Sun Aug 22, 2021 2:29 pm

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World mobilises against the U.S. on Cuba–including China
Posted Aug 21, 2021 by John Ross

Originally published: Learning from China (August 2021 ) |

The U.S. has just suffered a significant defeat in Afghanistan–weakening its position in central Asia. A second region where the U.S. is engaged in a serious foreign policy struggle is in Latin America–where there has been a new rise of forces pursuing a path of national independence instead of subordination to the US.. The immediate focus in this struggle has become the U.S. economic attack on Cuba. But because, on Cuba, the U.S. is going against the positions of the overwhelming majority of countries in the world, against the great majority of the Cuban people, and in violation of the U.S.’s own declared goals in terms of the global order, these is serious risk to the U.S. that it will also suffer a significant foreign policy defeat on this issue. This therefore makes it important to carefully analyse the unfolding of the situation around Cuba.

The U.S. attack on Cuba exposes the gap between reality and propaganda in U.S. foreign policy
The Biden administration has repeatedly declared, in order to attempt to gain international support and credibility for its policies, that the key principle of its foreign policy is to support a ‘rules based international order’. But the U.S.’s recent unilateral tightened embargo on Cuba, in open violation of an overwhelming vote in the United Nations, has immediately and transparently demonstrated that this U.S. claim is false. Because the great majority of countries have refused to go along with this U.S. unilateral attack on Cuba this has the potential to be a significant defeat for the U.S. not only in a failure to created a ‘colour counter-revolution’ in Cuba but also in terms of international ‘soft power’ and in international public opinion–a public demonstration to a global audience of the hypocritical positions of the U.S. China has a direct interest in this issue–as the U.S. has precisely been attempting to falsely claim that it stands for a ‘rules based international order’ in order to attempt to gain allies, and influence international public opinion, in favour of an aggressive policy towards China. Therefore, any demonstration that U.S. policy is in direct contradiction to a ‘rules based international order’ weakens the credibility of the U.S. and its ability to win over forces against China.

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Mass Cuban demonstration in Havana against pro-U.S. counter-revolutionaries.

An earlier article 如果美国对古巴搞颜色革命成功,那么对中国…… analysed the objective alignment of international political forces around Cuba. The present article analyses the growing unfolding of the global reaction to the U.S. new attack on Cuba and the anti-US shifts in international public opinion it has revealed.

Biden’s U-turn on Cuba

The present aggressive policy of Biden towards Cuba is not merely in violation of the expressed positions of the huge majority of other countries but is even in contradiction to Biden’s policy during the U.S. presidential election campaign. During this campaign Biden promised to ‘go back’ to Obama type relations with Cuba as opposed to the bellicose policies of Trump. Biden furthermore explicitly argued that this was in the international interests of the U.S. due to the widespread international opposition to the U.S. embargo on Cuba: ‘This is more than about Cuba, it’s about all of the Caribbean and it’s about all of our friends and allies in Latin America.’ But in the exact opposite of this promised course the new presidential administration tightened the U.S. attack on Cuba. All 243 new sanctions against Cuba introduced by the Trump administration were maintained and new ones were introduced by the Biden administration.

The result, however, has precisely been widespread international public opposition to U.S. policy towards Cuba–as foreseen by Biden’s analysis during the presidential election campaign. This has spread from countries and movements which traditionally took a considerable interest in U.S. relations with Cuba to new areas which did not previously follow events in Cuba closely–including public opinion in China.

The U.S.’s closest allies refuse to support it on Cuba
The first sign of the failure of the new U.S. aggression towards Cuba is that even the U.S.’s closest allies have refused to support it. Simultaneously huge opposition to U.S. policy was shown in Latin America.

The Washington Post, analysing the U.S. failure to gain international support for its new attack on Cuba, noted: ‘When Secretary of State Antony Blinken released a statement this week designed to show how “democracies around the world are coming together” to support oppressed Cubans, the countries not listed as signatories were more notable than the 20 that were… Canada did not appear. Nor did Spain or major European allies or the European Union… the U.N. General Assembly last week voted 184 to 2 (the United States and Israel objected) to demand an end to the U.S. economic blockade.’

It further noted: ‘a meeting of the OAS [Organisation of American States] Permanent Council, called for Wednesday to address “the situation in Cuba,” was postponed indefinitely after many countries declined to attend.

‘Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Saturday called Cuba an “example of resistance” and praised its ability to stand up to the United States, ABC News reported.

‘He called for the Organization of American States, which has often fallen under U.S. dominance, to be replaced “by a body that is truly autonomous, but not anybody’s lackey.”

‘“It is the considered opinion of our delegations that the proposed convocation of this meeting, which has been called without consultation, would be unproductive and would serve no useful purpose,” the head of the 14-member nations of the Caribbean Community wrote to the council chair.

A spokesperson from the Spanish Embassy in Washington said that “Spain decided not to participate in the joint statement published by the United States. . . . Other allies such as France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and Portugal did not partake, either.”

Numerous of the 193 member states of the United Nations made public statements to defend Cuba against the U.S. campaign. In a statement, the 120 members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) ‘strongly condemn[ed] the international campaign organized… with the purpose of destabilizing the Republic of Cuba.’ The NAM called for an immediate end to the U.S. blockade.

It may therefore be said that the U.S. has been able to gain essentially no significant international support for its policy on Cuba.

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Mexico’s aid to Havana arrives in Cuba.

In response to the U.S. position, in addition to statements of opposition to U.S. policy, Russia, China, Nicaragua, Bolivia, and Mexico all declared they were sending practical aid to Cuba.

Failure within Cuba itself
Turning to forces outside U.S. allies, the first big U.S. failure was in Cuba itself. In addition to the economic blockade the U.S. has spent billions of dollars in attempting to internally destabilise Cuba–with measures ranging from the large scale, hostile TV and radio stations, payments of agents within Cuba, through numerous unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro, to the more bizarre attempts such as to float CIA satellite phones into Cuba disguised as surf boards.

After decades of failure, on the morning of 11 July the US/CIA was therefore ecstatic when a few hundred, or at most a few thousand people, some openly counter revolutionary, some expressing demands related to immediate economic and social issues, demonstrated in Cuba primarily in the town of San Antonio de los Baños. To give an accurate idea of the small scale of this the entire population of San Antonio de los Baños is only 46,000.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel referred to this situation as follows:

In a very cowardly, subtle and opportunistic and perverse way, from the most complicated situations that we have had in provinces such as Matanzas and Ciego de Ávila, those who have always approved the blockade and who serve as mercenaries of the Yankee blockade on the streets, begin to appear with doctrines of humanitarian aid and a “humanitarian corridor.” We all know where they come from.

When Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel heard the news of this rather small protest, he immediately went to to San Antonio de los Baños, where he met with the people. Simultaneously, in a highly unrealistic fashion in light of the very small numbers involved in this protest, Biden called for the overthrow of the Cuban government. In fact, on the evening of July 11, large numbers of Cubans, very many times the size of the reactionary events, demonstrated in a large number of cities across Cuba in support of the government and of the revolution–the demonstration in Havana alone was estimated at up to 200,000. Since Sunday 11 July, Cuba has been calm, with essentially zero people following U.S. calls for demonstrations.

Why the Cuban attempted ‘colour counter-revolution’ had no significant social base
This social and political isolation of the reactionaries in Cuba is no surprise. Prior to the revolution of 1959 Cuba was a playground not only for the U.S. as a whole, and the comprador elements within Cuba, but directly extreme criminal and corrupt elements within the U.S. Cuba was a centre of gambling, of prostitution and the most degrading human practices, while every aspect of Cuba’s foreign policy was subordinate to the U.S. Today Cuba, on the contrary, not only follows a nationally independent foreign policy, with good relations with China, but in terms of its social advance it now has a longer life expectancy than the U.S..

Cuba, far from its old position of being a centre of gambling and crime, now has one of the most advanced biological and medical services in the world–it has developed five vaccines against Covid. For Cuban women the choice is even more stark. Today they can very realistically envisage careers as scientists or doctors–hundreds of thousands of Cuban women have such positions. Under the previous U.S. dominated regime, the threat to them was to be forced into prostitution because of poverty. Given this difference in life little wonder that the supporters of the U.S. in Cuba are popularly known as ‘gusanos’ (worms)!

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Hundreds of Cuban medical staff helped Panama fight the epidemic.

Certainly, the combination of the long-term U.S. economic blockade and the impact of COVID-19 has created real problems in Cuba but given the fundamental choice faced between a path of national independence and socialism and subordination to the U.S. the choice is very clear. This is why those agitating for a ‘colour counter-revolution’ in Cuba picked up only extremely peripheral support.

Within the U.S.

While the refusal even of U.S. allies to support its position on Cuba, as well as the huge majority opposition in Latin America to U.S. policy to Cuba, reflected the expression of pre-existing positions a new factor was the expression of active opposition to U.S. policy towards Cuba in the U.S. itself.

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Black Lives Matter statement on Cuba.

US political figures condemn the embargo against Cuba

While there was more confusion among progressive members of the U.S. Congress on the immediate events in Cuba they nevertheless clearly opposed the U.S. embargo. Senator Bernie Sanders for example declared:

It’s… long past time to end the unilateral U.S. embargo on Cuba, which has only hurt, not helped, the Cuban people.

Member of the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated it ‘is absurdly cruel and, like too many other U.S. policies targeting Latin Americans, the cruelty is the point. I outright reject the Biden administration’s defence of the embargo. It is never acceptable for us to use cruelty as a point of leverage against every day people.’

The well-known U.S. magazine The Nation also launched a fierce attack on U.S. policy towards Cuba:

Cuba’s achievements in health are a model and a demonstrable benefit for the entire world—one that the United States should be supporting. This is a country that is developing its economy through health and education—a project that began 60 years ago with rural literacy and health campaigns. Cuba’s public health system has allowed it to outperform much of the world in terms of life expectancy, infant mortality and, most recently, per capita pandemic statistics.

On the first day of the new administration, President Biden issued a national security directive calling for a review of the impact of sanctions on the response to the pandemic, with an eye toward offering relief. Hope for a sensible U.S. policy toward Cuba was once again kindled. Now, almost half a year into the Biden administration, the Trump-era policies of “maximum pressure” remain in place. The White House has made it clear that improving Cuba-US relations—and with them, the daily lives of the Cuban people—is not a priority.


It is important not to exaggerate this situation in the U.S. The forces within the U.S. against Biden’s policy were undoubtedly a minority. But, coupled with the overwhelming opposition by countries outside the U.S. to its policy to Cuba, this opposition even within the U.S. itself highlighted the international isolation of the U.S. on the issue of Cuba. This display not only of opposition outside the U.S. but even within it therefore had a significant international impact–the U.S. position on Cuba faced overwhelming opposition internationally and significant opposition even within its own borders.

China

This international situation intersected with China’s position on Cuba. There are, of course, strong historical links between China’s and Cuba’s leaderships. These were analysed in 如果美国对古巴搞颜色革命成功,那么对中国……

They may be simply summed up. Fidel Castro stated: ‘Xi Jinping is one of the strongest and most capable revolutionary leaders I have met in my life.’ Xi Jinping stated of Fidel Castro on his death: ‘I met with Comrade Fidel Castro many times and held in-depth conversations with him. His real knowledge and deep insight inspired me as his voice and expression live in my memory. Both I and the Chinese people miss him deeply.’ Cuba’s present president Miguel Diaz-Canel spoke at the recent Summit of the CPC and World Political Parties.

Nevertheless, despite these strong links at the level of the leadership, it would be fair to say that events concerning Cuba had not recently been strongly followed by China’s mass public opinion. To take a quantifiable measure, the Weibo of Cuban embassy in China’s 472,000 followers is not insignificant but cannot be said it is very large. Normally tweets by the Cuban embassy may expect to get a few hundred likes. But the Open Letter in the New York Times opposing U.S. policy to Cuba picked up a totally different and higher level of interest–it received 86,000 hits.

Statements of China’s Foreign Ministry

China’s Foreign Ministry position on the latest U.S. attacks on Cuba has been unequivocally clear in its opposition from the beginning. It was summed up by the spokesperson for the Foreign Minister on 4 August: ‘China firmly opposes any move to arbitrarily impose unilateral sanctions and interfere in other countries’ internal affairs under the pretext of so-called “freedom”, “human rights” and “democracy”. The recent U.S. sanctions against Cuban institution and officials severely violate the basic norms governing international relations and once again demonstrate to the world the typical U.S.-style double standard and bullyism. As is known to all, it is the economic, commercial and financial embargo of the U.S. that gravely impedes Cuba’s efforts to improve its economy and people’s livelihood, and tramples on the Cuban people’s right to subsistence and development. We urge the U.S. to heed the universal appeal of the international community, immediately and completely lift the sanctions and embargo against Cuba, and immediately stop making excuses to engage in gross interference and destabilization.

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Tweet by China’s spokesperson on foreign affairs opposing the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

‘Enough with sanctions! The right way is to support. Recently, China and many other friendly countries and international organizations have extended a helping hand to Cuba, aiding the Cuban government and people to fight the epidemic and improve people’s livelihood, illustrating that true friendship stands the test of adversity. China will continue to implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries, deepen China-Cuba friendly relations and firmly support Cuba’s efforts to overcome the impact of the epidemic, promote economic development and maintain social stability.’

China’s embassy in Cuba

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China’s Embassy in Cuba announces the delivery of ventilators to Cuba.

China’s Embassy in Cuba has also been extremely active in statements opposing U.S. policy towards Cuba. In addition to publicising the political declarations by China’s foreign ministry it also announced the delivery of items of practical aid from China to Cuba.

The first of these, on 31 July, was the delivery of ventilators from China to Cuba. An aid delivery of personal protection equipment was also announced. China’s Ambassador to Cuba declared: ‘30 ventilators donated by the Chinese government arrived at Havana in the morning today. Mankind is a community of shared future; China and Cuba are good friends, comrades, and brothers. To help the Cuban people fight the latest wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Chinese government decided to provide a new batch of emergency medical supplies. Other supplies including PPEs will arrive soon. We are confident that under the leadership of the Cuban party and government the Cuban people will overcome the difficulties and bring the epidemic under control.’

China then announced the delivery of 5,000 solar panels to Cuba–regions of Cuba have suffered power cuts and its climate of course makes solar power an extremely efficient energy source.

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Delivery of China’s solar panels to Cuba is announced.

China’s Embassy on Cuba also tweeted extensively the political statements made by China on the U.S. embargo against Cuba. It recalled that Cuba, after its revolution, had been the first country in Latin America to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.

China’s Embassy in Cuba clearly explained China’s position on the latest events. It noted on 21 July that Shen Beili, vice-minister of the international department of the CPC Central Committee, attended an online briefing on the facts of a series of protests against the Cuban government and the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC). This event was held by the PCC and the Sao Paulo Forum–an organisation of numerous social movements in Latin America. Rogelia Polanco Fuentes, Member of the Central Committee and Head of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the PCC briefed on the current situation in Cuba, and the truth about the protests against the Cuban government. Polanco said that the protests on 11 July were social turmoils caused by agents of a handful of anti-Cuba forces, with the aim of overthrowing the Cuban government. The PCC and Cuban government called on the Cuban people to stand in solidarity against external interference, defend the outcomes of the Cuban revolution and to condemn the U.S. long-term blockade on Cuba.

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China’s Ambassador to Cuba noting that Cuba, after its revolution, had been the first country in Latin America to establish diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China.

China’s representative stated that the Chinese side firmly supports Cuba’s exploration for a development path consistent with national realities, opposed external interference in Cuba’s internal affairs, supported Cuba in fighting COVID-19, and in improving the people’s livelihood and maintaining stability, and remains committed to deepening the China-Cuba friendship.

Geopolitical consequences of the isolation of the U.S. in its attack on Cuba
The above situation indicates that its latest attack on Cuba risks turning into a significant defeat for the U.S. This is because the U.S. has entered into a struggle on an unfavourable terrain:
*The events in Cuba since 11 July demonstrate that the U.S. has no major significant support within Cuba itself. Not only Cuba’s government but a crushing majority of the Cuban population oppose the counterrevolutionaries. Indeed the latter, apart from one morning of relatively small protests, have been unable to mount any significant popular mobilisations while large actions took place in favour of the Cuban government. This social and political dynamic therefore confirms there is no significant chance of a colour counter-revolution being mounted inside Cuba itself.

*An overwhelming majority of countries have opposed the new U.S. aggression against Cuba and even the U.S.’s closest allies have not supported it.
There is opposition even within the U.S. to its policies.

*While Cuba is certainly suffering significant material hardships, due to the direct and indirect impact of COVID19, in particular because of its cutting off of tourism, because Cuba is a small country, the aid required to solve its problems is very small compared to the resources of countries which oppose U.S. policy–Russia, China, large Latin American countries.

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China’s Ambassador to Cuba tweets on China’s position on events in Cuba.

Given this situation the U.S. has embarked on what is one of the least strong forms of foreign policy–bluff. The U.S. acted as though if it made a big noise other countries would back down and support its attack on Cuba. But unless other countries back down in their support for Cuba the U.S. cannot succeed in its attempt to carry out a “colour counterrevolution’ in Cuba and cannot gain the geopolitical advantage against other countries it calculated would result from this. Biden’s policy has therefore been a miscalculation. Unless other countries can be bluffed into not supporting Cuba, Biden would have been better advised to adhere to his electoral campaign position. Instead, his present policy has sharply revealed the almost complete lack of support for the new U.S. aggression towards Cuba.

The most fundamental reason for supporting Cuba is for international justice. Cuba is a country which wishes to pursue a policy of national independence. Cuba has no interest in pursuing a policy of confrontation with the U.S., on the contrary Cuba’s policy is to seek normal economic and political relations with the U.S. But Cuba does seek a situation where it can pursue its independent national interests and decide its own path of development. This is unacceptable to the U.S.

For this reason, essentially all political forces in Latin America seeking a path of national independence, and therefore also in almost all cases good relations with China, support Cuba. Cuba is consequently a central part of this movement for national independence in Latin America. It is particularly because this movement has recently been gaining success–winning presidential elections in Peru and Bolivia, and with former president Lula hugely ahead in the opinion polls for Brazil’s 2022 presidential election–that the U.S. has felt the necessity to intensify its attack on Cuba. If this U.S. attack on Cuba fails, these forces seeking national independence in Latin America will be strengthened.

Consequences for China

But this situation has major implications for China–both specifically in Latin America and in general in the fight against the new U.S. cold war against China. Within Latin America those countries seeking a path of national independence, in order to pursue this, invariably seek good relations with China. This was seen clearly, for example, during the period of Presidents Lula and Rousseff in Brazil, or President Morales in Bolivia–and now President Arce in the same country. Similarly Reuters reported on Peru’s newly election President Castillo’s early actions under the self-explanatory headline: ‘Peru’s new leftist president prioritizes China ties during early days in office.’ Reuters noted: ‘In his first week in office, Peru’s new… President Pedro Castillo has been quick to extend a friendly hand to China, the Andean nation’s most important commercial partner… Since Castillo was inaugurated on July 28, administration officials have met with the Chinese ambassador and Chinese mining executives to discuss not just policies for their industry but also to strengthen a previous free trade agreement.’ In a clear political signal Castillo also opted to be inoculated against COVID with China’s Sinopharm vaccine.

But the geopolitical effects of the outcome of the struggle around the new U.S. attack on Cuba goes well beyond Latin America. As already noted, the U.S. political campaign against China, the claim by the U.S. that it stands for a ‘rules based international order’, as against supposedly aggressive unilateral actions by China, is entirely refuted by the fact that the U.S. is openly acting against the will of the overwhelming majority of countries, and the votes of the UN, on Cuba.

The chaos following U.S. military action against Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, both within these individual countries and across whole regions, destroyed the international credibility of the U.S. claim that it carried out its military actions for ‘humanitarian’ reasons. The current U.S. attacks on Cuba also demonstrates that U.S. claims to stand for a ‘rule based international order’ are entirely false. This open demonstration that the U.S. position on a ‘rules based international order’ is entirely untrue hypocrisy therefore significantly weakens the credibility of U.S. ideological campaigns against China.

Latin America also has a direct geopolitical effect in the UN as a number of countries there help give a majority to China against U.S. attacks on China on issues such as Hong Kong and Xinjiang–Cuba directly played the lead role in the recent defeat in the UN of the U.S. position on Xinjiang.

In short, in addition to international justice, and expressing the openly expressed views of the overwhelming majority of countries, China has a direct interest in the failure of this U.S. attack on Cuba. Indeed, the two issues are interconnected–it is because the overwhelming majority of countries oppose U.S. policy towards Cuba that China gains international support by very firmly expressing the same position.

Risk of failure of the U.S. policy towards Cuba
The U.S. therefore now faces a significant risk which can affect its geopolitical position. The U.S. is unable to carry out a ‘colour counter-revolution’ in Cuba because of the relation of forces in that country. Meanwhile U.S. policy on Cuba is opposed by an overwhelming number of counties. In short, Biden’s earlier statement during the Presidential election campaign was correct: ‘This is more than about Cuba, it’s about all of the Caribbean and it’s about all of our friends and allies in Latin America.’ He might now add that by adopting an attack on Cuba which is opposed by the overwhelming majority of countries, and in open violation of the U.S.’s main ideological claim to international legitimacy, the U.S.’s geopolitical position risks being weakened.

Cuba is a small country. But because it became in 1959 the first country in the Western hemisphere to thoroughly break with U.S. domination, and embark on a path of national independence, events concerning Cuba have a geopolitical significance many times greater than its size. Present events show that this continues to be the case.

Conclusion
In summary, the objective significance of recent events concerning Cuba was already clear when recent events began on 11 July–as analysed in 如果美国对古巴搞颜色革命成功,那么对中国……. These objective reality have now begun to work themselves through into international opinion and geopolitics as analysed above. Given the significant U.S. miscalculation in launching an attack on Cuba which is opposed by the overwhelming majority of the world’s countries the significance of these shifts around Cuba will deepen in the coming period, including with consequences for China. It will therefore be important to follow events around Cuba extremely closely.

https://mronline.org/2021/08/21/world-m ... ing-china/
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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Tue Aug 24, 2021 2:15 pm

Joe Biden, the liberator of the Internet?
Biden calls Cuba a "failed state", but there is nothing more failed than the US government's "creative" attempts over 60 years to change the regime on the island. Sorry, yes there is, it's the way Miami terrorists and extortionists have duped US governments over the same period.

Author: Iroel Sánchez | internet@granma.cu

august 23, 2021 12:08:31

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On Friday, 16 July, on the White House lawn before boarding the helicopter for his Camp David retreat, Joe Biden told CNN that "misinformation on the networks is killing us". In particular, the US President was referring to posts on the digital network Facebook about the vaccination against COVID-19 and accused the company of doing nothing to prevent them.

Facebook is the same company that operates WhatsApp, and on both networks there have been many false news stories related to the COVID-19 pandemic in Cuba. But if the President, the Prime Minister or any other Cuban leader were to say what Biden said, the media and influencer apparatus that his government funds against the island would immediately set about lynching the author of such a phrase in the name of "freedom of expression".

Whether it is the "expression" of the old traditional media, those created in the Bush era, those created in the Obama era or in the Trump era, the participation in the disinformation war against Cuba is unanimous for those who claim plurality. From the UPI agency saying that the "harbour" of Bayamo and the Habana Libre Hotel had been taken over by the invaders from Playa Giron to the "Rey, you know I'm a biologist" at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the one who pays for disinformation is still 90 miles north of Cuba.

However, all digital social media companies (Twitter, Facebook and Google) have spared no means to block Russian media accounts such as RT and Sputnik, and in the case of Google, even to temporarily remove them from internet searches. It is also a fact that many Cuban media accounts, officials and journalists on Twitter have been blocked by the US at times of political relevance. The same fate has recently befallen the account of the Cuban Students`Federation (FEU) which groups hundreds of thousands of young Cubans.

The organic links of these companies with the US special services and State Department are well documented by the Snowden and Wikileaks revelations, and reached particular prominence in the two Obama terms during which Biden was vice-president. The Obama-Biden administration has been singled out as the one that has persecuted whistleblowers the most in the US, even ahead of Richard Nixon's, until then considered the most obsessive in this regard.

It was the alliance with the big tech companies that led the executive headed by the aforementioned Democratic duo to viciously persecute, to the point of suicide, the brilliant and very young computer scientist Aaron Swartz for becoming a leader in the free dissemination of knowledge on the internet. Swartz, harassed by the FBI, was subjected to a federal prosecution, in which the government made him face 35 years in prison and a million dollar fine. His crime? Downloading a database of scientific research results funded by public money with the intention of releasing it on the internet for anyone to access. Unlike Biden, who talks about freedom and pursues it, Aaron was consistent: in 2008 he had published a manifesto denouncing "the private theft of public culture".

There was no clemency from those who now claim to care about Cubans' access to information, and use conveniently mayamised media figures to talk about freedom. It didn't matter that Swartz, as a teenager, had contributed substantially to elements that are now commonplace for sharing information on the internet, such as RSS and Creative Commons, which have contributed far more to humanity than those who pay for songs as well as Molotov cocktails as part of a plan to unleash something that will contribute as much to the US national interest as a bloodbath 90 miles from the US.

The only freedom that interests a government whose ministers were appointed by a banking corporation, according to emails between Citibank and Barack Obama's transition team leaked by Wikileaks, is the freedom to make money, and Aaron Swartz was a threat to that.

As Vice President, the current US President did not lift a finger so that Cuba could access the internet via the various undersea fibre-optic cables that pass within a few kilometres of its shores and which have remained off-limits to Cuban companies. A 1 062 km long connection had to be financed, at a cost of 70 million dollars, stretching from Camurí, near the port of La Guaira in Venezuela, to Siboney beach in Santiago de Cuba. Nor did it unblock the many scientific and technological information sites blocked to Cuban computer developers.

Eric Schmidt, someone who knows both Aaron Swartz and Biden well, visited Cuba in 2015 when he was Google's CEO. He was at the University of Computer Science (UCI), where several students and professors complained to him about not being able to access his mega-company's software development sites. Schmidt said he would give them access "from the left", as they say in Cuban, and a professor present replied: "”We don't want to jump over the fence, we want to enter through the door like everyone else", and the US executive promised to discuss this with his government, precisely the same government of which Biden was a member. What has happened since then until today is that the situation, far from improving, has worsened, but Joe Biden has promised to give "uncensored internet to Cuba" and for free!

One more business for tech companies like the ones that filled their pockets with US taxpayers' money, saying you'd see television in Havana that you've never seen before? Most likely. Biden calls Cuba a "failed state", but there is nothing more failed than the US government's 60-year "creative" attempts at regime change on the island. Sorry, yes there is, it's the way Miami terrorists and extortionists have duped US governments over the same period.

http://en.granma.cu/mundo/2021-08-23/jo ... e-internet
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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 03, 2021 2:06 pm

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COVID-19 and the Economic Blockade Put Severe Pressure on Cuban Health Care
September 2, 2021
By Marc Vandepitte – Aug 28, 2021

The Cuban health care system is among the best in the world, but today it’s groaning under the weight of COVID-19. This is due to the economic blockade and the highly contagious delta variant. Now all resources are being placed in a rapid vaccination campaign. It is a race against time.

Cuba is experiencing difficult times. As a result of the tightened US economic blockade and the loss of tourism because of COVID-19, the country is going through a deep economic slump. Many basic products such as food and medicine have become scarce.

As if that weren’t enough, the coronavirus crisis is now hitting particularly hard. So much so that the health system, which is among the best in the world, is in danger of being overwhelmed by the pandemic.

Through social media, doctors have recently sounded the alarm. They point to shortages of medicine, oxygen, and other materials to battle the current COVID-19 outbreak. As was the case in most Western countries during the coronavirus peaks, medical staff in Cuba are exhausted.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel acknowledges that the health care system is overloaded. “The current situation of the epidemic has exceeded the capacities of the health care system, stressing the work of all its personnel, of all the agencies that are supporting the fight against the pandemic, also because there is an increased consumption of medications and oxygen.”

An excellent start…
The current acute situation is rather unexpected. Over the past year, Cuba had coped with the pandemic in an excellent manner. Despite the fact that a lot of people travel in and out of the country, the number of infections had remained very low.

This was mainly due to the well-organized health care system, the mobilization of the population, and the firm decision to shut down tourism. Cuba built a solid system of testing, contact tracing, and isolation (TCI). Anyone who tested positive, including those without symptoms, was hospitalized.

Until a few months ago, the number of COVID deaths per inhabitant was one of the lowest in the world. In mid-May 2021, Cuba had 10 COVID deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. In Europe, the figure was 275.

…Despite the blockade
That Cuba did so outstandingly well is not self-evident, because the country continues to suffer under dire circumstances. In addition to the blockade measures already in place, the Trump administration had put Cuba on the list of countries that support terrorism. Biden has not reversed those measures. This has far-reaching consequences as it keeps companies from doing business with Cuba.

A lot of medical companies that exported medicine or medical equipment to Cuba in the past no longer do so. Transport companies are also no longer willing to go to Cuba. For example, a donation of face masks and diagnostic kits from China never made it to Cuba because, at the last minute, the U.S. shipping company refused to deliver the equipment. For the same reason, the purchase of respirators from the California company Vyaire Medical Inc. was not possible.

Banks in particular are no longer willing to carry out financial transactions. For example, a donation from a Swiss solidarity group was not transferred. The donations were for the purchase of reagents needed for diagnostic tests and for protective equipment in the fight against COVID-19.

Then came the Delta variant
The approach worked well as long as the number of new infections was not too high. But the much more contagious Delta variant threw a spanner in the works. From June 2021, the delta variant became dominant and the number of daily infections skyrocketed. With so many new cases per day, the TCI system could not keep up and the protocol to hospitalize all positive cases was not sustainable.

After a year and a half of strict measures, coronavirus fatigue began to set in, as it did in so many other countries. At that time, the vaccination campaign had only just begun. There has been a delay on this campaign for two reasons. Cuba produces its own vaccines. Because there were so few COVID patients in the first wave, the testing phase lasted much longer than in Western countries. In those countries, on the other hand, there was no shortage of such patients…

A second reason is the economic blockade. As a result, basic raw materials either do not get into the country at all or their import experiences a long delay. This has delayed the vaccination campaign by weeks to months.

Today, 27% of the population is fully vaccinated and 44% have received at least one dose. Cuba thus has the third highest vaccination rate in Latin America. But this is still too low to provide sufficient resistance to the Delta variant.

The effect of vaccinations is very clear. 80% of COVID deaths in Cuba occurred after June 1. In countries with high vaccination coverage, such as France, the United Kingdom, and Belgium, the figures are 4%, 3% and 1.5% since June 1, respectively.

Starting in June, the number of new cases in Cuba skyrocketed to over 9,000 per day. Currently, Cuba has one of the highest rates of new cases in the world. Fortunately, the increase has stopped recently. The number of COVID deaths is also very high, now around 80 per day. There too, fortunately, a slight decline has begun in the last week.

All hands on deck
Hospitals are not prepared for so many COVID patients. There is a shortage of antibiotics, painkillers, and other medicines. Doctors are increasingly prescribing herbal remedies.

To strengthen the medical staff, Cuban medical brigades were recalled from several countries, including Panama and South Africa. The army is also being deployed, to supply oxygen and for other services.

Efforts are now underway to vaccinate everyone as soon as possible. By the end of September, half the population will have been vaccinated and by the end of this year, 95% will have been. The two Cuban vaccines, Abdala and Soberana 2, have an efficacy rate of more than 90%.

An unjust blockade
The US regularly proclaims itself a champion of human rights. If so, why does it maintain a suffocating blockade during a pandemic?

A group of UN human rights experts have urged the United States to lift the economic and financial blockade against Cuba so that it would be able to fight the COVID-19 pandemic:

We urge the US government to withdraw measures aimed at establishing trade barriers, and ban tariffs, quotas, non-tariff measures, including those which prevent financing the purchase of medicine, medical equipment, food and other essential goods.

We are particularly concerned about the risks to the right to life, health and other critical rights of the most vulnerable sections of the Cuban population, including people with disabilities and older persons, who are at much higher risk of/when contracting the virus. This is a matter of utmost importance and great urgency.


A historic opportunity
Oxfam Solidarity echoes this concern:

Today, the US embargo hinders Cuba’s efforts to stop the spread of the pandemic.

Oxfam joins many other voices around the world speaking out against the outdated and unjust blockade that the US continues to maintain against Cuba. Now, in the context of a global pandemic that has unleashed unprecedented health and economic crises across the world, we believe urgent action is needed to normalize US-Cuba relations and put an end to the US embargo.

Crises beget opportunities. We believe there is an historic opportunity for the US, led by the Biden administration, to set a new US policy of respectful and constructive engagement with Cuba. Oxfam calls for an end to the US embargo to rectify the injustices enacted against Cuban women and men who strive for their right to live without a blockade.




Featured image: Omara García Mederos/ACN

(Resumen Latinoamericano-English)

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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 06, 2021 1:55 pm

How are cyber-security incidents handled in Cuba?
The management of cybersecurity incidents in our country is conducted by entities specialized in detection and response to such events, formalized with the creation of the Incident Response Center in the Computer Networks Security Office and the approval of Decree-Law 35

Author: Susana Antón | informacion@granmai.cu

september 3, 2021 09:09:19

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Photo: Granma

The management of cybersecurity incidents in the country is not a new activity. This work has been conducted on the basis of a system that involves a group of entities specialized in detection and response to such events, established as legal entities, formalized with the creation of the Incident Response Center (Cucert), within the organizational structure of the Computer Networks Security Office (OSRI). Thus, the entry into effect of Decree-Law 35 and Resolution 105, entitled “Regulation on the national action model for the response to cybersecurity incidents,” which outlines clearly defined stages and concrete actions, strengthens management in this arena, contributes to better coordination and cooperation among those involved, and standardizes processes, while emphasizing preventive measures to avoid incidents and their harmful repercussions.

Pablo Domínguez Vázquez, director of Cybersecurity at the Ministry of Communications (Mincom), explained to Granma that the Regulation detailing the national action model for response to cybersecurity incidents stipulates as a novel element the inclusion of natural persons within the scope of those participating in incident management, which means citizens have the right to submit notifications, and are held responsible for the objectivity and veracity of information reported.

Domínguez additionally noted that a very comprehensive categorization is established that defines, from a technological point of view, what may constitute a threat to the daily economic, political and social life of a country that struggles every day to construct a more prosperous and cultured society, in which respect, ethical and civic behavior prevail, which contributes to citizen tranquility, and protects the rights of all citizens equally, with no distinction whatsoever.

He commented, "This is a task that involves the coordinated action of a group of entities, that will conduct evaluations to determine which incidents require action and which require a prophylactic approach or measures of some other nature, depending on the repercussions."

This Resolution is in line with provisions of the Constitution of the Republic’s Article 48, which stipulates that all persons have the right to respect for their personal and family privacy, their own image and voice, their honor and identity. These regulations are intended to protect the interests of citizens in the use of Telecommunications/Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) services. It is the duty of the Cuban state to establish procedures, in this new scenario of digital transformation, to ensure that the population can report and denounce events that affect them.

Categorization of incidents:

Ethical and social damage

-Media echo of false news

-Massive blocking of accounts on social networks

-Harmful dissemination

-Incidents undermining dignity and individuality

-Pornography

-Cyberbullying

-Pedophile deception

Natural disasters

-Earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, lightning, tsunamis, landslides, mudslides, avalanches and others

Physical damage

-Communications system damage due to fire, gas or water leaks, pollution, corrosion, cable breakage, automobile or airplane accidents and other causes

-Theft of computer equipment

Incidents of aggression

-Cyber terrorism

-Cyberwar

-Social subversion

Unauthorized action

-Unauthorized use of resources

-Illegal ICT service

-Unauthorized software installation

-Unauthorized access to website administration

Harmful content

-Fraud

Infrastructure failures

-Air conditioning failure

-Electrical failure

Technical failures

-Equipment failure

-Failure of applications or services

-Outdated platforms

Compromised data

-Deletion or modification of information

-Publication or loss of classified official information

-Loss of data or information

-Information theft

-Sniffers

-Man in the middle (MITM) attacks

-Illegal testing or scanning

-Social engineering

-Phishing

Interference

-Radiation, electromagnetic pulses and other interference.

-Changes in the characteristics of applications, equipment or components and services.

Unwanted mail

-Chain mail

-Hoax

-Spam

Illegal marketing

-Illegal marketing of software or hardware products and network services

Misconfiguration of websites

-Local or remote file embedding

-Code injection

The Mincom Director of Cybersecurity stated that contrary to some news circulating on the net, Resolution 105 does not limit freedom of expression in the country or publishing on social networks, but is directed toward creating a civic culture in the digital environment, and codifies the citizen right to report incidents that threaten a person, community tranquility or public order.

In all cases, when an incident is reported through the established channels, the information must be truthful and, in the event that its reliability is not verified, the person making the report will be held responsible.

INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCES

Many states have created high level regulations to address these issues, all guided by the same objectives, to ensure national defense and security, with emphasis on citizen tranquility.

Domínguez pointed out that in the process of drafting the Regulations, an analysis was conducted of such norms at the international level.

As a member state of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), he explained, Cuba regularly submits to an evaluation of the state's commitment to cybersecurity based on the Global Cybersecurity Index, which uses a numbered scale to assess the implementation and compliance in five central areas.

Through different legal instruments, the vast majority of countries, including some in Latin America, have approved guidelines for incident management with an impact on all sectors of society, including natural and legal persons.

He noted that regular updating of regulations has become standard practice, including amendments associated with increased use of the Internet, especially social networks.

The adoption of regulations in different countries has had a positive impact on the reduction and better management of incidents and, therefore, of their disastrous consequences; greater citizen awareness and digital culture; and better organization of the forces and entities specialized in dealing with these events.

In the case of Cuba, Decree 360, “Security of information and communication technologies for the computerization of society and the defense of national cyberspace,” has been in effect since May 31, 2019, and in its Article 25 subsection d), stipulates that the Ministry, in coordination with the Ministries of the Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, must establish a National Action Model to respond to cybersecurity incidents and procedures to ensure its implementation at all levels by all government institutions, Central State Administration agencies, the Central Bank of Cuba, national entities and People's Power bodies; as well as conduct law enforcement and neutralization of such events, in accordance with the responsibilities established for each party.

http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2021-09-03/how ... ed-in-cuba

***************************

Delta is responsible for increased transmission in Cuba, while vaccines contain impact

Mass vaccination in Cuba began precisely at a time when COVID-19 infections were increasing significantly, generating concerns within the population about the effectiveness of our nationally developed vaccines.

Author: Liz Conde Sánchez | internet@granma.cu
Author: Dairón Martínez Tejeda | internet@granma.cu
Author: Ángel Freddy Pérez Cabrera | freddy@granma.cu

september 3, 2021 12:09:29

Image
Studies have shown that Delta cannot evade the immunity induced by vaccines currently in use around the world today. Photo: Ricardo López Hevia

Mass vaccination in Cuba began precisely at a time when COVID-19 infections were increasing significantly, generating concerns within the population about the effectiveness of our nationally developed vaccines.

Appearing yesterday on the Mesa Redonda television program, DSc Eduardo Martinez Diaz, president of the pharmaceutical state enterprise group BioCubaFarma, explained that the main cause of the increase in positive cases of the disease is the incidence of the Delta variant of the SARS-COV-2 coronavirus, with characteristics that make it much more contagious and lethal than its predecessors.

He noted that countries with high vaccination coverage (i.e. Israel and the United States) have experienced a wave of infections following the appearance of Delta in their territory, as occurred in countries where the strain already predominates. Such is the case of Cuba.

However, studies have shown that Delta cannot evade the immune response induced by vaccines known in the world today, although it does reduce their level of effectiveness, which is why infections among vaccinated individuals have been reported.

What has occurred with Cuban vaccines? Vaccination began in May, in four Havana municipalities, and only eight weeks have elapsed since the completion of that process, during which effectiveness could be evaluated. "In other municipalities, it’s been only six or four weeks; in other words, it is only now that effectiveness is beginning to be measured," noted Dr. Martinez.

Using a graph, the expert displayed data from the Cuban capital as compared to the rest of the country, during the period between May and August 24.

In May, Havana had an incidence rate higher than the national average. Currently, with more than 60% of the metropolitan area’s population vaccinated, the incidence level is below the national average, Martínez reported.

He explained that the first four municipalities where vaccination began were, at that time, facing an incidence rate higher than Havana as a whole. They are now exhibiting a rate below that of other capital city municipalities.

In July, the Delta variant began to circulate in the capital and cases increased. Even in this scenario, he noted, "There has been a tendency in the other municipalities to coincide with figures in the first four, where vaccination began, since the rest of the municipalities have reached the immunity maturation period (14 days after the third dose)," he said.

Meanwhile, the lethality rate in the capital - which in May was higher than the country's average - began to decrease, to the point that in the four municipalities where mass immunization as initiated, it is six times lower than in the rest of the nation, the doctor reported.

"There is evidence that our vaccines work," he reiterated, adding that in municipalities where vaccination has begun and enough time has elapsed to carry out studies on the effectiveness of the vaccines, the results are positive.

On hand to discuss progress being made in the Ismaelillo pediatric clinical trials with the Abdala vaccine, currently in Phase III in the city of Camagüey, with subjects from three to 18 years of age, was DSc Marta Ayala Ávila, Party Political Bureau member and general director of the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB).

She reported that the administration cycle has concluded among subjects 12 to 18 years of age, and vaccination of the younger group will be completed shortly.

She specified that 1,190 doses have been administered to the 592 volunteers included in the trial, and once the results are obtained, emergency use of Abdala will be requested for the protection of our children and adolescents, currently most likely to be infected, since thus far, only those over 18 years of age have been vaccinated, of which more than three million have received the complete three-dose regimen.

He insisted that it is in the government's interest to achieve general immunization, especially in light of the Delta variant’s presence, which has tested the effectiveness of vaccines around the world, including Cuba’s; hence the industry is focusing on increasing production and quality control before releasing each batch.

To date, more than 16 million doses have been distributed, and 5,449,480 Cubans have received at least one injection. The experts insisted that statistics will continue to improve as mass vaccination advances - a process which began after emergency use of the vaccine was approved July 9.

Also significant is data obtained on the vaccine candidate Mambisa, one of only seven around the world administered nasally. The studies, thus far, show that 78.8 % of those who receive the solution develop greater immunity, by increasing the presence of immunoglobulin A (IgA) in mucous membranes and saliva, Dr. Ayala explained.

A study of Mambisa with convalescents is in Phase I-II at Hermanos Ameijeiras Hospital in Havana. The vaccine is expected to stimulate an intranasal barrier against the infection that would prevent the replication of SARS-COV-2 and reduce propagation of the virus in nasal cavities and the upper respiratory tract, where it usually enters and spreads.

Ayala clarified that Cuban vaccines have the advantage of proven safety and innocuity. "This guarantees that patients do not develop an infection when they are inoculated, since they receive formulations with protein bases. And our immunogens also offer the option of combination with each other, as well as others, in order to strengthen the body's defenses.”

The CIGB director added that, given the emergence of such highly contagious, life-threatening strains as Beta and Delta, it is an advantage for our country to have prioritized vulnerable and at-risk groups in vaccination plans, putting us in a better position to confront COVID-19, avoid severe cases of the disease and reduce the number of deaths due to complications.

Also invited to participate in the program was Dr. Vicente Vérez Bencomo, director of the Finlay Vaccine Institute, who reported important news related to the process of vaccinating the Cuban population against the SARS-COV-2 virus.

He presented details of progress made in the Soberana Pediatría clinical trials, in which the first two doses of Soberana 02 were administered to subjects between 12 and 18 years of age, 93% of whom responded positively. In the case of children between three and 11 years of age, the indicator was much higher, with effectiveness of 99.3 %, which is excellent news.

With such results, the necessary documentation has been submitted and authorization has been requested from Cuba’s regulatory authority for the emergency use of the formula in the pediatric population, two years of age and above. Some 4.2 million doses are needed for the effort, which will be ready by September 15.

He clarified that there is evidence of a greater immunological response in children, when compared with that of adults. He cited the example of adolescents who have received the third dose and have considerably increased their level of antibodies.

Also encouraging is the news that the Soberana Plus vaccine, designed as a booster administered with others, mostly commonly with Soberana 02 thus far, can be used to strengthen the immune capacity of vaccines manufactured in other latitudes, including AztraZeneca, Sputnik and Sinovac, an option which has aroused interest in several countries, he stated.

Dr. Vérez described as significant the decision made by the British medical journal The Lancet, one of the most prestigious in the world, to publish the results of the Phase I study in convalescents, one of the first to be published there.

He also announced that, following the conclusion of the Phase II study, a request was made to the regulatory authority to extend the emergency use of Soberana Plus in pediatric convalescents, which will require 500,000 doses. Production has been scaled up and the needed quanity will be ready by mid-September.

Another study being conducted, Dr. Vérez explained, is one of Soberana Centro, designed based on the use of two doses of Soberana 01 or Soberana 02, plus one dose of Soberana Plus, which should be completed in October in the municipalities of Cruces and Palmira, in the province of Cienfuegos, already having an important impact.

Recalling the intense research program undertaken by Cuban scientists, to rapidly provide answers to the emergency generated by COVID-19, the doctor recalled when they talked, for the first time in Cuba, about a heterologous vaccination regimen, based on the combination of several immunogens, in that case two doses of Soberana 02 and one of Soberana Plus, for which they took into account the importance of presenting the organism's immune system with different forms of the antigen. This was a very advanced idea that produced concrete results, and today has become a reality.

http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2021-09-03/del ... ain-impact
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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Wed Sep 08, 2021 1:27 pm

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Should the Cuban Revolution Hold on to Power? Part 4: Lenin’s New Economic Policy and the Cuban Situation
September 7, 2021
By Sam King – Sep 4, 2021

The following article outlines some theoretical considerations to help place Cuba’s contemporary situation into a Marxist framework. A relevant reference point seems to be another revolutionary country that also found itself in the situation of isolation – Russia.

In the broadest possible terms, the objective situation in Cuba today approximates aspects of the situation the Russian revolution faced in 1921 after its victory in the civil war. There are countless differences in detail and emphasis, however, in broadest terms, in both countries state power had/has been consolidated in the hands of the revolutionary side, both have largely undeveloped or backward economies compared to the level of development of the core imperialist economies of their time and both are isolated in that situation, with no immediate prospect of a revolution in a developed, imperialist country that could help to rapidly relieve their worst distortions and weaknesses.

The questions therefore posed to the revolutionary leaderships in each of these situations are broadly similar: what can be done with the state power and by the most politically conscious and active sections of the working class and its supporters to consolidate and strengthen their position vis-à-vis imperialism, the counter-revolution and to help bring about other revolutions as rapidly as possible? In thinking about Cuba today, it is worthwhile to look at what Lenin, then leader of the Russia government, had to say at the time.

Fidel Castro described the period of crisis immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union as a “special period in a time of peace”. He was likening the degree of dislocation, and the required response, to the sort of crisis that can be caused by war. The situation in Russia in 1921 was also a critical economic crisis during peacetime.

RUSSIA’S NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

The policy the Bolsheviks adopted in 1921 came to be known as the New Economic Policy. The NEP replaced “war communism” – the policy of the civil war period which involved the rapid forcible expropriation of capitalist property in order to allow the state to direct social resources into the war effort, deprive the enemy of its social base of existence and win the war. Most importantly, war communism meant the forcible expropriation of grain from the peasantry. Grain above and beyond that required for the peasants’ own consumption was seized by agents of the Soviet government and distributed to city workers and the Red Army.

The war communist state had no ability to produce sufficient consumer goods to compensate the peasantry for seized grain and hence had little choice but to carry out the expropriations by force where necessary, leaving only promissory notes. Lenin argued this policy was possible only in the short term during the civil war because the smaller peasantry knew that if the Soviet government lost power, that would mean the return of the landlords and reversal of land reforms that had benefited poor and middle peasants. Despite this, forcible expropriation had already been met with resistance and sabotage during the civil war and resulted in a decline in grain production. With the Soviet military victories from 1920 a new more sustainable policy was necessary.

Lenin makes his case for the New Economic Policy in a pamphlet called The Tax in Kind published in May 1921. Outlining the situation faced by the Bolshevik Government and the working class Lenin says,
“The Civil War of 1918-20 aggravated the havoc in the country, retarded the restoration of its productive forces [after the devastation of World War One], and bled the proletariat more than any other class. To this was added the 1920 crop failure, the fodder shortage and the loss of cattle, which still further retarded the rehabilitation of transport and industry, because, among other things, it interfered with the employment of peasants’ horses for carting wood, our main type of fuel.
WHY INTRODUCE CAPITALIST MEASURES?

In addressing the question of “why the peasants and not the workers” should be the beneficiaries of urgent measures to improve conditions, Lenin wrote,
Because you need grain and fuel to improve the condition of the workers. This is the biggest “hitch” at the present time, from the standpoint of the economy as a whole. For it is impossible to increase the production and collection of grain and the storage and delivery of fuel except by improving the condition of the peasantry, and raising their productive forces. We must start with the peasantry. Those who fail to understand this, and think this putting the peasantry in the forefront is “renunciation” of the dictatorship of the proletariat, or something like that, simply do not stop to think, and allow themselves to be swayed by the power of words. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the direction of policy by the proletariat. The proletariat, as the leading and ruling class, must be able to direct policy in such a way as to solve first the most urgent and “vexed” problem. The most urgent thing at the present time is to take measures that will immediately increase the productive forces of peasant farming. Only in this way will it be possible to improve the condition of the workers, strengthen the alliance between the workers and peasants, and consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletarian or representative of the proletariat who refused to improve the condition of the workers in this way would in fact prove himself to be an accomplice of the whiteguards and the capitalists; to refuse to do it in this way means putting the craft interests of the workers above their class interests, and sacrificing the interests of the whole of the working class, its dictatorship, its alliance with the peasantry against the landowners and capitalists, and its leading role in the struggle for the emancipation of labour from the yoke of capital, for the sake of an immediate, short-term and partial advantage for the workers.

Thus, the first thing we need is immediate and serious measures to raise the productive forces of the peasantry.

This cannot be done without making important changes in our food policy. One such change was the replacement of the surplus appropriation system by the tax in kind, which implies a free market, at least in local economic exchange, after the tax has been paid.
Thus, direct acquisition of grain by groups of armed workers was replaced with a system where producers could grow as much grain as they were able, with the state only appropriating a portion of that production as tax in kind. Under “war communism” the free sale and profit from grain had been banned. Hence the producer had no incentive to produce (or at least declare) grain above and beyond the minimum amount necessary to meet their requisition quota and that necessary for personal consumption. The tax in kind restored the incentive to the peasant to increase their production as much as possible by only taxing a part of all grain produced and allowing the remainder to be traded for profit.

Evidently Lenin favoured an economic recovery by resorting to capitalist methods at least in the countryside. It’s not that Lenin saw such a policy as without risks and negative consequences. Rather he viewed it as the only way to stabilise and increase the productive base of the economy – an unavoidable step. Like in Cuba, the severely limited choices open to the Bolsheviks was, according to Lenin, a function of Russia’s isolation.

“LEFT-WING” CHILDISHNESS

Quoting from his 1918 pamphlet “Left-Wing” Childishness Lenin argued,
“Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science. […] At the same time socialism is inconceivable unless the proletariat is the ruler of the state. This also is ABC. And history… has taken such a peculiar course that it has given birth in 1918 to two unconnected halves of socialism existing side by side like two future chickens in the single shell of international imperialism. In 1918, Germany and Russia had become the most striking embodiment of the material realisation of the economic, the productive and the socio-economic conditions for socialism [in Germany], on the one hand, and the political conditions [in Russia], on the other.
A victorious proletarian revolution in Germany would immediately and very easily smash any shell of imperialism…”

Lenin also argued,
“…it was not without reason that the teachers of socialism [i.e. Marx and Engels – SK] spoke of a whole period of transition from capitalism to socialism and emphasised the “prolonged birth pangs” [my emphasis – SK] of the new society.[3] And this new society is again an abstraction which can come into being only by passing through a series of varied, imperfect and concrete attempts to create this or that socialist state.”

“…it always exists in the development of nature as well as in the development of society, that only by a series of attempts—each of which, taken by itself, will be one-sided and will suffer from certain inconsistencies—will complete socialism be created by the revolutionary co-operation of the proletarians of all countries.

… it would be an obvious mistake to give free rein to ranters and phrase-mongers who allow themselves to be carried away by the “dazzling” revolutionary spirit, but who are incapable of sustained, thoughtful and deliberate revolutionary work which takes into account the most difficult stages of transition.
Fortunately, the history of the development of revolutionary parties and of the struggle that Bolshevism waged against them has left us a heritage of sharply defined types, of which the Left Socialist-Revolutionaries and anarchists are striking examples of bad revolutionaries. They are now shouting hysterically, choking and shouting themselves hoarse, against the “compromise” of the “Right Bolsheviks”. But they are incapable of understanding what is bad in “compromise”, and why “compromise” has been justly condemned by history and the course of the revolution.

Compromise in Kerensky’s time meant the surrender of power to the imperialist bourgeoisie, and the question of power is the fundamental question of every revolution.”

Lenin’s basic argument is that the type of compromise which is not permissible is that which undermines the proletarian power. That which is permissible is that which consolidates the power.

Besides concessions to the peasantry in order to revive the rural economy, the Bolsheviks also sought to improve the efficiency of industrial output and distribution by rationalising, centralising, modernising and better organising factories and distribution systems as much as possible. Due to the social or “cultural” backwardness (as Lenin puts it) of the Russian proletariat at the time – a factor massively exacerbated by the dislocation and deaths during the civil war – there was no prospect of much immediate progress in those things under the exclusive stewardship of the Russian working class in 1921.

The Bolsheviks adopted a policy of employing the former capitalist owners and skilled professionals to assist in administration, but under supervision and direction by workers appointed as “commissars”. To bring over the capitalists and technicians to work for the revolutionary government was not usually possible without paying them high salaries – hence, another injustice, economic distortion and danger was introduced.

Against left critics who viewed the employment and privileging of capitalists with alarm Lenin justified it thus,
“Now power has been seized, retained and consolidated in the hands of a single party, the party of the proletariat… To describe as “compromise” the fact that, having arrived at a situation when we can and must rule the country, we try to win over to our side, not grudging the cost, the most efficient people capitalism has trained and to take them into our service against small proprietary disintegration, reveals a total incapacity to think about the economic tasks of socialist construction.”
LENIN’S VIEWS AND CUBA

What the NEP shows is that, for the Bolsheviks, economic compromise with capital is permissible, albeit undesirable. According to Lenin, there are circumstances when it is the only correct and sensible policy. Returning to Cuba, does that mean that, in a Leninist view, the economic policies pursued by the Cubans are necessary and basically correct? Well, maybe, maybe not. That depends on all the concrete details.

From what Lenin writes above, it seems highly likely he would have argued that at least some degree of compromise is necessary: “Socialism is inconceivable without large-scale capitalist engineering based on the latest discoveries of modern science.” In Cuba, much of the limited large-scale industry they had prior to 1991 collapsed along with the Soviet Union.

What we can say for sure is that those socialists who argue today that Cuba should be criticised simply because it has implemented some market reforms – but do not attempt to give any sort of assessment of these – are not making an argument in the Leninist tradition. If we are blunt, we’d have to say such “criticisms” are not making an argument that is in any sense materialist. Any assessment of what the Cubans can or should do has to be based in an assessment of the balance of forces between classes and between the Cuban state and imperialism. Such an assessment is completely impossible if the entire material-social foundation of Cuban society is “forgotten”.

It was suggested in article two that many of Cuba’s left critics agree, at least nominally, that “socialism in one country” is impossible. To hold this view on the one hand, while at the same time criticising the Cubans for making concessions to the market suggests that, for them, nothing the Cubans can do is right. If our Cuban comrades were to try to proceed with the other policy that is available to them, i.e. with some Cuban version of “war communism” and all the deprivations that would entail, Emeritus Professor Callinicos and his friends would be delighted to attack Cuba with the first sign of dissent that such a course would inevitably provoke.

In other words, both of the possible paths open to Cuba (and also to Venezuela) are wrong. According to such views, the Cuban Revolution shouldn’t exist. That is why Callinicos and his friends chose not to think or speak about it – except when it’s under attack, then they join in. For them, Cuba’s destruction of capitalist state power is wrong from the standpoint of theory because it did not occur in a developed country.

That is why they don’t mind if it’s defeated. For them the only revolution is a revolution made inside an imperialist country. The way to make one does not involve organising workers and raising consciousness against imperialist strangulation of the Third World. It does not include raising the understanding of First World workers through giving solidarity to examples of resistance to this imperialist oppression – even when this is led by revolutionary socialists.

The quickest path, they believe, is to not sully the reputation of socialism and dirty the hands of First World socialists by associating them in the minds of workers with such impure actors as the PCC in Cuba nor the Chavistas in Venezuela.

However, for revolutionary socialism to be successful it will have to start from objective facts. Like the fact that every socialist revolution to take state power since the Second World War has been in the Third World – the Cuban Revolution being an important one. Recognition of this fact is not a renunciation of the necessity for a proletarian revolution inside the imperialist societies. Without the latter socialism can’t be ultimately victorious, whether in Cuba or anywhere else.

It is necessary to recognise both of these crucial facts: the reality and necessity of anti-imperialist and socialist struggle in the oppressed nations of the world and the necessity of socialist revolution of the working class in the advanced countries. Both are starting points for the global struggle to come.





Featured image: Fidel and Raúl Castro attend the inauguration of the Lenin Monument in the Havana park bearing the Russian revolutionary’s name. Photo: Jorge Oller

(Red Ant)

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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 14, 2021 12:59 pm

Cuba Says 'Mysterious Syndrome' is Not Scientifically Plausible

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A mural in Havana, Cuba, directly facing the U.S. embassy. | Photo: Twitter/@JoseJuMarti

Published 13 September 2021

A technical report was released Monday by a multidisciplinary research team created by the Cuban Academy of Sciences (ACC) on the "unidentified health incidents" reported in Havana in which some U.S. employees complained of various symptoms when they were stationed in Havana. Similar symptoms apparently appeared in some Canadian citizens and, later, in U.S. employees in other countries.


The report debunks a narrative it calls "mystery syndrome," which assumes that the cause of these incidents are attacks with some unidentified energy weapon. Its authors reveal that the narrative is based on the following - unverified - claims:

1) A novel syndrome with shared core symptoms and signs is present in the affected employees;

2) It is possible to detect in these employees brain damage originating during their stay in Havana;

3) A directed energy source exists that could affect people's brains from great distances after crossing the physical barriers of homes or hotel rooms;

4) A weapon capable of generating such a physical agent is achievable and identified; 5) Evidence of an attack was discovered;

6): The available evidence rules out alternative medical explanations.

The report critically examines the plausibility of these claims and the evidence on which they are based, concluding that the "mystery syndrome" narrative is not scientifically acceptable in any of its components and has only survived because of a biased use of science.

Although the report lacks some information, it provides plausible interpretations that fit the available facts better than the "mystery syndrome" narrative, based on published reports in the United States and Canada and field studies in Havana.

The text details the arguments for these interpretations, which are that:

Possibly some U.S. employees while stationed in Havana felt ill due to a heterogeneous collection of medical conditions, some pre-existing before going to Cuba and others acquired due to simple or well-known causes.

Many diseases prevalent in the general population can explain most of the symptoms. Thus, there is no novel syndrome (something evident in the official U.S. reports). Only a minority of people have detectable brain dysfunction, most due to experiences prior to their stay in Havana and others due to well-known medical conditions.

No known form of energy can selectively cause brain damage (with spatial precision similar to a laser beam) under the conditions described for the alleged Havana incidents.


The laws of physics governing sound, ultrasound, infrasound or radio frequency waves (including microwaves) do not permit this. These forms of energy could not have damaged brains without being felt or heard by others, without disturbing electronic devices in the case of microwaves, or without producing other injuries (such as ruptured eardrums or skin burns).

The report assures that at no time was anything of the sort reported. Although there are weapons that use sound or microwaves they are large in size and there is no possibility that this type of weapon would not go unnoticed (or leave a trace) if it had been deployed in Havana. Neither the Cuban Police, nor the F.B.I., nor the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, have discovered evidence of "attacks" on diplomats in Havana despite intensive investigations.

Finally, psychogenic and toxic explanations for many symptoms in some cases were rejected by adequate research. Specifically, all the conditions for the psychogenic spread of distress were present in this episode, including probably an inadequate initial medical response, early official U.S. government endorsement of an "attack" theory, and sensationalist media coverage, among others.

The experts stand ready to revise its conclusions if new evidence emerges, inviting efforts to refute its interpretations in a climate of open scientific collaboration. However, it firmly rejects as "established truth" a narrative built on flimsy foundations and flawed scientific practice. An example is the idea that there was an "attack," which is accepted as "established truth without critical thinking."

Some scientific articles - and most of the news read - accept as an axiom that there were attacks in Havana, so they take it as an idea on which to build theories. However, after four years, no evidence of attacks has surfaced, making it time to rethink the narrative, the report's authors hold.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Cub ... -0020.html

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Cuba To Receive 8.7 Million Syringes from Its Residents Abroad

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The complex situation derived from the COVID-19 pandemic and the tightening of the financial, economic and commercial blockade of the United States against Cuba has motivated the articulation of solidarity organizations and the mobilization of Cubans living abroad. | Photo: Twitter/@EmbacubaCanada

Published 13 September 2021 (13 hours 15 minutes ago)

Some 8.7 million syringes and medical and hospital supplies will soon reach Cuba thanks to the solidarity of nationals abroad and organizations supporting the island, Cuban media reported Monday.


According to Humberto Pérez, coordinator of the Asociación Martiana de Cubanos Residentes en Panamá, organizer of the shipment, the donation is part of the campaign Rompamos el Bloqueo, in which organizations present in more than 28 Latin American, Caribbean and European countries participate.

In a few days, the first of five containers will arrive from China with the aid collected to support the anti-COVID-19 vaccination, an effort supported by trade union organizations and young graduates of Cuban educational institutions.

From the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) headquarters, Perez highlighted the speed and magnitude of the response obtained since the launching of this campaign last February, which allowed the arrival of eight of these loads to date.

She said that the complex situation derived from the COVID-19 pandemic and the tightening of the financial, economic and commercial blockade of the United States against Cuba motivated the articulation of solidarity organizations and the mobilization of Cubans living abroad.


In this sense, Noemi Rabaza, first vice-president of ICAP, highlighted the synergy achieved in the work of the Latin American and Caribbean Continental Network of Solidarity with Cuba, the Group of Cubans Living in Europe, and the rest of the friendship groups in the world.

During the meeting, ICAP acknowledged the efforts of the Martiana Association of Cubans Residing in Panama in this endeavor which, its coordinator affirmed, will continue with the purpose of breaking the U.S. blockade.

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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Thu Sep 16, 2021 2:15 pm

ESSAY: Racial Prejudice in Cuba
Editors, The Black Agenda Review 15 Sep 2021

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ESSAY: Racial Prejudice in Cuba

Contemporary conversations about racism in Cuba appear to have forgotten what it was like for Africans on the island republic before the Revolution. Afro-Cuban architect and journalist Gustavo E. Urrutia provides a stark historical reminder.

Recent discussions of racism and anti-Blackness in Cuba, and on the experiences (lived or otherwise) of Afro-Cubans, have been notable for a certain historical amnesia. The long history of racism in Cuba and of the subordinate status of African people in the island republic before 1959 have somehow been forgotten -- erased, even. Racism in Cuba is cast as being of recent vintage, a product, somehow, of the Cuban Revolution itself.

In light of this historical amnesia, it is worth revisiting the work of Gustavo E. Urrutia . Urrutia was one of the most important and influential writers on racism, African culture, and Black citizenship in pre-Revolutionary Cuba. Born in 1881 into a free Black family in Havana, Urrutia trained as an architect but made a career as a journalist. He was invited by the editor of the Havana newspaper Diario de la Marina -- a conservative journa l founded in 1844 that, historically, had been the mouthpiece of Cuba’s planter class -- to contribute to their Sunday supplement. Urrutia was given a page that he titled “Ideales de una raza,” where he advocated for the equality of rights of, and opportunities for, Black Cubans, and created a platform that celebrated African culture in Cuba. Poet Nicolás Guillén , for instance, was “discovered” by Urrutia and Guillén’s ground-breaking poems from Motivos de Son with his use of African syntax and rhythms, were first serialized in “Ideales de una raza.” Urrutia, who counted both Langston Hughes and Arturo Schomburg as compadres, also wrote extensively on Black America; commentaries on Hughes, W.E. B. Du Bois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Booker Williams, the Scottsboro boys, and the architect Paul Williams all appeared in “Ideales de una raza.”

While Urrutia continued to write for Diaro de la Marina until the 1950s, “Ideales de una Raza” only ran from 1928 to 1931. These were years of tumult and turmoil in Cuban society: the price of sugar was at a historic low, the economy was tanking, the republic was heavily indebted to Wall Street , and the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado y Morales (a figure Julo Antonio Mella dubbed the “Mussolini Tropical”) was brutally suppressing radicals of all stripes. Blackness and the African roots of Cuban culture occupied a difficult, ambivalent place in Cuba society during this period. On one hand, Afro-Cubans, alongside Haitian and Jamaican immigrants, were blamed for the island republic’s economic and social problems. On the other hand, Afro-Cuban culture was increasingly embraced as the soul of the Cuban nation while being celebrated as an antidote, to use novelist Alejo Carpentier’s phrase, to Wall Street and the grip of US imperialism on the island.

Reproduced below, Urrutia’s essay “Racial Prejudice in Cuba: How it Compares with that of the North Americans,” was written in 1932. It provides a compelling, nuanced, and ultimately disturbing reading of racism and Black citizenship in Cuban society. Striking and blunt, Urrutia compares the history of racism in Cuba to that of the United States while also showing both the regional particularities of Cuban racism, and the impact of Spanish, French, and US racist thought and practice on the island. Not merely diagnostic, Urrutia argues that a social revolution is necessary for the elimination of racism in Cuba -- but he also warns of a genocidal future for Cuba’s Black population. The essay is by no means perfect. Urrutia surprisingly lauds the work of the US in Liberia. One wishes he had written of the Cuban “Race War” of 1912 that saw Black veterans of the independence struggle lynched in the streets of Havana after launching an independent, Black political party. What are Urrutia’s thoughts on the anti-immigrant (that is, anti-Haitian) sentiment that emerged in the twenties and thirties, often finding expression in the writings of Ramiro Guerra y Sánchez, Urrutia’s fellow columnist in Diario de la Marina? And of course, one wonders how Urrutia would view the Revolution itself.

Urrutia died in 1958, the year before Fidel Castro seized power and the Revolution triumphed. Commenting on Urrutia’s writing in a 1943 essay for Phylon, African American scholar Mercer Cook asserted that “Sociologically, historically, and stylistically, [Urrutia’s articles] which, unfortunately, have not yet been published in book form, constitute the most complete and interesting document available on the race question in Cuba.” Urrutia’s “Racial Prejudice in Cuba” supports Cook’s claim. It is also a powerful testament against historical amnesia.

Racial Prejudice in Cuba: How it Compares with that of the Americans, 1932

Gustavo E. Urrutia

Despite the proximity of the island of Cuba to the southern coast of the United Sates despite the positive, assimilating influence of Uncle Sam over Liberia, and despite the fact that in both countries Negroes and their descendants lived in slavery until the second half of the nineteenth century, there is a distinct difference between the racial prejudice of North American whites and that of Cuban whites with regard to the colored people. In the United States the white race strives to isolate the Negroes and segregate them in every possible way. The Anglo-American considers his Negrophobia as a natural and legitimate sentiment, and he gives expression to it frankly. For the Spanish Cubans it is a shameful sentiment which they will not on any account confess to the Negroes. They try to dissolve the black race in a torrent of Aryan blood, and aim at their extinction in every possible indirect way. The ultimate aim in both cases is to exterminate the Negroes.

These differences between the anti-Negro policy of the gigantic republic of the north and that of our diminutive Cuban public may be traced, I believe, to the historical difference between the spirit of English colonization in the United States and that of Spanish colonization in the Great Antilles and a large part of America. They are the consequences of the distinctive civilization and character of the British and the Iberians.

The English conception of colonization was exclusivist, while the Spanish had the idea of fusion. Ethnic caste, “purity of blood,” is a British and Anglo-American fad, while for the Spaniards and their colonial descendants there was no special advantage in paying careful attention to genealogy. The English pilgrims brought with them to North America their wives and families, together with all their customs and traditional virtues and vices, and in order to defend them and maintain the purity of their race they pursued, persecuted and exterminated the aboriginal Indians.

On the other hand, the Spanish colonists were men who came alone, without their families, and had need of the native women. They subdued the native peoples and used them to develop the wealth of the colony, and, with this object in view, instead of persecuting and suppressing them, they needed to live with them and join with them in order to found their American empire. When Indians suffered death at the hands of Spaniards it was not as enemies but as slaves.

II

These were the contrasting ethnic and social conditions with which African slaves had to contend in North American and in Cuba. These were the conditions which operated during their prolonged slavery, and which, today, supply the motives for the conduct of North American whites toward their black fellow-citizens, and that of Cuban whites towards theirs.

After a long colonial period, both countries revolted against their respective home-countries and finally obtained political independence. For this, Cuba is largely indebted to her Negro population on account of its heroic collaboration. In both cases democratic constitutions were adopted and the principle of equality for the Negroes in their civil and political rights was recognized. Social and economic equality is not prescribed for anybody in any country organized on aristocratic or bourgeois lines because in such countries neither does this equality exist nor do the ruling classes wish it to exist. It is precisely this social and economic inequality which serves as a stimulus to rouse all the proletarian masses against the present capitalist regime and which will eventually bring about its downfall everywhere. In countries were there is an anti-Negro prejudice, such as the United States and Cuba, the sufferings common to all the lower classes ostracized socially and economically becomes greatly accentuated in the case of the belonging to the black race. However great may be the merits of Negroes, considered either individually or collectively, they are always belittled by the accident of their race. It is the Negroes, therefore, who should look forward with the greatest impatience to the establishment of a universal regime of equality for all classes.

It was, nevertheless, under distinctly different conditions that the American Negroes and the Cuban Negroes acquired the civil and political rights guaranteed by the constitutions of their respective countries. The Negroes of the United States have stolen a march over those of Cuba in the enjoyment of liberty, but certainly not in their contribution to the struggle for the independence of their country. Here again, much is due to the difference in character, already mentioned, between the white men of Cuba and those of North America.

The United States became independent of England in 1783, thanks to the courage of the white colonies. The collaboration of the Negroes was slight though heroic, because the descendants of the English did not make any concessions to their slaves with the object of getting their help in the winning of independence. On account of their pride, the co-operation of a supposedly inferior race perhaps appeared humiliating to them. This republic kept the Negroes in slavery until the year 1865. Then it had to amend its constitution so as to grant them equal civil and political rights. But even in 1932 there are some States in the American Union which, by means of legal subterfuges, cheat the Negroes of these rights.

In Cuba slavery was abolished before the political independence of the country was obtained. When, in the year 1868, the white patriots began the first effective revolt against Spanish domination, they commenced by granting liberty to all slaves who wished to join the revolutionary army, and, in the name of the future republic, conceded to them the civil and religious rights of democracy, accepting them as allies with perfectly equal rights and duties. Owing to their intelligence and their bravery, the Negroes, together with their white compatriots, occupied all the ranks of military hierarchy from privates to generals in command of troops composed of men of both races, with no discrimination of any kind.

When, by means of a peace treaty with Spain, this Ten Years War (1868-1978) was ended, the white patriots demanded that the Spanish Government should recognize the liberty of the Negro revolutionaries. The non-combatant Negoes in Cuba remained slaves until 1886, when, at the instigation of the white separatists of Cuba, and of many Spanish abolitionists, Spain entirely abolished slavery in Cuba.

From the beginning of the Ten Years War until independence was obtained as a result of the final war (1895-98) there existed a perfect community of ideals, aspirations and suffering between white and Negro separatists. But amongst the supporters of the colonial government matters were quite different. They still maintained the racial prejudices of the slave tradition.

III

Ah, but once the Cuban Republic was established, those white revolutionaries, who had shown such sympathy for their coloured brethren, while they needed them in order to fight against the Spanish army, now became just as studiously opposed to them as the pro-Spanish Cubans. With the Republic they founded a cold democracy, soulless and blind, which has apparently fulfilled all the democratic privileges of the Revolution. Article 11 of our constitution even says: “All Cubans are equal before the law. The Republic recognizes no personal jurisdictions or privileges.”

This is true. For the Cuban State all citizens are equal. It sees no difference between a white man and a Negro. But neither does it see the subtle distinctions which are made in spite of the law against Cuban Negroes, not from racial but from color motives, as we shall explain later.

In the public life of Cuba there is no official and ostensible discrimination against coloured people. There is no separation of whites and blacks in public education, in the army and the navy, in the police, in public employment, in legislative or executive matters, in judicial employment, nor in the recording of votes. In an electoral meeting, Negores and whites, the learned and the illiterate, rich and poor, all have the same power. Nor is there any racial or color distinction in matters of public charity. There are no special hospitals for whites and others for Negroes, no railway carriages exclusively reserved for Negroes, nor are there special districts for Negores and whites in the cities.

As long as slavery lasted all these colour distinctions existed. After its abolition many of them remained, until the republic was established. During the republican period all these distinctions are illegal, they are accepted without question in many parts of the United States. In our official sphere nobody attempts to revive them, and the law is on the side of anyone who pleads against any attempted exclusion, on the ground of race or color, in the activities of private life.

But here we have the subtle and delicate part of the racial problem of Cuba. In private circles, and even in public life, anti-Negro prejudice finds its expression, not in open discriminations, as in the United States, but in a quiet and surreptitious way. The Negro is not excluded, but some pretext is always found for not accepting him. He is not hated, but neither is he loved. He is not killed, he is not lynchched, but he is left to die of starvation. The Negro population is not concentrated and driven away to a “black belt” where it may perish through poor living conditions but it is continually crossed with the white race, in order that it may become extinct. The object is not that the Negro may, through his exclusivism develop his own ethnic spirit, as in North America, but rather that his soul may be poisoned by a torturing infinity-complex and a suicidal desire to escape from his own race.

This interminable series of contrasts between extreme anti-Negro sentiment in North America and the shades of Cuban disaffection may be traced to the original and profound difference between British exclusivism and Iberian fusionism, inherited respectively from the Anglo-Americans and the Spanish Cubans. The North American is more or less resigned to seeing the Negro; what he affirms he will not tolerate is to feel the Negro in his blood, or to have intimate relations with the black race. On the contrary the Cuban white man is not averse to feeling Negro blood in his veins, but he denies Negro relationships and is a party to a conspiracy to banish the black color from Cbuan ethnography. His ambition is that our country shall be one of light yellow-skinned half-castes who are to be called “whites.” In my opinion this will take place in much less than a century, but I hope that by that time our mentality will have progressed sufficiently for us to attribute no importance to peoples color, race, nationality or religion.

It is proverbial that in the United States one drop of African blood makes a white man a Negro. In Cuba the reverse is the case. On drop of European blood makes a Negro a white man; so much so that in colonial times a large number of half-breeds, more or less chocolate in color, were white men de jure and enjoyed all the privilege of the white race, being inscribed as white on the official registers.

In Cuba a pro-white policy is carried out in all national activities, and one of the methods of this policy is to enroll half-castes as whites in the census reports and other demographic registers. In the last report published — that of 1919— the total population was given as 2,889,004, divided by race as follows:

Whites

Foreigners 272, 030

Cubans 1,816,017

Coloured people:

Negroes 323,117

Half-castes 461,694

Yellow people (Chinese) 16,146

Total: 2,889004

But the number of really white Cubans is very small, and is almost indeterminable. The rest of those who are coined as whites are not so, either in colour or in race.

In the year 1931 a new census took place, which indicated a population of 3, 670,000. The result have not yet been published, but from a racial point of view we may assume that they will show the same proportions, apart from a reduction in the number of Negroes and an increase in that of whites and half-castes, due to a constant crossing of the two races and especially to faked enrollments.

IV

Our laws make for equality, but the men who rule the nation— white Cubans — are otherwise preoccupied, and they permit certain qualities within the margin of the law. In official employments, conferred by appointment, colored men share only in a small proportion which does not exceed 3 percent, despite the fact that they form 27 per cent of the total population of the island. There are no Negroes among the naval officers and not one in the aviation corps. However, in the high ranks of executive power we have had a Government Secretary (the most important position in the interior of the country, next to that of the President of the Republic). There have also been two Secretaries of Agriculture. The present Secretary of Communications is also a coloured man, as is also the Secretary of Justice. There are other important posts held by members of our race.

In elective posts we have had three seniors, one of whom was president of the senate. In the Chamber of Deputies there are always coloured legislators. At one time we had 14 representatives in the same legislature. Negroes also figure in other elective posts in the nation. The elections are not by races but by provinces and municipalities.

V

There exists a kind of unwritten law by which Negroes and whites unite for the needs of public life and separate for those of private life. This separation is rigorously observed in the social sphere. In the economical sphere there are occupations in which people of all colors work together, and others from which dark people are tacitly excluded.

The prejudice is not uniform in the six provinces which form the county. White men and the half castes who pass for white live together and have their own exclusive social circles. This is true, in general, of the whole island. In the eastern provinces of Pinar del Rio and Havana, and in the central province of Matanzs, there is no distinction between Negroes and half-cases. They form another social class and meet in their own circles. In this region there are two big groups: white men and coluured men. In the other central province, Santa Clara, and in the two eastern ones, Camaguey and Oriente, the coloured race is divided into three groups: a, Brown people, who consider the whites as superior and the blacks as inferior them them; b, Half-cases and Negroes who behave in the same way as those of Pinar del Rio, Havana and Matanzas; c, a third group composed entirely of Negroes, just as exclusive and as proud of their race as the brown people are of theirs. Groups a and c maintain circles (societies) where only those of their own color are to be found. In those of group b there meet all those who do not live as whites, being very light in color or very dark.

From the province of Santa Clara to that of Oriente there exists an acute social antagonism between group a and group c. This is due to the French colonists, expelled from Hayti by Dessalines. They took to this region and inculcated in their half-caste children a sentiment of superiority over the Negroes. In the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana and Matanzas, the purely Spanish fusionist tradition is maintained, and all those who do not figure as whites consider themselves Negroes. For this reason, I, who am from Havana, when I say “Negroes” refers to all those who do not count as whites, whether their skin be of ebony or of jazmin.

In certain places in the south of the United States, such as New Orleans, where also some of the French expelled from Hayti took refuge, a similar “aristocracy” of brown people is cultivated within the all embracing racial subordination of the black race; and we may even find some large cities in the north of that country whee the same vice is developed, perhaps by contagion — a vice equally unworthy there as in Cuba but more absurd in the land of jim-crowism, whee, although it is true that every year some five thousand half-castes “Pass” into the white race, they must needs except brutally fro this race even person in whom is detached the slightest trace of African blood. In our island white society stimulates and protects this shameful invasion.

Private schools and teaching institutes in our country do not generally admit colored pupils unless they can pass for white. Still, intellectual people, artists and professionals of both races have their place in cultural life, and are even accustomed to meeting in the same clubs connected with their specialities. But as soon as any celebration of a social character is organized, especially if it is a dance, all communication is tacitly interrupted.

VI

The economic control of Cuba is chiefly in the hands of foreigners: x, Spaniards, in business, in part of the tobacco industry and in the greater part of the secondary industries. These are the concerns of persons or companies resident in the country. y, North Americans, in part of the tobacco industry, banking, and the most powerful enterprises concerned with public services. All this is owned by limited liability companies resident in the United States. There is also a small proportion of merchants. z, Other foreigners: Englishmen (they have an old railway enterprise, with headquarters in London), Frenchmen, Germans, Chinese, etc.

The Cuban whites owned almost all the wealth of the island in the time of slavery, but they abandoned or destroyed it, or the Spanish government confiscated it during the long revolutionary period of the separatist wars, which took place between the years 1868 and 1898. Today the natives live by public works, and by a little participation in the sugar, tobacco and other industries by agriculture on a small scale, by secondary employments in commerce and industry and as workmen or manual laborers. At present they are beginning to learn the retail trade in foodstuffs.

In connection with the pauperism of the natives, the most destitute and indigenous class is that of the coloured race. While he lived in slavery, the work of the Negro was the basis of our economy. He was employed in agriculture, in municipal functions and in domestic service. Being destined, then, to conspire and fight for the independence of Cuba, for thirty years he was steadily losing these positions. After the establishment of the republic, the whites, believing that they had no more need of the Negro, and forgetting the advantages of national cohesion, openly pursued the policy of making Cuba a white man’s country. With this object in view, they encouraged the immigration on a page scale of Spanish workmen and others, who have managed to oust the Negro in almost every branch of work.

The Cuban Negro is not today such an indispensable factor in our economy as the American Negro is in that of the south and north of the United States. If the white Cuban lives precariously, the Negro becomes a perfect pauper, whom his white countrymen keep excluded, partly from motives or racial prejudice, and partly in order not to share with him the scanty means of living at the disposal of the native.

This tragic economical situation the Cuban Negro in his own country has become worse with the world-wide economic depression, and the sugar disaster provoked in Cuba principally by the furious tariff protectionism of President Hoover’s government.

Despite the essential difference between the anti-Negro tradition of the United States and that of Cuba, we feel more and more every day the influence of prejudice a l’americaine. The economic pressure of that country over ours counts for as much as he intellectual influence. In colonial days Cuban youths who preferred to study outside Cuba would go to European colleges and universities. They would visit Spain, France, Belgium or Germany, and from there they would come back free from prejudice against the Negro. But now that rich young men are educated in the land of Washington, they come back feeling even more enmity towards the Negoes than does the abominable Jim Crow.

VII

Such is the true aspect of racial prejudice in Cuba. Coloured people consider themselves defrauded because the promises of the Revolution were for real and cordial equality, and the white Cuban, who governs, does not practice this equality.

Of what use, then, are precepts of equality to the Negroes? Of what values are the written laws, when the person for whom they were designed lacks the power to have them enforced? The racial problem of the American Negro and that of the Cuban Negro, though dissimilar in form, is essentially the same: the social and economic subordination of both groups to the white race, and the danger of extinction. The North American kills the Negro. The Spanish Cuban leaves him to die.

But the Negro in America and in Africa is beginning to be no longer alone. His problem of life and death is the same as that of the other obscure races; the same as that of the proletarian masses of the world. And these suppressed races, these destitute multitudes are beginning to understand one another, to communicate with one another and to love one another. It is not now merely a local clash of races, but an immense question of human justice. It seems that we are approaching a new cycle of civilization which will now be cohesive and universal. The efforts of all just, equitable and intelligent men and women throughout the world must join to contribute toward the advent of this new era in history. And the Negroes, having no selfish traditions to defend, with souls purified by suffering, free from rancor and full of brotherly love, are in a splendid condition to labour for the great human community of the future.

Translated from the Spanish by V. Latorre Bara.

Gustavo E. Urrutia, “Racial Prejudice in Cuba: How it Compares with that of the North Americans,” in Negro Anthology, Nancy Cunard, editor (London, 1934). https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/ite ... 505686a51c

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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:56 pm

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FORMER CUBAN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF SEES CUBAN REVOLUTION IN DANGER, CALLS FOR ACTION
Posted by W. T. Whitney, Jr. | Sep 27, 2021

Former Cuban Intelligence Chief Sees Cuban Revolution in Danger, Calls for Action
BY W. T. WHITNEY JR.
September 25, 2021



Fabian Escalante, a founder of Cuba’s state security services, served as head of Cuba’s Department of State Security in 1976 -1996 and vice-minister of the Interior Ministry. After 1993, he headed the Cuban Security Studies Center. In short, his views on threats posed by U.S. government agencies and on protecting Cuba’s Revolution carry weight



Writing September 23 on Cuba’s Pupila Insomne website, Escalante notes that, “the internal counterrevolution is reorganizing its forces and is on the offensive.” They are “calling for a ‘national strike’ for October 11 … to secure the ‘liberation of political prisoners.’” He insists that, afterwards, “a group of ‘activists,’ presumably counterrevolutionaries,” will be seeking authorization from Havana municipal authorities “for a peaceful march against ‘violence’ in November.”



He regards the timing as crucial, inasmuch as in November Cuba will be re-opening its borders to international tourists; they’ve been excluded since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. At issue is revival of Cuba’s economy.



Escalante cites a Miami periodical’s report asserting that ‘marchers will be calling for rights for all Cubans, liberation of political prisoners, and democratic and peaceful solutions of differences.” The story portrays island-wide marches as challenging Cuba’s government to honor a constitutional right to “public protest.”



He also observes that, “lies and half-truths, swarming around via social media, are disparaging government leaders, especially Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel. Accusations center on “failing to improve living conditions in deprived, vulnerable urban districts.”



Escalante notes also that in Miami, “a sector of the Cuban community, manipulated by fundamentalist congresspersons Marco Rubio, María Elvira Salazar and their acolytes, are readying their weapons, coordinating and paying local peons.” These are “in close touch with counterparts on the island and will assist in creating an environment of social destabilization.”



Adding substance to a grim scenario is the reality of long-term and bipartisan U.S. funding of counter-revolutionary activity in Cuba. Journalist Tracey Eaton reports that presently “The U.S. Agency for International Development is offering up to $2 million for new democracy-promotion programs in Cuba. USAID’s goals are to Advance the effectiveness of independent civil society groups … [and to] Develop broader coalitions to expand civil society’s impact.”



In July, the House Appropriations Committee “approved a bill that would authorize the State Department to spend $20 million on democracy promotion projects in Cuba during fiscal 2022 … Nearly half the money – $9.98 million – would go toward civil society; $4.78 million would be spent on independent media and free flow of information and $5.24 million would be used to promote human rights.”



Regime-change fervor in official Washington is always intense. Miami congressperson Mario Diaz-Balart recently issued a statement praising “the many activists who have suffered or perished for simply daring to speak against the regime.” He had just introduced a resolution seeking international support for counterrevolution in Cuba.



Fabian Escalante is alarmed. He declares that, ‘In circumstances like those at present – pandemic, escalation of the blockade, scarcities etc. – we must not underestimate the enemy and if we want to transcend the impasse, we must accept the challenge, with MORE REVOLUTION, as Fidel taught us.”



Escalante calls for mass action, “local political and patriotic mobilizations.” And, “we will do what we know to do, which is to mobilize the people.” We will “strengthen the bases of our organizations with ‘new ideas [and] with concepts exceeding tired prescriptions for ‘change in style and working methods.’”



He calls upon “communists occupying the superstructure to come down … to organizations at the base and other area-based centers and, from there, [move on] to leadership elements of the remaining revolutionary forces.” They must “dialogue and hear about conflicts and local necessities and [then] undertake a counter-offensive.”


He believes that the “enemy of humanity, the U.S. government … is preparing to deliver the final blow to the Revolution.” He suggests that the Biden administration, presuming Cuba to be weakened, wants a “consolation prize” in view of recent U.S. defeats. Now, therefore, “The street belongs to the revolutionaries, as Díaz Canel has alerted us.”

https://mltoday.com/former-cuban-intell ... or-action/

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Unesco Awards Cuban Scientist for Her Research on Dengue Fever

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Cuban infectious disease specialist María Guadalupe Guzmán was awarded the L'Oréal-Unesco "Women in Science" 2022 prize for her research on dengue fever. | Photo: Twitter/@BryanGual

Published 30 September 2021 (14 hours 20 minutes ago)

María Guadalupe Guzmán, Doctor of Science and Director of Research, Diagnosis and Reference at the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK), was one of the five winners (one per geographic area) of the L'Oréal-Unesco Award for Women in Science.


The Cuban specialist in infectious diseases was awarded the prize in its 2022 edition for her research on dengue fever.

Unesco highlighted that Guzman stands out for her pioneering work on the pathogenesis of this disease, the treatment of its symptoms and its prevention. Dengue is a disease present mainly in intertropical areas, which affects between 50 and 100 million people worldwide every year.

Dr. María Guadalupe Guzmán said Thursday that the award for her work is a recognition to Cuba and a life dedicated to science.

"Being one of the five women selected by Unesco, among all the women who do science for life in the world, is incredible," the doctor told Prensa Latina.

Guzman added: "This award is also to the Cuban Revolution; I would not have been the scientist I am today without the revolutionary project of putting science at the center of development and in terms of improving the health of the people."

In addition to the Cuban doctor, other recipients of the award were U.S. biochemist Katalin Kariko (North America), Chinese neuroscience expert Hailan Hu (Asia Pacific), Rwandan professor Agnès Binagwaho (Africa and Arab States) and Spanish embryology specialist María Ángela Nieto (Europe).


"Dr. María Guadalupe Guzmán Tirado, of Cuba, is one of the five women awarded in the 24th edition of the L'Oréal-UNESCO International Prize "Women in Science" 2022.

Since 1998, Unesco, in cooperation with the French cosmetics company L'Oréal, has awarded the prize to women researchers who have made outstanding contributions to the life sciences and the environment.

The scientist is chairing the 17th edition of the International Course on Dengue and other Arboviruses, convened for October 1 by the IPK Collaborating Center of the Pan American and World Health Organizations for the Study of Dengue and its Control, the Cuban Society of Microbiology and Parasitology and the Ministry of Public Health.

María Guadalupe Guzmán has more than 30 years of research experience in the field of virology and dengue and arboviruses in particular. She has contributed to the strengthening and developing virological diagnosis and laboratory surveillance of arboviruses in Cuba and the Americas.

The specialist has published more than 300 scientific articles and is the author of the chapter on dengue in the country's Encyclopedia of Public Health.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Une ... -0017.html

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IT IS THE FIRST COUNTRY IN LATIN AMERICA TO ACHIEVE THIS INDICATOR

80% OF CUBANS HAVE AT LEAST ONE DOSE OF THE COVID-19 VACCINE
30 Sep 2021 , 1:39 pm .

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A volunteer receives the dose of the Sovereign 01 vaccine during a clinical trial, on March 31 (Photo: AFP)

On September 27, 2021, Cuba managed to get 80% of its population, nine million people, to receive the first dose of the three-dose vaccination scheme against covid-19, using exclusively with vaccines developed and produced in the country.

This indicator places it much higher than high-income countries that initially hoarded vaccines, preventing access to countries with fewer resources. In the midst of the pandemic and with the effects of the blockade, there have been extraordinary results in the vaccination process.

More than five million people, 44.9% of the Cuban population, have already received the three doses. On average, Havana is vaccinating 200,000 people daily, with days exceeding 350,000 vaccinated.

The data were shared by the Ministry of Public Health (Minsap), the Center for State Control of Medicines, Medical Equipment and Devices (Cecmed) and BioCubaFarma during an intervention on the television program Mesa Redonda. There they stated that the national immunization strategy has been characterized by massive vaccination, authorizations for the use of national vaccines, total coverage guaranteed by the State, organization by stages and other elements.

The director of Science and Innovation of the Minsap, Ileana Morales, said that the month of September has been of great organization and intensity.

“We are among the first countries in the world to achieve this indicator, and we have done it with our own vaccines, which is unique. By the end of today, when we get the data, we will be able to have a much higher percentage ”.

A strong health system and a consolidated national pharmaceutical industry have been essential to achieve the milestone, added the Cuban scientist.

At the end of the month, the island has nine million vaccinated with at least one dose, 6.2 million with a second dose, 4.95 million with a third, and five million with a full schedule, for a total of more than 20 million doses.

https://misionverdad.com/80-de-los-cuba ... l-covid-19

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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 06, 2021 2:23 pm

Private Facebook Group that Organized the July Protests in Cuba Plans Bigger Ones Soon

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 5, 2021
Alan Macleod

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HAVANA —After gaining access to their private Facebook group, MintPress can reveal that the people who sparked the July 11 protests in Cuba are planning similar actions for October and November.

The group, La Villa del Humor, is widely credited with providing the initial spark that ignited nationwide protests on the Caribbean island in the summer, the most significant demonstrations since the 1990s. On July 10, one of the group’s administrators posted this message:

Tired of not having electricity? Stubborn because they didn’t let you sleep for 3 days? Tired of putting up with the impudence of a government that doesn’t care about you? It is time to go out and demand. Do not criticize from home, let’s make ourselves heard. If we’re not going to do it, we’d better shut our mouths and not talk shit from home that doesn’t solve anything. Are we more afraid to go out than to put up with all this cheek? How is it possible? We demand that [Presidents Miguel Díaz-Canel and Raúl Castro] also have blackouts. We demand that, since we have no food, at least they let us sleep. Hit the streets. Down with the opportunistic communist government now. This Sunday at 11am, Parque de la Iglesia. See you there. If you don’t go, stop complaining so much.

The moderator also went on to provide a detailed itinerary of the march, including instructions on where they would march and what items to bring.

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The post quoted in English above.

News and images of the demonstrations were immediately signal-boosted by individuals and groups in the United States, including the large and vocal Cuban ex-pat community in Miami, politicians, celebrities, and even U.S. government officials, to the point where even President Joe Biden put out an official statement endorsing events. The massive, global exposure this protest received turned it into worldwide news and rallied U.S.-backed anti-government forces across the island into the streets. However, the movement failed to break into the mainstream of Cuban society and quickly collapsed after it became clear that it had nothing like the numbers needed to achieve critical mass.

October surprise

The administration team of La Villa del Humor considered the July action to be a roaring success, and the first step toward a revolution that will depose the Communist government, in power since 1959. Fresh from their achievements, the group is helping to organize two new actions: a planned general strike in October and a larger set of nationwide demonstrations for November.

Sunday, October 10 is Cuban Independence Day and a national holiday. Organizers are calling for it to mark the start of a general strike (paro nacional in Spanish) to cripple or topple the government. An announcement shared on social media (including on La Villa del Humor) states that organizations across the country are gearing up for a strike next week, with hashtags like #ParoNacionalCuba and #SOSCuba trending. “We summon all worthy Cubans, lovers of freedom, their neighbors, their friends and their families, to a National Strike on Monday, October 11,” the communique reads.


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A post outlining the planned Oct. 11 nationwide strike.

As with most anti-government activity in Cuba, there is very little transparency. No individuals or organizations are named, the announcements simply ordering all Cubans to put down tools. This leaves many on the island wondering whether this is simply another operation by the U.S. government, which spends tens of millions of dollars annually on clandestine regime-change efforts, creating or propping up anti-government groups for that sole purpose.

La Villa del Humor is playing a significant role in promoting the general strike. On September 23, the group’s chief administrator, Alex Perez Rodriguez, recorded a livestream for group members, beseeching them to act as one.

On October 10, we are calling on all of Cuba, on the occasion of another year of independence from Spanish conquistadors, to protest again to demand its rights, to express its longing for freedom and democracy. God willing, all the towns of Cuba will be willing to, and will want to, protest one more time and to take the streets.

“The dictatorship,” he insisted, “is about to collapse…” “I am certain that on July 11, Cuba began to head to democracy,” he added, before sharing a conspiracy theory about the country’s domestically-produced COVID-19 vaccines, claiming that they do “absolutely nothing but make people even sicker.”

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“Cuba, hit the streets! Do it! And if you’re scared, do it with fear.”

Peaceful march or beginning of a revolution?

It is, however, the actions scheduled for November 20 that appear to be generating more excitement in the community. Marches across the island are planned, including in Guantanamo, Holguin, Camaguey and Havana, where organizers hope to begin at the iconic Malecón in Old Havana and end up in front of the National Capitol building, the headquarters of the National Assembly of People’s Power.

The movement is being outwardly advertised as a “peaceful march in favor of human rights and against violence,” and already has a who’s who of U.S.-backed figures such as the San Isidro Movement rap group and politician Manuel Cuesta Morúa signed on.

Yet, internally, the goals of the action appear quite different. Sharing an image reading “hit the streets until they [the government] fall,” Perez Rodriguez gleefully announced that “all of Cuba is preparing for this!”– quite a different message from the somber and respectful protests being reported on by sympathetic expat media in Florida. Other group members shared advice on planning and getting permits. Organizers hope to bring out thousands of people in Havana and other cities in what they hope will be the beginning of a revolution.

Conservative Cuban blogs claim that the government is already aware of the plans and has already taken action against those individuals whose names were on the protest permits.

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A post from Alexander Perez Rodriguez urging people to “hit the streets until they [the government] falls.”

La Villa del Humor: by Americans, for Cubans

Although the group is private, it merely took changing my name to a less English-sounding one and pretending I was from the group’s home town for the moderators to approve my application. The group itself was created in 2017, ostensibly as a local online message board and marketplace for the people of Santiago de los Baños, a town of about 50,000 people situated in western Cuba. The name “La Villa del Humor” refers to a biannual comedy festival held in the town.

For a while it did function as such a service, as locals posted complaints about thoughtless neighbors, advertised second-hand goods they wanted to sell, or alerted residents about lost pets. In the past year, however, it has taken a radical turn, becoming a hotbed of anti-government organizing to the point where there are now barely any posts relevant to local people. Indeed, many of the group’s posters are not even from Cuba, their profiles revealing that they live in Florida. One particularly frequent contributor even lists his place of work as The Miami Herald, the city’s local newspaper. In the hours during and after the July protests, the group’s membership more than doubled before the admins set the group to private, meaning all new members need to be pre-vetted.

As such, the group has become a conservative echo-chamber, with users primarily posting anti-communist memes or cartoons or promoting actions against the Cuban government. In essence then, La Villa del Humor is a place where Americans go to cajole the residents of a small Cuban town into overthrowing their government.

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Frequent La Villa del Humor posters showing Florida residence.

None of the administration team except Perez Rodriguez reveal their identity, hiding behind pseudonyms, meaning that anyone could be running the group. Perez Rodriguez himself does not live in Santiago de los Baños. In fact, he does not even live in Cuba; he left the island in 2010 and today works as a pastor at a Seventh Day Adventist church in southern Florida.

The involvement of foreign nationals in the domestic affairs of Cuba is on a level that can scarcely be conceived of in the United States, with even the most adamant RussiaGate proponents stopping short of claiming that Russians directly planned the George Floyd protests or the January 6 insurrection.

What is also clear from interacting with the group and reading its messages is that there is no interest in discussing or improving the lives and rights of Afro-Cubans, despite the fact that corporate media in the U.S. incessantly presented the July demonstrations as so aimed, even chastizing Black Lives Matter and other black liberation groups for refusing to support the protests and siding with the Cuban government. On the contrary, La Villa del Humor continues to be full of pro-Trump content and posts condemning former President Barrack Obama as a dangerous socialist.

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“The idols of ignorant people” includes most of Latin America’s most prominent left-wing politicians, including Evo Morales (Bolivia), Lula da SIlva (Brazil) and Nicolas Maduro (Venezuela).

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A cartoon showing a Cuban woman throwing Raul Castro out of Cuba while shouting “Fatherland and life, dickhead!”

A long history of meddling

La Villa del Humor’s arc from useful local service to foreign-controlled regime-change operation closely mirrors that of Zunzuneo, a Twitter-like app launched in 2010. Providing a dependable messaging service and undercutting the competition on price, Zunzuneo quickly gained a wide following in Cuba, attracting 55,000 people by 2012 — an enormous number considering the era and the lack of Internet access on the island.

However, at the height of its popularity, it abruptly shut down. Unknown to either the Cuban government or its public was that the app had actually been commissioned and paid for by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), Washington’s regime-change front group. The U.S. government’s plan was to first capture the Cuban market and gain the trust of the people, then to slowly drip-feed users anti-communist messaging, making it appear as if there was a groundswell of resentment. Then, one day, users would be alerted that a huge protest was happening and that they should all attend.

The NED was reportedly finding it increasingly difficult to hide who was behind Zunzuneo, at one point even meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey in an attempt to have him buy the service. An Associated Press investigation later found that the NED chose to pull the entire project rather than risk being caught in the act.

While it is still possible to argue that La Villa del Humor is a quasi-independent forum, Facebook certainly is not, and has aligned itself closely with the American government. Last year, after the Trump administration assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the social media giant removed all content praising the Iranian general, despite the fact that he was by far the most popular political figure in the country. Explaining its decision, Facebook stated that it, “operate[s] under U.S. sanctions laws, including those related to the U.S. government’s designation of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its leadership.” In short, if the U.S. government deems any group or individual to be a terrorist, then social media platforms are required to remove content challenging that idea.

Facebook has also signed a deal with NATO think tank The Atlantic Council, whereby the latter helps curate the news feeds of the Silicon Valley company’s 2.9 billion worldwide users. The Atlantic Council’s board of directors is a who’s who of establishment American power, including senior statesmen like Henry Kissinger, multiple military generals and seven former heads of the CIA. It is also directly funded by the U.S. and other NATO governments, as well as by arms manufacturers. That Facebook chose to hand over partial control of its content moderation to this group gives us a taste of just how close the relationship between big tech and big government has become. Facebook has also admitted to censoring Palestinian voices at the behest of the U.S. government and its Israeli ally. Quo vadis?

Each year, the United States spends tens of millions of dollars in an effort to oust the Cuban government and install one responsive to U.S. interests. The most recent House Appropriations Budget, for example, allocates $20 million for “democracy programs” in Cuba, helping to support “free enterprise and private business organizations.” In case there is any confusion at what “democracy” means, it goes on to insist that “none of the funds made available under such paragraph may be used for assistance for the government of Cuba.” This is far from the only source of funding for regime-change operations. The U.S. Agency for Global Media, for instance, is spending between $20 million and $25 million on a similar goal.

Most of that money goes towards an information barrage aimed at convincing the Cuban population that their future lies with the U.S. and away from the Communist Party. Online activities are preferred, as it is much easier to remain anonymous and hide where the money for websites and publications comes from. The U.S. funds groups that produce all forms of public online content, including articles, videos and audio. It also provides training courses for young activists both online and in person, using tactics honed around the world to produce change.

They additionally fund and support Cuban artists, intellectuals and musicians who promote anti-government messages. One particularly notable example is rapper Yotuel and the San Isidro Movement, whose song “Patria Y Vida” has become an anthem for regime change. “Patria y vida” (fatherland and life) is a play on Fidel Castro’s slogan “Patria o Muerte” (fatherland or death). Yotuel led a sympathy demonstration in Miami in July.

The CIA also groomed Cuban professor Raul Capote to become the new president of the country. Unbeknownst to the agency, however, Capote was a double agent the whole time, and when the time came for him to lead a protest, he publicly revealed the plan and how he had tricked them into trusting him.

There is no way of knowing for sure who is calling the shots at La Villa del Humor; Perez Rodriguez denies any connection to the U.S. government. However, most of the Florida Cuban community have some links with Washington, even if they do not realize it. The U.S. has spent over half a billion dollars on beaming a TV and radio network into Cuba, creating large numbers of jobs in the process. Added to those are all those working for “non”-governmental organizations dedicated to cataloging human rights transgressions of the Cuban government. There are also contractors paid to build websites, translators, staff paid to work at events, and more. And that is not counting those directly involved in clandestine activities. Thus, the entire local economy is significantly buoyed by the South Florida-based, recession-proof regime-change industry aimed at Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other Latin American countries.

While Villa del Humor did manage to be the catalyst for a local protest that, in turn, sparked a significant event in Cuban politics, the actual extent of their influence remains highly debatable. What is beyond doubt, however, is that they are indeed planning and hoping that their July stunt was just the beginning and that the end is near for the Communist Party in Cuba. Time will tell whether they can marshal enough forces to take this to the next level. If they are successful, history will absolve them. If not, history will likely forget them.

Feature photo | Cuban Americans rally against the Cuban government outside of the White House, July 17, 2021. Jose Luis Magana | AP

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2021/10/ ... ones-soon/

No, if the gusanos are successful history will not absolve them, it will vilify them. Because we will win!

(Edit:left out some images.)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Cuba

Post by blindpig » Mon Oct 18, 2021 2:40 pm

SOCIAL NETWORKS ARE ONCE AGAIN THE CHANNEL TO ACTIVATE THE COLOR REVOLUTION IN CUBA

Meanwhile, in Cuba the conspiracy continues through social networks to promote regime change, a process that began a couple of years ago with the emergence of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), whose protest against the application of a law was used to power a color revolution.

As we know, since the Cuban Revolution existed, the island has been under siege by the United States, who since then, without success, through internal and external means, has tried to undermine the basis of the historical process that began more than 60 years ago.

The facts show that the MSI protests went beyond a rejection of a legal instrument; the rejection of Decree 349, which sought to order the nascent private cultural activity in Cuba, continues to constitute part of a coup agenda. The direct participation of the US government, as well as NGOs and the Cuban-Mayan population demonstrates this.

A special report by the Samuel Robinson Institute for Original Thought points out that the current situation combines elements of old date that went "on the offensive within the framework of a regime change operation", as well as others that aim to psychologically dent the population. .


The artistic revolts, which have been a breeding ground for capturing the supposed general social discontent, have disturbed the social peace on the island, detonating a process that still continues and that is fueled by the imperial propaganda apparatuses.

Recently, MintPress revealed that those who planned the July riots on the island are contemplating new destabilization scenarios for October and November of this year.

According to the media, the group La Villa del Humor is credited with the initial spark that ignited the July protests nationwide. They point out that on the 10th of that month, one of the group's administrators published the following message:

"Tired of not having electricity? Tired of not being allowed to sleep for 3 days? Tired of putting up with the impudence of a government that doesn't care about you? It's time to go out and demand. Don't criticize from home, let's make ourselves heard. If we are not going to do it, we'd better shut our mouths and don't say shit from home that doesn't solve anything. Are we more afraid to go out than to put up with all this impudence? How is it possible? We demand that [Presidents Miguel Díaz-Canel and Raúl Castro] also have blackouts. We demand that, since we don't have food, at least they let us sleep. Go out into the streets. Down with the opportunist communist government now. This Sunday at 11 am, Parque de la Iglesia. There. If you don't go, stop complaining so much. "

The message was accompanied by a detailed itinerary of the march, including instructions on where they would march and what items to bring.

What happened at the march was replicated by the US media and by the large Cuban community that lives in Florida. The participation of the North American country was so great that even President Joe Biden issued an official statement supporting the events.

The big media corporations turned these protests into world news. "However, the movement failed to penetrate the mainstream of Cuban society and quickly fell apart after it became clear that it did not have the necessary numbers to reach critical mass," notes MintPress .

Despite the defeat, the management team of La Villa del Humor considers the July action a resounding success and constitutes "the first step towards a revolution." It is for them that he has been organizing new actions: "A general strike scheduled for October and a broader set of demonstrations across the country for November."

For last Sunday, October 10, the day on which Cuba's Independence Day was celebrated, the organizers asked that the date mark the start of a general strike with the aim of paralyzing or overthrowing the government.

To carry out this plan, social networks were, once again, a destabilizing weapon. With the tags #ParoNacionalCuba and #SOSCuba they summoned "all worthy Cubans, lovers of freedom, their neighbors, their friends and their families, to a National Strike on Monday, October 11," the statement said.


Apparently the message did not get a lot going because it was unreliable, since most of the anti-government activities in Cuba there is very little transparency and the message was confusing.

"On October 10, we summoned all of Cuba, on the occasion of one more year of independence from the Spanish conquerors, to protest again to demand their rights, to express their desire for freedom and democracy. God willing, all the peoples of Cuba they will be willing and they will want to protest once more and take to the streets, "said the group's main administrator, Alex Pérez Rodríguez, who recorded a livestream for the group's members asking them to act" as one. "

During his message, as is to be expected in the color revolutions, he looked for a way to generate panic by questioning the use of the anticovid vaccine produced on the island. He argued without any proof that vaccines do nothing more than "make people even sicker", when antiviral products made in the Greater Antilles have been shown to be highly effective.

For November 20, marches are planned throughout the island, including Guantánamo, Holguín, Camagüey and Havana, where organizers hope to begin on the iconic Malecón in Old Havana and end in front of the National Capitol building, headquarters of the National Assembly. of the Popular Power.

Although they announce that the marches are peaceful, that figures backed by the United States will participate in them, such as the rap group Movimiento San Isidro and the politician Manuel Cuesta Morúa, it is doubtful. If we talk about the beginning of a revolution, this can be interpreted as the trigger for an escalation of violence and the usual use to try to achieve a regime change.

GROUP TRANSFORMATION

The group La Villa del Humor, which began as a local online message board and market for the people of San Antonio de los Baños, a city of about 50,000 inhabitants located in western Cuba, later became a focus anti-government organization, to the point that there are hardly any relevant publications for the local population.

The funny thing is that many of the participants in the group are not even from Cuba, since their profiles reveal that they live in Florida. "One of the most frequent contributors even indicates that his workplace is the Miami Herald, " details MintPress .

"Thus, the group has become a conservative echo chamber, with users who mainly publish anti-communist memes or cartoons or who promote actions against the Cuban government. In essence, then, La Villa del Humor is a place where Americans go to cajole the residents of a small Cuban town into overthrowing their government, "says the outlet.

It should be noted that the US government spends millions of dollars each year to finance this type of anti-Castro initiatives. Funding that includes support for Cuban artists, intellectuals, and musicians who promote anti-government messages. The San Isidro Movement, whose song " Patria y vida " has become an anthem for regime change, is an example of this.

https://misionverdad.com/globalistan/se ... via-y-cuba
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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