{"id":248551,"date":"2023-11-20T12:01:13","date_gmt":"2023-11-20T12:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=248551"},"modified":"2023-11-16T09:36:54","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T09:36:54","slug":"us-blows-off-the-whole-world-to-punish-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/11\/us-blows-off-the-whole-world-to-punish-cuba\/","title":{"rendered":"US Blows Off the Whole World to Punish Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fernandez<\/p><\/div>\n

When oppressed people get organized, the US gets angry. It’s been punishing the people of Cuba since 1962.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

15 Nov 2023<\/em> – On November 2, the UN General Assembly voted<\/a> overwhelmingly for a resolution calling on the US to lift the trade embargo against Cuba that President John Kennedy imposed in 1962. The US and Israel were the only two nations to vote no, with Ukraine abstaining. Total dependence creates total compliance.<\/p>\n

The US Treasury\u2019s Office of Foreign Assets Control records<\/a> complex specifics of sanctions on Cuba. There are so many that they amount to a virtual blockade.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou talk about sanctions,\u201d says Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fern\u00e1ndez, \u201cyou think \u2018OK, maybe the United States has one, two, or three sanctions on Cuba,\u2019 but I\u2019m talking about a blockade\u2014a system of sanctions. There are so many sanctions together on Cuba that it\u2019s unique. This is the only country that has been suffering under so many sanctions for so long.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe goal is to overthrow the government, to suffocate the people so hard that they want to overthrow their own government.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanctions, she said, also isolate Cuba from the rest of the world, because US trade, banking, and business relations are so far- flung that doing business with other parts of the world also involves business with the US. In her six-part documentary series \u201cThe War on Cuba,\u201d she gives the example of Ernesto, a farmer who needs two prosthetic legs. Ernesto has prosthetics but can\u2019t get the flexible type he needs because they\u2019re made by a German company that uses a US-manufactured material for more than 10% of their content.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe 10% of the raw material that they use for these prosthetic legs is made in the United States, or by a United States company,\u201d she says. \u201cSo that means it\u2019s illegal for Cuba to buy the prosthetic legs that Ernesto needs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d walk more. I\u2019d even be able to work a lot more,\u201d Ernesto says. \u201cBut we don\u2019t have access to them because of the blockade.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this is with everything,\u201d says Fern\u00e1ndez. \u201cImagine that you want to buy tractors. Maybe the seats of the tractors are made in Mexico but they have parts that are made in the US, or a US company owns part of the company that makes the tractors, so it\u2019s a violation of US law for anyone to sell Cuba the whole tractor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her docuseries includes Cuban farmers using horse-drawn plows.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the United States. It\u2019s an empire. So they have businesses around the world. They have stocks around the ` world in different companies. So we can\u2019t even purchase what we most need to purchase in Cuba, including medicines and materials needed to manufacture medicines.<\/p>\n

\u201cUS law makes it illegal for companies to do business with Cuba. If you do business with Cuba, you could lose your business with the United States. You have to choose between doing business with the United States and doing business with Cuba, and of course, if they\u2019re forced to make that choice, most every company will choose to do business with the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump added Cuba to the State Sponsors of Terrorism<\/a> list, which made foreign companies even more afraid of doing business there.<\/p>\n

Uphill on the Hill<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez has been touring the US showing \u201cUphill on the Hill,\u201d a film in which she narrates the story of her quest to ask members of the US Congress why they and the Biden Administration are so determined to sustain the brutal sanctions. In particular she seeks to speak to the Cuban American legislators who have most aggressively insisted that the sanctions be sustained.<\/p>\n

Not surprisingly, they all give her the brush-off, and she wryly checks them off her list one by one. Ultimately she does manage to join a delegation meeting with Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern<\/a>, a longtime opponent of the sanctions on Cuba. Pierre LaBossiere<\/a> of Haiti Action Committee<\/a> has a cameo in that scene in which he asks why the US punishes Cuba and lends so much support to Haiti, where the corrupt government kills its own people.<\/p>\n

After the Cuban American legislators refuse to meet with her, Fern\u00e1ndez meets Medea Benjamin and other members of Code Pink. Fern\u00e1ndez then says she\u2019s realized that Washington, DC is a Black city, so, being Afro Cuban, she\u2019s going out to talk to people who look like her. One after another, they tell her that there\u2019s no reason for the sanctions and they oppose them. In a choice comic moment, one says he\u2019d like to see the sanctions lifted because he\u2019s a cigar smoker.<\/p>\n

Obama, Trump, and Biden<\/strong><\/p>\n

During his second term, when he no longer had to worry about the Miami Cuban vote in the swing state of Florida, President Obama loosened the trade restrictions, saying it did not serve US interests to make the Cuban state collapse. He even traveled to Cuba to announce his policy. This, Fern\u00e1ndez said, brought a sudden, short-lived burst of optimism, trade and prosperity to Cuba, which she describes in Episode One<\/a> of \u201cThe War on Cuba.\u201d The Rolling Stones even appeared to perform in Havana after the embargo was lifted.<\/p>\n

Trump reversed Obama\u2019s policy, even though he himself had actually applied for licenses to do business in Cuba before becoming president. After becoming president, he tightened and even instituted new sanctions in order to placate the reactionary Miami Cubans.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them,\u201d he said, speaking at a campaign rally in Miami. \u201cAnd that I will do.\u201d And he did.<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez said that Biden has not returned to Obama\u2019s policies, most likely because he has unrealistic hopes of winning Florida in 2024.<\/p>\n

Fern\u00e1ndez on tour<\/strong><\/p>\n

The dates, times, and locations of Liz Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s upcoming appearances<\/a> in Seattle, Albuquerque, and Tampa are on the website bellyofthebeastcuba.com<\/a>, where you can also find \u201cThe War on Cuba<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the Q&A at her appearance at Oakland\u2019s La Pena Cultural Center, someone asked her how the Cuban economy works, to which she teared up and answered, \u201cIt doesn\u2019t, because of the blockade.\u201d<\/p>\n

_______________________________________________<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Ann Garrison is an independent journalist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended Stanford University and is a member of the <\/em>TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment<\/em><\/a>. In 2014 she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize<\/em> for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at @AnnGarrison<\/em>, ann@anngarrison.com.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 blackagendareport.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15 Nov 2023 – On Nov 2, the UNGA voted overwhelmingly for a resolution calling on the US to lift the trade embargo against Cuba that John Kennedy imposed in 1962. The US and Israel were the only two nations to vote no, with Ukraine abstaining. Total dependence creates total compliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":242649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[907,530,1337,663,2343,70,1468],"class_list":["post-248551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-transcend-members","tag-communism","tag-cuba","tag-embargo","tag-fidel-castro","tag-john-f-kennedy","tag-usa","tag-ussr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248551"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":248553,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248551\/revisions\/248553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}