SINCE THE ANNOUNCEMENTS of the normalisation of United States-Cuba relations, news of upscale fashion shows on the streets of Havana, droves of businesspersons eagerly descending to do business, the coming of Starbucks, and all of the other frivolous trappings of bourgeois society have been presented as full evidence of a new phase in Cuba-US relations.
This picture is grossly misleading. The hard reality is that, despite all the pronouncements of new relations, the five-decade-long harsh, brutal and inhumane US economic blockade of Cuba continues to persist in all of its ugly essential features.
This was made clear by the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, in his annual report on the US blockade to the international press and diplomatic corps at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs on September 9, 2016.
Despite all the praises sung to Obama for his “normalisation of the relationship”, it is only those who accept great power bullying as given who can view such a relationship as “normal”.
According to the foreign minister, “between April 2015 and March this year, the direct economic damage caused by the economic blockade of Cuba exceeded four thousand, 680 million dollars”.
His report revealed clearly that every major area of trade and finance continues to be embargoed by the US, giving the lie to public pronouncements of new relations. In his view, there is no sector in Cuba to escape the consequences of the blockade and “there is no element in our lives where its impact is not present”.
For example, despite some travel by US citizens under licences, “the ban on US citizens to come as tourists is maintained”. Similarly, despite Obama’s announcement prior to his visit that Cuba would be free to use the dollar in international transactions, “the blockade persists in the financial sector”.
Perhaps the most odious aspect of the persisting US blockade, apart from the human suffering which it imposes on Cuba, is the undermining of the sovereignty of third countries through the “extra-territorial scope of the blockade”.
It would be a grave mistake on the part of Caribbean citizens and governments to put down their guards and assume that all is well with US-Cuba relations when all of the negative effects of the blockade which have galvanised public opinion against the embargo for the last 50 years, continue unabated.
It is for this reason that Cuba has taken the principled approach that while the US blockade exists, there will be debate promoted by Cuba in all forums and there will be a Cuban resolution presented every year to the UN General Assembly, aimed at its removal.
The embargo has cost a fellow Caribbean nation billions in lost development. This cannot be allowed to continue, especially in an environment when everyone is accepting that the problem of the embargo is now over. Eternal vigilance!
