Now Is the Time to Re-Think

A Let Cuba Live editorial

Now is the time to re-think

howwe end the U.S. blockade against Cuba

U.S. bullying of Cuba doesn’t go away. True, the Obama administration backed off a bit, but that centerpiece of U.S. aggression, economic blockade, goes on, and for almost 60 years. As of November 9, the current U.S.administration reinstated travel restrictions and added new twists to prohibitions on U.S. commercial dealings with Cuba. The restrictions are part ofthe U.S. system of economic blockade against Cuba.

Reuters says they “are aimed at preventing the military, intelligence and security arms of Cuba’s Communist government from benefiting from American tourists and trade.”

Now most US citizens will no longer be able to visit Cuba as individuals. They must travel as part of a group licensed by the Treasury Department for specific purposes. New restrictions apply particularly to those companies, stores, tourist agencies, and commercial entities that are operated by Cuba’s military or security services. These agencies are in charge of most of Cuba’s tourist sector. The U.S.government listed180 enterprises in all, among them 83 hotels.

Responding, Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy declared that, “The hypocrisy of the White House ideologues is glaring.” We agree. “It is stunning,” said Leahy;“[O]n a day when President Trump and members of his Cabinet are feted in Beijing by the world’s most repressive, nuclear-armed communist government, in a country to which Americans can travel freely, his Treasury Department releases onerous and petty restrictions on what private American citizens can do in Cuba -- an impoverished neighbor that poses not the slightest threat to the United States.”

We are aroused, and are confident that those of our fellow citizens who are committed to the truth,and who know, agree with us that the blockadeis cruel, immoral, and devoid of any grounding in ethics and international law. We regard the recent tightening of regulations as a signal that efforts to end the blockade must take on new urgency.

If not now, when? The U.S. public generally supported President Obama’s openings to Cuba. Opinion surveys show that even Cuban-Americans want decent relations between the two countries.

Officials devisingthese new restrictions want to weaken and change Cuba’s government. That’s their overall program. They are engaged in subverting Cuba’s sovereignty and independence. Norms established under the United Nations Charter mean nothing to U.S. power brokers. Their record shows that.

As in a recurring nightmare, the U.S. government reverts to Cold War thinking. “[W]e will not be silent in the face of communist oppression any longer,” Trump proclaimed last June in Miami. He was giving advance notice ofthese new restrictions and was preaching about political and human rights.

Yet Trump’s United States, so-called protector of the free world, casts a blind but profit-hungry eye upon a feudalistic, repressive Saudi regime that buys U.S. arms worth billions and uses them against the starving, cholera-ridden people of Yemen. That’s one example of U.S. hypocrisy.

In shouting out our condemnation of the blockade, we are not alone. On November 1 for the 26th consecutive year, the United Nations Generally Assembly overwhelmingly rejected the blockade. The vote was 192 to two.

The U.S. government is without shame. Defending her nation’s policy, Nikki Haley, U.S. Ambassador at the United Nations, declared that, “the United States does not fear isolation in this chamber or anywhere else. Our principles are not up for a vote.”

So, yes, the time is now. Their arrogance, bullying, and disregard for the truth are intolerable.

Over many years there’s been no lack of determined opposition to U.S. policies toward Cuba. But currently within the United States, political dissent generally downplays the issue of U.S.hostility towards Cuba, or so it seems. Silence is the rule and elected officials take no meaningful action. Those are two reasons why all of us fighting for decent, fair-minded U.S. policies toward Cubamust intensify our opposition, and study how we might do so.

We thinkthe tactic of civil disobediencemust be revitalized. Both IFCO/ Pastors for Peace and the Venceremos Brigade have long records ofchallenging U.S. rules on the blockade; each has been relentless and vigorous. And we know that in varied historical settings, other instances of non- violent resistance haveborne fruit.

So we call for study of ways by which that tactic, employed against the blockade, might gain new visibility and serve to bend the consciousness of our fellow citizens. This is a necessary prelude to arriving at a new order of nonviolent actions that, based on unity and principle, have impact.

We call also for re-appraising the context within which change occurs. The issue of justice for Cuba ought to be on the agenda ofthe wider struggle for political change in the United States. In that setting, fair U.S. dealings with Cuba would come about only as one element of a larger victory. The process would require that the heavy lifting on all issues be shared. Under such circumstance the Cuba campaign, one of many, may gain recruits, and strength.