Cuba-US Relations 70
The Hackneyed Imperialist Tool of Demonization
The Hackneyed Imperialist Tool of Demonization
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
“The systematic dehumanization of the leaders of other countries; the routine exaggeration of their military capabilities; the monotonous falsification of the nature and attitudes of other peoples; the reckless application of double standards in comparing the conduct of others with our own, as well as the inability to recognize the common character of many problems of others with our own, and the consequent tendency to see all aspects of the relationship with others in terms of a total and irreconcilable conflict of concerns and purposes. These, I believe, are not signs of the maturity and discernment that can be expected in the diplomacy of a great power…”.
Although the above description may seem applicable to Washington’s current foreign policy, it is a warning that George Frost Kennan (1904-2005), a long-serving diplomat and American historian, reminds us of the fact that it was Kennan who formulated and advocated a “policy of containment” against alleged Soviet expansionism, but later changed his theory.
Kennan enunciated his “containment policy” in February 1946 in a text that is remembered as the long message (“the Long Telegram”) he sent from Moscow in 1946 against so-called Soviet expansionism at the end of World War II. The text, signed with just one “X”, appeared in the July 1947 issue of Foreign Affairs magazine, intended to analyze the structure and psychology of Soviet diplomacy at that time. It was widely disseminated by Washington and brought Kennan a lot of popularity in the academic world.
Shortly after that same year, he was appointed director of policy planning at the State Department and, in 1949, advisor to that department. He returned to Moscow in 1952 as his country’s ambassador and in the following year, he had to return to the United States after being declared persona non grata by the Soviet government.
In the late 1950s, Kennan revised his views on “containment” and began advocating a program of “disengagement” from areas of conflict with the Soviet Union. He later emphatically denied that containment was applicable tp situations in other areas of the world, such as Vietnam.
Kennan is identified as one of the architects of the Cold War. His postwar writings about the supposed Soviet threat nurtured the U. S. policy of containment that led to the devastating arms race that still threatens the world with utter destruction.
But the development of events and variables in Washington’s foreign policy led Kennan to reconsider his initial views and to formulate those with which he begins this article.
Kennan then suggests that, although the Russians were still fundamentally opposed to peaceful coexistence with the West and inclined to achieve the extension of the Soviet socialist system around the world, they were particularly sensitive to the logic of military force and will respond or retreat in the face of skillful and determined resistance to their wishes for expansion.
Thus, Kennan goes on to advocate a policy of “counter-pressure” where the Soviets threatened or it could be predicted that such counter-pressure could lead to the Soviets being willing to cooperate with the US or, eventually, be seen to lead to an internal collapse of the Soviet government. This point of view would eventually become the focus of US policy towards Russia.
It is remarkable how much the imprint of Kennan’s policy of containment has influenced U. S. imperial policy, despite its belated retraction. It is something that can be noticed in the current stage of Washington’s hegemonic decline with an almost identical performance in the manner of demonizing its enemies or those who do not agree with its designs.
It is as if the complacent media and the two political parties that govern alternatively could only agree to attack their opponents when they have fabricated an image that fits into certain diabolical and perverse preconceived patterns.
In Latin America, the current U. S. offensive against dissident governments in its hegemonic area goes through a period of great intensity in which Bolivarian leader Nicolás Maduro Moro, president of Venezuela, occupies the prominent place that for half a century had Cuba sitting in the chair of the accused. The head of the Caracas government has reached, if not surpassed, the level of gossip that Fidel and Raúl Castro used to have, although the latter do not escape today from the diarrhea of lies and dehumanizing insults of Donald Trump.
February 27, 2018.
Miami Cubans Important to Future
Padura: Miami Cubans Important to Cuba’s Future
By Redaccion OnCuba
January 27, 2018
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews
Cuban craftsmanship in the fair Cuba Nostalgia that every year takes place in Miami. Photo: Rui Ferreira.
Padura, who was in the Spanish city of Toledo to present his new novel La transparencia del tiempo, answered reporters’ questions, that although he can’t be sure, he believes Trump is president “because in ahead of him, there was a candidate who was a woman.
And, in the United States, it was easier to have a black president than a female president, it’s a very complicated society,” he added.
Cuban writer Leonardo Padura said that the president of the United States, Donald Trump,”is the sin that Americans themselves are paying for their way of thinking”.
In this regard, he recalled that the story he tells in his latest novel takes place fundamentally in 2014 and ends with the beginning of talks between Cuba and the United States to re-establish relations.
It was a very hopeful development for the vast majority of Cubans and a large majority of Americans. But unfortunately, one of President Trump’s fundamental policies has been to dismantle President Obama’s policies,” said Padura.
I don’t believe that he has had a definite policy, except in the dismantling of what Obama created, and that’s where Cuba also fell,” said the writer, for whom relations between Cuba and the United States were restored but not normalized,” because, with an economic and financial embargo there can’t be normal relations.
In this context, he stressed that the Cuban community in Miami “is really very important.
It is a community that has made great efforts, which has even been able to accumulate capital “and will be important in the future development of Cuba,” according to Padura. He added that although in his principles this community “was characterized by being totally hostile to the Cuban revolutionary system,” now other more open generations have arrived.
The new generation of Cubans from Miami is much more open, its members travel to Cuba very often ” and they feel Cuban,” said Padura. He added that he has personally perceived that “it is increasingly possible for a Cuban artist living in Cuba to present himself as something normal in Miami.
There is an atmosphere “in which you can find some sense of hostility,” although he pointed out that “this has remained for a political class for which the bad relationship with Cuba is part of their work and is also part of their business.
But, in general, I feel that it is a community that has changed a lot in recent times. The historical exile no longer exists,” said Padura, who, for this novel brings back the character of police officer Mario Conde, who has starred in half a dozen novels.
In the plot, Conde is going to turn 60 years old and age begins to worry him. Not because of vanity,”but because he wants to witness things that may happen in the future” even though he is a man obsessed with the past “and knows that this vital period is running out”.
A Conflict That Was Avoidable
A Conflict That Was Avoidable
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
Cuba produces, consumes and exports substantial amounts of Havana cigars and rum, products that enjoy a lot of prestige and are in high demand in international markets.
It is somehow perplexing that a nation which –according to United Nations specialized agencies– contributes greatly to the prevention and cure of ailments through the medical assistance offered by its scientists in many countries, is likewise an important supplier in the world market of products that are harmful to health, such as alcohol and tobacco.
The inhabitants of the islands that make up the Cuban archipelago took control of their destiny after a bloody liberation struggle. By then, the humble and exploited Cuban peasants and workers had managed to develop –with sweat and tears resulting from strenuous capitalist exploitation– cultivation techniques, handicraft and manufacturing techniques which, together with climatic and agricultural conditions specific to parts of the Cuban archipelago, had placed the island at the head of the world in these product which make it proud today.
Cuba had always been denied democratic paths. It had to achieve its independence, in the decade of the 1950’s, through an armed struggle waged by a rebel vanguard at the cost of thousands of lives.
But when the popular revolution won and the Cuban people became owners of the country’s destiny, the new government was forced to limit the scope of its social welfare goals.
This was because of the need to defend against the counter-revolutionary actions of the oligarchy, already displaced from the government but supported by the United States superpower.
After the proclamation of Cuba’s independence from Spanish colonial rule, the US played the same hegemonic role that Spain had exercised previously.
Not all the big companies that were nationalized by the revolution reacted in the same way.
Virtually all non-US foreign companies accepted the path of negotiation and resolved the matter sensibly, without further conflict. Several of them, over the years, have returned to have investments in Cuba at much higher levels.
For more than sixty years, US companies nationalized in Cuba were not allowed by the US blockade laws against Cuba (euphemistically called “embargo”) to sit down and normally discuss compensation issues.
Everything had to be done in an organized manner, and the inevitable impact had to be treated carefully to minimize violent effects, always in the hope of future understanding and tolerance.
In the case of Bacardí, the former owners of the firm opted for making a legal war against Cuba.
Shortly after the triumph of the revolution, they registered the Bacardí Company in Bermuda and fought a legal battle in the International Court of The Hague for the ownership of the brand.
They managed to maintain the right to the Bacardi brand and the bat as its symbol, but they were denied the right to identify their rum as Cuban or originally from Havana.
In 1999, thanks to their political links and the blockade, Bacardi managed to get the US Congress to approve a provision that would allow it to seize the Havana Club brand within the US territory.
The World Trade Organization condemned the action, but allowed Bacardi to market, within the United States, the fake Havana Club rum made in Puerto Rico.
Through bizarre legal maneuvers, Bacardí allegedly had acquired from an industrialist named José Arechabala, the property of a small rum factory called Havana Club. This had been his property since 1934 until its nationalization in 1960. In truth, those rights were non-existent, because they belonged to the Cuban state.
Despite the blockade, Cuba has regularly renewed the Havana Club brand with the US Patent Office since 1976.
The brand was given to the rum Cuba produces that in the past had been named Bacardí. Cuba has continued producing the Havana Club rum with total international legal backing. Obviously, because of the US blockade, the Havana Club brand could not be registered in the United States.
Since 1994, the production of Havana Club rum and its worldwide distribution, except in the United States, has been done by a joint venture of the French Pernod Ricard and the Cuban Ron Cuba. This is a measure of defense against the intense harassment of the blockade against the Island.
In a short time, the Cuban Havana Club rum quality has captured the preference of rum drinkers from around the world who have stopped consuming Bacardi (manufactured in Puerto Rico). Drinkers of the best rum in the world, including Americans, do not settle for the fake that Bacardí is today.
February 6, 2018
What the United States Owes to Haiti
What the United States Owes to Haiti
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The crass coarseness of the president of the United States, Donald Trump, in matters of civic and formal education cannot justify the daily barbs of this false lunatic turned head of state that, ultimately, goes to the main detriment of the reputation and dignity of US citizens.
Following Trump’s racist pronouncement, which described Haiti and the whole of the countries of Africa as “shithole nations”, Cuban journalist José A. Téllez Villalón published on the Spanish site “Rebelion” a work to remind us that a large part of the arms, ammunition and men with which France contributed to the independence of the then Thirteen Colonies, passed through the then-French colony of Saint-Domingue (today Haiti) which had contributed with the blood of its children to the triumph of the forces in struggle for their independence from the British metropolis.
On March 12, 1779, the French colonizers began the recruitment of a body of volunteers to participate in the American Revolution. “The Volunteer Hunters of Saint-Domingue,” as the contingent was called, was made up of French settlers and between 500 and 800 black and mulatto freedmen.
Between the end of 1780 and the middle of 1781, the troops commanded by General George Washington and those commanded by the French general Jean Batiste de Vimeur, Count of Rochambeau, had been left without resources to land a final blow on the English troops positioned in Yorktown.
George Washington, the leader of the independence movement, reflected it on May 1, 1781 in his diary: “In a word, instead of having everything ready to go to the campaign, we have nothing. Instead of having the perspective of a glorious offensive campaign before us, we have but a confused and defensive situation, unless we receive powerful aid in the form of ships, land troops and money from our generous allies. For now, this is too eventful to be able to count on it. “
French Marshal Rochambeau wrote to French Admiral François Joseph Paul, Count de Grasse: “I must not hide from you, Sir, that the Americans are at the limit of their resources. Washington does not have half the troops it calculates, and in my opinion, although he remains silent about it, he does not have 6,000 men, nor does Mr. de La Fayette gather 1000 regulars in the militia to defend Virginia … “.
Téllez Villalón explains that Rochambeau asked the head of the fleet to recruit troops and bring them with him as reinforcements for General Washington’s Continental Army. The Admiral complied with instructions, recruited 3,000 volunteers from Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien, and placed them under the orders of the young officer Claudius Henry of Saint-Simon who was the founder of French socialism and utopian socialism. The same man who, for Engels, was, together with Hegel, the most encyclopedic mind of his time and in whose work most of the later ideas of socialism are contained.
The multinational reinforcement, consisting of a battalion of ex-slaves, pardos [tri-racial descendants of European, black and indiginous peoples] and mulatos from Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien commanded by Saint-Simon, disembarked in the Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, and took part, between September 26 and October 19, 1781, in the Siege of Yorktown.
So, says Tellez, the Americans owe a lot to foreign forces -French, Latin American and Haitian- for the achievement of their Independence. It was ratified by the United States Congress on November 15, 1784, after Great Britain capitulated on September 3, 1783 with the Treaty of Paris.
Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers of the American nation, acknowledged in an editorial published on July 5, 1803 in the New York Evening Post that “to the fatal climate of Saint-Domingue (Haiti), and to the courage and obstinate resistance of its black inhabitants, that we owe the obstacles that delayed the colonization of Louisiana until the favorable moment when a rupture between England and France gave a new turn to the latter’s projects”.
Nevertheless, another American founding father, Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, who was second vice president (1797-1801) and third president (1801-1809) of the United States, showed no gratitude for this assistance. On the contrary, he suspended all trade with Haiti in 1804.
The United States resisted recognizing the newly independent country for many years, joining the European empires in punishing Haiti for its insubordination. It was not until June 5, 1862 that President Abraham Lincoln granted American diplomatic recognition of the generous and heroic Fatherland of Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines.
February 7, 2018.
Unrest Within US Diplomacy
Unrest Within US Diplomacy
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.
The multiple crises affecting Donald Trump’s administration from the day the real estate multi-billionaire entrepreneur arrived at the Oval Office of the White House has not spared the State Department.An article by journalist Gardiner Harris, correspondent for the The New York Times at the White House, discusses the serious situation the diplomacy of the superpower has been going through since that day. He predicts it will tend to grow more serious in tune with the vices inherent in Trump’s administration, even when, in this case, it is Secretary of State, Rex W. Tillerson, the first-acting figure.
Harris describes what has been happening in the upper ranks of the State Department as “a parade of dismissals and early retirements”. Tillerson’s intense campaign to clean out the State Department has called upon each office of the Department to contribute to this goal.
The guarded optimism that greeted the arrival of Rex Tillerson to the post of Secretary of State soon gave way to concern about the lack of communication between the boss and his subordinates.
By midyear, Tillerson’s reiterated focus on issues such as inefficiency and the need to reorganize foreign policy provoked increasing anger and concern about his performance within the department.
Now, the estrangement is in the open. Diplomats going out the door are making their feelings known and a number of members of Congress have raised questions about the impact of these firings and resignations on US foreign policy.
In a recent message addressed to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the Democratic members of the House Foreign Relations Committee of Representatives, citing what they said was the “exodus of more than 100 Senior Foreign Service Officers of the State Department since January “, expressed concern about what “appears to be the intentional hollowing out of our senior diplomatic ranks.”
Tillerson, a former chief executive of the EXXON corporation and a supporter of fundamentalist capitalism, has made no secret of his belief that the State Department is a bloated bureaucracy. He regards much of the day-to-day diplomacy that lower level US diplomats conduct (and he now leads) as unproductive.
Even before Tillerson’s appointment was confirmed by the Senate, his team of assistants fired 6 of the State Department’s top career diplomats, including some who had been appointed during governments headed by Republican presidents. None were given any reasons for their dismissals.
Secretary Tillerson announced a reorganization to be carried out in the following months. He stressed that this would be the most important action that he would do while in office. He hired two consulting companies to lead the process.
Since he announced, before arriving at the State Department, that he would slash its budget by 31%, many in the Department have always seen the reorganization as a smokescreen for drastic cuts.
Tillerson has frozen most hiring and offered $25,000 buyouts, hoping to get about 2,000 career diplomats and civil servants to leave their positions by October 2018.
His small group of assistants has managed to fire some diplomats and gotten others to resign by refusing them the assignments they wanted, or taking their duties away altogether.
Among those fired or sidelined there is a high proportion of Latino and African-American diplomats, as well as women. These were important to maintain the Department’s troubled diversity balance.
Gardiner Harris quotes Nancy McEldowney, a career diplomat and former ambassador who retired last June after 30 years as a US Foreign Service Officer, “There is a vacuum throughout the State Department and the junior people now working in these top jobs lack the confidence and credibility that comes from a presidential nomination and a Senate confirmation.”
An example of the trend being followed in the State Department was seeing during the farce against Cuba about “sonic attacks” (which never existed and were probably the result of Senator Marco Rubio’s initiative to promote his image as the probable future Republican president). One of the episode’s first outcomes was the reduction of the staff at the US Embassy in Havana to such an extent that it practically brought to a standstill the consular relations between both sides of the Florida Strait.
January 23, 2018.
We Keep Being Put on New Lists
We Keep Being Put on New Lists
By: Dr. Néstor García Iturbe
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
The Trump administration, at the head of the United States government, has just included Cuba on three new lists.
That is part of the policy change, which Trump announced when he met in the city of Miami, with a group of “rank Batistianos, annexationists and terrorists” as our Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, described them in his recent speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations.
One of the lists, from the State Department, refers to different Cuban entities with which the US citizens will not be able to carry out financial transactions. This list is headed by the MINISTRY OF THE ARMED FORCES, THE MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR, THE POLICE AND OTHERS ORGANS OF STATE SECURITY. They also include a series of hotels and other entities that supposedly belong to the security forces of the Cuban government.
This measure has been shaped by the main interest of trying to affect the trips of US citizens to Cuba. But what it establishes is unconstitutional, within the so-called freedoms that American citizens have proclaimed, as well as being irrational.
For example, if a US citizen commits a traffic infraction, he has to pay a fine to the police, in doing so he is violating a regulation of the US government and could be incriminated for this.
It is irrational and ridiculous to include in the ban two brands of soft drinks made in Cuba. The so-called “individual freedoms” of the American are torn up again when the government regulates them up to the brand of soda pop that can be drunk.
To continue issuing regulations, the Trump administration will establish the type of toilet paper that Americans should use in Cuba. It is possible that even THAT will have to be regulated for people from the US. That is the so-called “democracy”, and a sample of the “freedom” that prevails in capitalist society.
The other lists, also regulating what the US citizen can do or not do, have the same goal, try to affect the relations between the Cuban people and the American people, the contacts that are established between visitor and visited, in order, to the greatest extent possible, to avoid these contacts.
In general, people from the US who have traveled to Cuba are kind, respectful and interested in knowing the truth of what is happening on the Island. That is the danger that the enemies of our country are considering.
Those who return from Cuba, speak with honesty of our people, of the advances of the revolution and of the situation in which we live, which is always much better than the image disclosed by the enemies and the Miami mafia.
What kind of regime is Trump creating?
It is not only trying to reverse the progress in relations with Cuba that was achieved during the Obama administration. The violations of the US Constitution and to the liberties proclaimed in that same document, are directed at creating a repressive, discriminatory, terror regime, comparable to the existing one at the time of peak of the McCarthyism.
Perhaps that is the true meaning of his motto “Make America great again”.
What is behind the US decision to process visas for Cubans in Colombia?
What is behind the US decision to process visas for Cubans in Colombia?
October 26, 2017
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Why Colombia? Learn about it in the lines that follow. Photo taken from Somos Colombianos.
The US decision. to process immigrant visas for Cubans in Colombia is a maneuver that hides perverse purposes, which can be understood in the treatment of this issue by the US government.
Some elements:
The State Department, on its official website, says that, “At this moment it, is being determined when the interviews will begin to be scheduled.” However, they themselves, in one of the sections of their site, locate a link to an article by Martí News that quoting a spokesman, says “Cubans must obtain a visa from Colombia and be willing to stay” a few weeks “in the country to complete the process that would allow them to emigrate to the United States,” later this same media disinformation on 10/20/17 states, “the Consular Section official Virgil Carstens informed that the first appointments for visas will not be available” until November 2017 “, repeating that Cubans” should plan the stay of at least a few weeks in Colombia, “adding that if additional administrative processing is necessary, they may” go out and return at a later date to near the end of the process “.
It is noteworthy that this little serious and unreliable middle is the one selected by the State Department to give the first of this news, the answer is that they are interested in moving these messages and others linked to this subject to the Cuban community based in Miami, to influence it and through it in those of the island to condition their states of opinion in their favor.
The objectives of the maneuver:
- Create internal instability appearing before the public opinion to be oblivious to the problems that supposedly may arise.
- To present Cuba as guilty of the obstacles and delays that Cuban families must face for reunification.
- Moving the image of a US worried about fulfilling its international commitments, in this case the one of granting a minimum of 20 thousand visas of emigrants to the year.
Internal destabilization
In Colombia they have certain consular capacities, but the Colombian embassy in Cuba may not have them to process an unexpected volume of visas, this creates the first obstacle and can generate crowds of people in the surroundings of this seat with the usual inconveniences and the possible occurrence of incidents , a situation that would serve to strengthen the opinion matrix of an environment of insecurity around diplomatic personnel accredited in the country.
With the sharp decrease in the number of visas for migrants and the obstacles to obtaining them that will necessarily arise, the intention is to increase the internal pressure of those who wish to emigrate, in order to create destabilizing situations that may lead to a considerable increase in illegal exits to the US, and lead to a mass exodus. In addition, Cuba, guilty of the problem.
The New York Times , “It has been hard ‘: Cuban families in limbo before the suspension of US visas,” states that, “the United States by interrupting the flow of immigration from the island by reducing its staff at the embassy of La Havana, in response to the mysterious attacks could trigger a further increase in migration, particularly if Cuba is experiencing an economic recession. Citing Vicki Huddleston, ex-head of the then SINA in the period 1999 to 2002, says that there is a risk of another massive migration.
The analysis of the medium reinforces the opinion matrix of Cuban responsibility, placing the US action. as a response and unveils America’s vision of where the situation they are trying to lead could get to, while preparing the public opinion of their country for it.
The mention of a presumed incidence of an economic recession in the evolution of events, is not done lightly, it they want to push us toward it damaging one of our main routes of income of foreigners that is the tourism. For that reason, the warning against trips to Cuba , the appearance of alleged tourists affected and the involvement of Canadian citizens, a country that is among the main sources of tourists to Cuba.
No criticism is a skillful journalistic treatment of the subject.
What could the US response be? before a massive exodus?
According to what was published by the Coast Guard , they would decree the naval blockade to prevent vessels from Florida reaching Cuba and picking up potential migrants, while intercepting those coming from our country, returning them to their origin, this would increase the destabilization of the country.
It is also known that the Miami right dream of a situation of this type to try to use it to pressure the US government to intervene in Cuba.
Some additional questions:
Why Colombia?
The docility of the politicians of that country to the Yankee requirements is no secret. It is enough to remember its acceptance of the establishment of seven US military bases on its territory and its alignment with Washington against Venezuela among other acts of vassalage. These are the reasons which guaranteed the acceptance and collaboration of the Colombian government, without having to resort to pressures that could transcend public opinion, jeopardizing the objectives of this new assembly.
Will all migrant visa applicants have the financial capacity to cover the cost of lodging and meals for a few weeks in Colombia?
Most likely and the Americans know it is not.
What are you pursuing with this?
What they want is that, given the impossibility of covering their expenses in Colombia and those that may lead them to leave, they will be forced to seek alternative sources of income, some may, according to their personal characteristics, be linked to crime, others could obtain low-income jobs and the more they would begin to seek help from the Colombian and US governments, this could lead to a complex situation in Colombia with which they would mediately accuse Cuba of not clarifying the “attacks and forcing the “philanthropical” US to try to help Cubans through an alternative solution.
Faced with this situation, it is expected that they will press for agreements to be returned, seeking to increase the number of those who would be frustrated with their hopes to emigrate to the United States. by legal means, those who, along with those who will dismiss the Colombia route as unviable, could, according to their assessments, bring about a mass exodus as we have already analyzed..
But Cuba knows its enemy.
(Taken from PostCuba )
A Tale of Deaf and Unmentionable Spies
- English
- Español
A Tale of Deaf and Unmentionable Spies
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
It appears that a new maneuver against Cuba by terrorist sectors in the US government’s foreign policy establishment has been exposed and neutralized when the Associated Press (AP) published information dated September 15, 2017 about damages caused by Hurricane Irma and the penetration of the sea that affected the building that houses the US Embassy in Havana.
According to the AP, a National Security Subcommittee (NSSC) official, who asked not to be identified, revealed to his correspondents that the NSSC was filing a lawsuit against the American Technology Corporation (ATC), maker of the LRAD equipment -RX that the NSSC uses to communicate with its agents in Cuba.
The suit was based on the auditory harm that these equipment would have caused to workers of the NSSC, its officials and relatives. According to the plaintiff, the equipment in question was purchased less than a year earlier and the ATC experts who trained those who would be responsible for using them at any time warned them against hearing problems.
Anonymous sources had then told the AP that the hearing loss may have been related to sound devices that emit inaudible waves capable of causing deafness.
According to the source, the suit presented by the NSSC included economic compensation for damages caused to workers of the teams and their relatives, as well as for operational damages suffered by the NSSC.
Immediately the NSSC knew of the auditory problems caused to the operators, it ordered discontinuance of use of the LRAD-RX but this implied an immediate change in the means of communication with its agents, which entailed higher expenses that surpassed what which is budgeted.
However, in May 2017, the State Department ordered the expulsion of two Cuban diplomats in response to “incidents” at the US embassy in Cuba without specifying what or whom they considered guilty.
The penetration of the sea in the embassy due to a hurricane. It complicated the investigation into the technological aspects of the case. This was because part of the equipment was under the sea. Although the trip to Cuba by a number of technicians and specialists was supposed to verify the condition of the equipment, this aspect of the research did not make sense. Public and staff access to the Embassy was restricted in order to disassemble the equipment and send it to the United States for eventual repairs by the manufacturers without the knowledge of the result.
It is alleged that, although the ATC is a commercially-registered US firm, it is an entity created by the security forces of the state of Israel and, as has been reported, LRAD is a weapon that emits a sound that temporarily deafens the adversary. From what we’ve seen so far, it is clear that the maneuver was intended to involve Cuba in an act of terrorism, a scourge in which the island has never dirtied its flag, although it has been a constant a victim of it.
However, when suspicions seemed to focus on supplier-related technological problems, US Sen. Marco Rubio made scandalous statements “calling for blood against Cuba”. This showed Florida’s Republican politician as likely axis of terrorist manipulation.
Shortly afterwards, Washington withdrew 60% of the staff from its embassy in Havana, and then expelled 15 diplomats from the Cuban embassy in the United States. The US argued that “there are no adequate Cuban measures to protect our diplomats from sonic attacks”. This is despite the fact that, from the outset, Cuba said that it would do everything possible to investigate the facts and invited the FBI to join the investigation in Cuba.
This investigation by Cuban authorities involved some 2000 people, including law enforcement officials and the best scientists in the country. They interviewed 300 neighbors and carried out dozens of medical examinations to see if anyone outside the diplomatic cadre had been affected.
They examined the rooms of two hotels where several employees of the United States Embassy lived, interviewed 300 neighbors in a neighborhood where many lived in houses. They analyzed air and soil samples, verified whether insects could be the culprits and considered a range of toxic chemicals and even electromagnetic waves.
However, the United States has refused to allow Cuban doctors access to the medical records of those affected or to let Cubans talk to US doctors. Neither were Cuban experts allowed to visit the homes of the US diplomats involved to conduct expert tests.
October 28, 2017
Un cuento de espías sordos e innombrables
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Parecía que una nueva maniobra contra Cuba de los sectores terroristas en la política exterior del gobierno estadounidense había sido expuesta y neutralizada cuando la agencia Associated Press (AP) publicó una información fechada el 15 de septiembre de 2017 acerca de los daños ocasionados por el ciclón Irma y la penetración del mar que afectó el edificio que alberga a la Embajada de Estados Unidos en La Habana.
Según la AP, un funcionario del Subcomité Nacional de Seguridad (NSSC, por sus siglas en inglés) que pidió no ser identificado, reveló a sus corresponsales que el NSSC preparaba una demanda contra la American Technology Corporation (ATC), fabricante de los equipos LRAD-RX que utiliza el NSSC para comunicarse con sus agentes en Cuba.
La demanda se fundamentaba en la afectación auditiva que dichos equipos habrían causado a operarios del NSSC, sus funcionarios y familiares. Según el demandante, los equipos en cuestión fueron adquiridos menos de un año antes y los expertos de la ATC que entrenaron a quienes se encargarían de utilizaros en ningún momento les advirtieron contra problemas auditivos.
Fuentes anónimas habían dicho entonces a la agencia AP que la pérdida auditiva pudo estar relacionada con dispositivos de sonido que emiten ondas inaudibles capaces de causar sordera.
Según la fuente, la demanda que presentaría el NSSC incluía compensación económica por los daños ocasionados a operarios de los equipos y los familiares de éstos afectados, así como por los perjuicios operativos sufridos por el NSSC.
Inmediatamente que el NSSC conoció de los problemas auditivos ocasionados a los operadores, ordenó descontinuar la utilización del LRAD-RX pero esto implicó un cambio inmediato en los medios de comunicación con sus agentes, lo cual conllevó mayores gastos que sobrepasaban lo presupuestado.
Sin embargo, en mayo de 2017, que el Departamento de Estado dispuso la expulsión de dos diplomáticos cubanos en respuesta a “incidentes” ocurridos en su embajada en Cuba sin precisar a qué o quién consideraba culpable.
La penetración del mar en la Embajada a causa de un huracán complicó la investigación acerca de los aspectos tecnológicos del caso porque una parte del equipamiento quedó bajo las aguas del mar y aunque se había planificado el viaje a Cuba de un número de técnicos y especialistas para verificar las condiciones de los equipos, ya este aspecto de la pesquisa no tenía sentido. Sólo se limitó el acceso de público y del personal a la Embajada a fin de desmontar los equipos y enviarlos a Estados Unidos para su eventual revisión por los fabricantes sin que se sepa del resultado.
Se afirma que, aunque la ATC es una firma estadounidense por su registro comercial, se trata de una entidad creada por las fuerzas de seguridad del Estado de Israel y, según se ha publicado, la LRAD es un arma que emite un sonido que deja temporalmente sordo al adversario. Por los elementos evidenciados hasta el momento es claro que la maniobra tenía el propósito de involucrar a Cuba en un acto de terrorismo, flagelo en el que la Isla jamás ha ensuciado su bandera aunque ha sido constantemente víctima de éste.
Sin embargo, cuando las sospechas parecían concentrarse en problemas tecnológicos imputables al suministrador, escandalosas declaraciones del senador estadounidense Marco Rubio “pidiendo sangre contra Cuba” evidenciaron al político republicano de Florida como probable eje de la manipulación terrorista.
Poco después Washington retiró el 60 % de los trabajadores de su Embajada en La Habana y luego expulsó 15 diplomáticos de la misión cubana en Estados Unidos arguyendo la “inexistencia de medidas cubanas adecuadas para proteger a nuestros diplomáticos de los ataques sónicos” pasando por alto el hecho de que, desde el primer momento, Cuba dijo que haría todo lo posible por indagar los hechos y había invitado al FBI a compartir las pesquisas en Cuba.
Unas 2.000 personas involucraron las autoridades cubanas en esta investigación, incluyendo agentes de orden público y los mejores científicos del país. Entrevistaron a 300 vecinos y llevaron a cabo decenas de exámenes médicos para ver si alguien fuera del cuadro diplomático había sido afectado.
Examinaron las habitaciones de dos hoteles donde vivían varios empleados de la Embajada de Estados Unidos, entrevistaron a 300 vecinos en un barrio donde muchos vivían casas. Analizaron muestras de aire y el suelo, verificaron sí podrían ser insectos los culpables y consideraron una gama de productos químicos tóxicos e incluso de ondas electromagnéticas.
Sin embargo, Estados Unidos se ha negado a permitir a los médicos cubanos acceso a las historias clínicas de los afectados o a dejar que los cubanos hablen con los médicos de Estados Unidos. Tampoco se permitió a los peritos cubanos visitar los hogares de los diplomáticos estadounidenses implicados para llevar a cabo pruebas periciales.
Octubre 28 de 2017
Fifty Years Since the October Missile Crisis
- English
- Español
Fifty Years Since the October Missile Crisis
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico
Translated and edited for CubaNews by Walter Lippmann.
For the average American citizen, and most of humanity subjected to the US media dictatorship, the origin of the Missile Crisis in October 1962 is that the Soviet Union decided to place missiles with atomic warheads in Cuba to threaten U.S.
But in order to understand the reason for the October Crisis, it is necessary to assess its antecedents. This is because, in the different versions of the circumstances one can understand the real reasons for the presence of the missiles in Cuba and, without that, it is not possible to understand the crisis itself.
It was the continued aggression of the United States against the island and the dangers that these actions foreshadowed because of Kennedy’s conviction that Cuba had to be charged on a large scale by the defeat of Playa Giron, where the extreme cause of tensions between the two countries.
The leadership of the Cuban revolution accepted the installation of the rockets as a measure to make Washington relinquish its plans for extreme violence against Cuba. They were convinced that in doing so they complied with a principle of internationalist solidarity with the socialist camp and, in particular, with the USSR.
On October 16, 1962, Washington drew up plans to militarily occupy Cuba and establish an interim government led by a “military commander and governor” of the United States during the 1962 missile crisis, according to recently declassified government documents issued one week by the National Security Archive (NSA) of George Washington University.
Proclamation number one of the Military Government that would have been constituted would establish that “every person who is in the occupied territory must obey immediately and without questions all the laws and orders promulgated by the military government”. He warned that “resistance to the United States Armed Forces will be punished with force. Offenders will be treated severely. ” He said, however, that “those who remain peaceful and fulfill all the orders of the military command, will be subjected to a repression no greater that prescribed by the military exigencies”.
The proclamation stated that “once Castro’s aggressive regime is completely destroyed” and Washington has installed a new government “that responds to the needs of the people of Cuba”, US forces “will withdraw and the traditional friendship of the United States and the government of Cuba will be assured once again. “
Cuban and American historians are preparing a book to be published by Editorial GEO, from the Cuban History Institute, with abundant original documents and maps. It’s edited by American journalists William Burr and Peter Kornbluh, who provide abundant information about that event which put the world on the brink of a third world war.
To prepare the Cuban population for the invasion, the US military planned to launch thousands of leaflets on Cuban cities and fields. Initially the leaflets would report that “the US military has temporarily taken over their country.” Then they would warn the population that “they should stay inside their houses” because “everything that moves will be considered a target of our bullets.”
On 28 October, final preparations for the US invasion and occupation of Cuba were halted when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev announced that he was withdrawing the missiles from the island. That decision was, according to US media sources, the result of a secret agreement, under which the Soviet missiles in Cuba would be withdrawn in exchange for President Kennedy’s commitment to remove US Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
“The settlement of the missile crisis certainly avoided what would have become the bloodiest military confrontation in Latin American history, between the ‘Northern Colossus’ and a revolutionary Caribbean nation,” according to Peter Kornbluh, who heads the Cuba documentation project at the National Security Archives.
Ignored by the US intelligence community, according to Kornbluh, was the fact that, “in addition to intercontinental ballistic missiles, the Soviets had transported tactical field nuclear weapons to Cuba and planned to deploy them against an invading US force.”
Documents related to the Cuban occupation were recently obtained by the NSA-accredited archival analyst, William Burr, by formulating a series of petitions to the United States Navy, as established for the Re-declassification Requests Mandatory (MDR).
October 20, 2017.
A 55 AÑOS DE LA CRISIS DE MISILES EN OCTUBRE
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Para el ciudadano estadounidense medio y la mayor parte de la humanidad sometida a la dictadura mediática de Estados Unidos, el origen de la Crisis de los Cohetes en octubre de 1962 está en que la Unión Soviética decidió situar misiles con cargas atómicas en Cuba para amenazar a Estados Unidos.
Pero para comprender la razón de la Crisis de Octubre hay que valorar los antecedentes de ésta, porque en las diferentes versiones de las partes acerca de las circunstancias es en lo que se aprecian las verdaderas razones que provocaron la presencia de los mísiles en Cuba y, sin ello, no es posible entender la crisis misma.
Fueron las agresiones continuadas de Estados Unidos contra la isla y en los peligros que estas acciones presagiaban a causa de la convicción que tenía Kennedy de que debía cobrarse, invadiendo a Cuba en gran escala, la derrota de Playa Girón, donde se aprecia la causa extrema de las tensiones entre ambos países.
La dirección de la revolución cubana aceptó la instalación de los cohetes como medida para hacer desistir a Washington de sus planes de violencia extrema contra Cuba, convencida de que con ello cumplía con un principio de solidaridad internacionalista con el campo socialista y, en particular, con la URSS.
El 16 de octubre de 1962, Washington elaboró planes para ocupar militarmente a Cuba y establecer un gobierno provisional encabezado por un “comandante y gobernador militar” de Estados Unidos durante la crisis de los misiles de 1962, según documentos gubernamentales recientemente desclasificados, publicados hace una semana por el Archivo de Seguridad Nacional (NSA) de la Universidad George Washington.
La Proclama número uno del Gobierno Militar que se habría de constituir establecería que “toda persona que se encuentre en el territorio ocupado debe obedecer de inmediato y sin preguntas todas las leyes y órdenes promulgadas por el gobierno militar”. Prevenía que “la resistencia a las Fuerzas Armadas de Estados Unidos será castigada con fuerza. Los infractores serán tratados severamente”. Afirmaba, sin embargo que “quienes se mantengan pacíficos y cumplan todas las órdenes del mando militar, serán objetos a una represión no mayor que la prescrita por las exigencias militares”.
La Proclama establecía que “una vez que el régimen agresivo de Castro sea completamente destruido” y que Washington haya instalado un nuevo gobierno “que responda a las necesidades del pueblo de Cuba” las fuerzas estadounidenses “se retirarán y la amistad tradicional de Estados Unidos y el gobierno de Cuba será asegurada una vez más”.
Historiadores cubanos y estadounidenses preparan un libro que publicará la Editorial GEO, del Instituto de Historia de Cuba, con abundantes documentos originales y mapas, editado por los periodistas estadounidenses William Burr y Peter Kornbluh, que aporta abundante información acerca de este acontecimiento que puso al mundo al borde de una tercera guerra mundial.
Para preparar a la población cubana para la invasión, el ejército estadounidense planeaba lanzar miles de folletos sobre ciudades y campos cubanos. Inicialmente los folletos informarían que “las fuerzas armadas de Estados Unidos se han hecho cargo temporal de su país”. Luego advertirían a la población que “debe permanecer en sus casas” porque “todo lo que se mueva será considerado un blanco de nuestras balas”.
El 28 de octubre se interrumpieron los preparativos finales para la invasión de estadounidense y la ocupación de Cuba, cuando el líder soviético Nikita Jruschov anunció que estaba retirando los misiles de la isla. Tal decisión fue, según fuentes mediáticas de Estados Unidos, resultado de un acuerdo secreto, en virtud del cual serían retirados los misiles soviéticos de Cuba a cambio del compromiso del Presidente Kennedy de sacar de Turquía los misiles Júpiter estadounidenses dislocados allí.
“La solución de la crisis de los misiles evitó ciertamente lo que se habría convertido en el enfrentamiento militar más sangriento en la historia de América Latina, entre el ‘Coloso del norte’ y una nación caribeña revolucionaria” según Peter Kornbluh, quien dirige el Proyecto de documentación sobre Cuba del NSA.
Ignorado por la comunidad de inteligencia de Estados Unidos, según Kornbluh, quedó el hecho de que, “además de los misiles balísticos intercontinentales, los soviéticos habían transportado a Cuba armas nucleares tácticas de campo y planeaban desplegar contra una fuerza invasora de Estados Unidos”.
Los documentos relacionados con la ocupación de Cuba fueron obtenidos recientemente por el analista de archivo acreditado ante el NSA, William Burr, mediante la formulación de una serie de peticiones a la Marina de Estados Unidos, según lo establecido para las solicitudes de Revisión para la Desclasificación Obligatoria (MDR).
Octubre 20 de 2017.
Strengthening Cuban Socialism
Ramón Labañino: The changes in Cuba aim at improving our Socialism, not dismantling it
By Yunier Javier Sifonte Díaz
October 24, 2017
As part of the academic program of the I International Scientific Convention of the “Marta Abreu” Central University of Las Villas (UCLV), Ramón Labañino, Hero of the Republic of Cuba, gave a keynote address today and spoke with those present about the main challenges of updating the Cuban economic model.
With a title as controversial as “Is Cuba returning to Capitalism?” , the Vice-President of the Cuban National Association of Economists and Accountants, presented in his talk the main characteristics of the national context. He discussed the need to understand the changes made in the Island as a way of working to ensure a better standard of living and an equitable and fair benefit for all citizens of the nation.
“The name of my talk is just a hook, a provocation to discussion, but what really matters is to draw attention to the most negative characteristics of capitalism and what are the inviolable essences in our country in order to maintain the social model chosen by the island for more than 50 years,” he added.
In his presentation, Labañino outlined the main characteristics seen in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics years before the fall of Socialism in that country. The role of the party, the need to keep the media in the hands of the people, to avoid regionalism, as well as the “wholesale privatization and commodification of the socialist economy” are factors that are essential for us not to repeat in Cuba the mistakes made in the Eurasian nation, he said.
He also referred to the importance of preserving the policy of a single party against alternatives aimed at dismantling that idea and advocated confronting imperialism’s cultural war with intelligence and a critical sense.
“The single party strengthens us as a nation. Defending alternative formulas to ours, based on a model of democracy that has already proven its ineffectiveness in many countries, means playing Imperialism’s game. Our party has the essences of that created by Marti in 1892: anti-imperialist, sovereign and with a defense of national dignity as the first inviolable law. These characteristics make it strong and necessary in every moment of the country’s history. “
Issues such as monetary dualism, the role of the press in the country, non-agricultural cooperatives, work in the agricultural sector, the development of the labor force in the public and private sectors and the need to increase labor productivity in all the areas of the country as a basic rule to achieve an effective growth of the Cuban economy, were also among the main issues discussed between the Hero and the delegates gathered to hear it.
Regarding the new economic figures that emerged in the heat of the changes implemented in the Cuban economy, Ramón spoke about their importance to free the state from the unnecessary wear and tear of controlling small spheres, but warned of the importance of carrying them out so that their income also plays a key role in the development of society.“What we transfer to private hands is not property, but the management of social property,” he summarized.
Similarly, Labañino discussed the relevance of the main transformations to the economic, political and social model of the country. He defended the idea of that these changes are essential for subsistence as a nation, but always for the sake of maintaining our social achievements .
“In a highly democratic process, the greatest news was consulted with the majority of Cubans, because one of our great strengths is that the measures applied are based on all citizens, especially to defend the most underprivileged. Although we want a greater speed in implementation, sometimes we must stop, rectify what is wrong and move forward, because we can not afford to make mistakes and waste the few resources at our disposal,” he said.
After his comments, the Hero of the Republic of Cuba talked exclusively with Cubadebate. He said the the merit of sharing his experiences in an event like the one organized by the UCLV, a Department of Advanced Studies “with highly-qualified professionals in both the technological and the political, as well as the scientific and academic.”
Likewise, Labañino spoke of his experience of returning to the island after 15 years of absence. He said he found a country “always changing, with a beautiful and well-done opening, especially since there is an awareness that the transformations in our society exist because of an historical necessity and not because of a whim or an idea of playing at Capitalism,” he said.
Questioned on the main challenges for Cuba’s present and future, Labañino did not hesitate to describe the blockade imposed by the United States as the first of them. “Although people sometimes do not see it, every economic action bears its stamp. If this were not so, our country would do better, because we have a high cultural and educational level, natural conditions and a high professional capacity to rub shoulders with first world nations. “
In a simple dialogue, always open to discussion and sharing experiences, the anti-terrorist fighter recalled the importance of knowing history so as not to repeat negative experiences. Likewise, in these times of “empty and manipulative discourses,” he highlighted Fidel Castro’s legacy for the construction of an increasingly prosperous and inclusive country. He warned of the importance of maintaining essential principles of the Cuban Revolution, such as internationalism, anti-imperialism and solidarity with the peoples of the Third World.
You must be logged in to post a comment.