Aleida Guevara: “Revolutions cannot be exported”

Aleida Guevara, daughter of Che, assures The Prisma that the communist regime will continue in Cuba, beyond the Castro family. She sees the formation of a United Latin American States as essential, and thinks that at times what we need are more radical revolutions. And to her, anti-immigration policies are absurd.

US embargo stalled payment to Cuban Ebola doctors

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba had to cover food and lodging expenses for dozens of its doctors fighting Ebola in Sierra Leone after the U.S. embargo delayed payments from the World Health Organization, an official at the U.N. agency said.

Cuba’s extraordinary global medical record shames the US blockade

From Ebola to earthquakes, Havana’s doctors have saved millions. Obama must lift this embargo

Four months into the internationally declared Ebola emergency that has devastated west Africa, Cuba leads the world in direct medical support to fight the epidemic. The US and Britain have sent thousands of troops and, along with other countries, promised aid – most of which has yet to materialise. But, as the World Health Organisation has insisted, what’s most urgently needed are health workers. The Caribbean island, with a population of just 11m and official per capita income of $6,000 (£3,824), answered that call before it was made. It was first on the Ebola frontline and has sent the largest contingent of doctors and nurses – 256 are already in the field, with another 200 volunteers on their way.

‘If The Blockade Was Lifted Today, The Cuban Economy Would Thrive Tomorrow’

The daughter of Che, Aleida Guevara, in London to address today the Latin America Conference, spoke to Ollie Hopkins about Cuba’s role in the developing world, the US obstacles to its development and the Miami Five anti-terrorists.

How Ebola Could End the Cuban Embargo

When was last time in recent memory a top US official praised Cuba publicly? And since when has Cuba’s leadership offered to cooperate with Americans?

It’s rare for politicians from these two countries to stray from the narratives of suspicion and intransigence that have prevented productive collaboration for over half a century. Yet that’s just what has happened in the last few weeks, as Secretary of State John Kerry and US ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power spoke favorably of Cuba’s medical intervention in West Africa, and Cuban President Raúl Castro and former president Fidel Castro signaled their willingness to cooperate with US efforts to stem the epidemic.

Economic sanctions against Cuba under the Obama administration

The coming to power of President Obama in the United States in 2008 marked a departure in style from the previous Bush administration toward Cuba. However, with the exception of the lifting of some restrictions on travel, economic sanctions continue to apply, including those of an extraterritorial nature. French academic Salim Lamrani gives some recent examples ahead of a nationwide speaking tour this month.

During his election campaign in 2007, then-candidate Barack Obama made a lucid observation on the outdated US policy toward Cuba. Once elected, he declared his willingness to seek "a new beginning with Cuba".

"I think we can take the relationship between the US and Cuba in a new direction and launch a new chapter of engagement that will continue during my tenure, " he said.

Obama had denounced his predecessor's policy toward Cuba, which had severely restricted the travel of the Cuban community in the United States. "This is both a strategic and humanitarian issue. This decision [...] has had a profoundly negative impact on the welfare of the Cuban people. I will grant Cuban Americans unrestricted rights to visit family and send remittances to the island," he pledged.

Obama kept his word. In April 2009, he announced the lifting of some restrictions affecting those Cubans who lived in the United States and who had relatives on the island, which came into force on 3 September 2009. Since then, Cuban-Americans can travel to their home country without any hindrance (instead of for just fourteen days every three years) and send unlimited remittances to their families (instead of USD $100 per month).  

Extraterritorial application of economic sanctions against Cuba

However, Washington has not hesitated to apply economic sanctions, including extraterritorial, seriously violating international law. Indeed, extraterritorial blockade laws provide that national legislation can be offshore, i.e. outside the country applied. Thus, Brazilian law does not apply in Argentina. Similarly, Venezuelan law can not be applied in Colombia. But the US law of economic sanctions against Cuba is applied in all countries of the world.

Indeed, in June 2012, the Dutch bank ING had the largest penalty ever handed down since the beginning of economic siege against Cuba in 1960. The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Treasury Department sanctioned the financial institution with a fine of 619 million dollars for making dollar transactions made with Cuba through the US financial system between 2002 and 2007.

The Treasury Department also forced the Dutch bank to sever its commercial relations with Cuba and announced that “ING assured the Office of Foreign Assets Control, that it had put an end to practices that led to today's settlement." So, Washington effectively banned a European bank from having any commercial transactions with Cuba.

The Cuban government denounced this new extraterritorial application of economic sanctions, which, besides preventing all trade with the United States (except limited raw food products), constitutes the main obstacle to the development of trade relations between Cuba and the rest of the world.

"The US government unilaterally fined ING bank for handling, in conjunction with its subsidiaries in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Curacao, financial and commercial transactions with Cuban entities, prohibited by the criminal policy of blockade against Cuba," said an official statement.

Szunin Adam, Director of OFAC, used the occasion to warn foreign firms about trade with Cuba. This penalty "should serve as a clear warning to anyone considering taking advantage of evading US sanctions," he said, reaffirming that Washington would continue to implement its extraterritorial measures.

Other foreign firms were also sanctioned for trade relations with Cuba. Thus, the Swedish multinational Ericsson, specialising in the field of telecommunications, had to pay a fine of $1.75 million for repairing, through its subsidiary based in Panama, Cuban equipment worth $320,000 in United States. Three employees involved in the case were also dismissed.

On 10 July 2012, the Treasury Department imposed a fine of $1.35 million on the US firm Great Western Malting Co. for selling barley to Cuba, through its foreign subsidiaries between August 2006 and March 2009. However, international humanitarian law prohibits any embargo on food commodities and drugs, even in wartime. Now, officially, Cuba and the United States have never been in conflict.

In France, Mano Giardini and Valérie Adilly, two directors of the US travel agency Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), were fired for selling tour packages to Cuba. The company runs the risk of receiving a fine of $38,000 per trip sold, angering some employees who could not understand the situation. "Why did Carlson not withdraw the Cuba tours from our reservation system if we had no right to sell them," asked an employee.

CWT directors commented on the matter: "Under these conditions, we must apply the US rule that prohibits journeys to Cuba, even for subsidiaries." Thus, a US subsidiary based in France is required to abide by US law on economic sanctions against Cuba, ridiculing the national legislation in force.  

Google censored and a budget of $20 million for the "digital democracy"

More unusual economic sanctions prohibit Cubans from using some functions of Google search engine, such as Google Analytics (that calculates the number of visits to a website and its origin), Google Earth, Google Desktop Search, Google Toolbar, Google Code Search, Google AdSense and Google AdWords, depriving Cuba of access to these new technologies and many downloadable products. The US company provided an explanation by his representative Christine Chen: "We had it written in our terms and conditions. Google Analytics can not be used in countries subject to embargoes ".

Meanwhile, at the same time that Washington imposes restrictions on the use of Google’s digital services in Cuba and prohibits Havana from connecting to its fibre optic cable for Internet, the State Department announced that it would spend, via the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the sum of $20 million on "human rights activists, independent journalists and independent libraries on the island", for the purpose of disseminating "digital democracy".

The Obama administration, far from adopting "a new beginning with Cuba", continues to impose economic sanctions affecting all categories starting with those most vulnerable, women, children and the elderly. It does not hesitate to punish foreign companies violating international law by applying extraterritorial measures. It also refuses to hear the unanimous demand of the international community, which condemned in 2013 for the twenty-first consecutive year, the imposition of an anachronistic, cruel and ineffective state of siege which is the main obstacle to the development of the nation.

For full details of Salim Lamrani’s speaking tour, please visit the Cuba Solidarity Campaign website.

You can also order Lamrani’s book The Economic War Against Cuba

It's time to end the 50-year blockade of Cuba

Many people believe that the 1962 "October crisis," as the Cubans call it, represents the closest that the world has ever come to a nuclear war. It was a defining moment of John F Kennedy's presidency, a touchstone of cold war history.

For 13 days the United States and the Soviet Union came close to the unthinkable. US defence secretary Robert McNamara wondered whether he "would live to see another Saturday night" and Dino Brugioni, a member of the CIA team monitoring the weapons build-up, saw no way out except "war and complete destruction."

Although Cuba was sidelined in the ultimate resolution between Kennedy and Khrushchov, a commitment was given that the US would not invade the island. Technically Washington has kept to this - with no overt military action since the Bay of Pigs - but the last 50 years have been marked by aggressive interference in every other manner.

The "October crisis" was simply the continuance of an unrelenting obsession with Cuba and an unremitting class hatred and fear of the Cuban revolution. US interference in Cuba dates right back to the start of the 20th century. After the Spanish-American war the US Congress passed the Platt amendment of 1902, which stipulated that Cuba "shall never entry into treaty ... with any foreign power," that Cuba's finances would be under the control of the US and that it would "exercise the right to intervene." It also said the US would have a right to a military base on the island.

Although the Platt amendment was repealed in 1934 every president since the passing of that legislation has sought to achieve its objectives. Eisenhower began to plot the overthrow of Fidel Castro soon after the triumph of the Cuban revolution.

At the national security council meeting on January 14 1960 undersecretary of state Livingston Merchant noted that "our present objective was to adjust all our actions in such a way as to accelerate the development of an opposition in Cuba which would bring about … a new government favourable to US interests."

The programme drawn up by Merchant led directly to the Bay of Pigs. At the same time a national intelligence estimate made clear what the new fear was, noting that "Latin America is ripe for revolution in one form or another."

It was the example of Cuba, the potential of Cuba, that had to be destroyed at all costs. That is why Kennedy chose his brother in 1961 to lead a top-level agency group to oversee Operation Mongoose, a programme of paramilitary operations, economic warfare and sabotage designed to visit the "terrors of the earth" on Castro and topple him from power.

That is why, as the Excomm tapes clearly show, Kennedy's advisers were ready to go to war over Cuba and the missiles. As McNamara said 30 years later, "If I had been a Cuban or Soviet leader, I think I might have expected a US invasion."

Analysis written by the State Department policy planning council in 1964 offers further insight.

"Perhaps of even greater moment is that the primary danger we face in Castro is ... the impact the very existence of his regime has upon the leftist movements in many Latin American countries."

How prescient this was and how responsible it has been for the fear that has driven over 50 years of economic blockade as well as terrorism, pollution, chemical warfare, assassination attempts and the waste of hundreds of millions of dollars on trying to overthrow a sovereign state.

It has driven laws through Congress further tightening all aspects of the brutal policy so eloquently denounced by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla on November 13 2012 at the United Nations, when for the 21st time the world voted for the end of the US blockade. Rodriguez provided a huge list of medicines and equipment that Cuba is prevented from buying from US companies and the terrible suffering this causes patients.

He gave the names and ages of babies and young children waiting for heart operations because they are prevented from accessing the food supplement needed for intravenous feeding.

The patients forced to be sent to third countries because US companies could not sell Cuba life-saving medicines for their specialist conditions. The children who lost their eyesight because the US government prevented their doctors from buying the cancer drugs that could save their eyes - 15 in the last year alone.

What is abundantly clear to everyone around the world is that US hostility to Cuba does not stem from its alleged human rights failings but from its social and political successes and the challenge its unyielding independence offers them. It is the fact that they have chosen socialism that the US cannot accept.

Saddled with a siege economy by the illegal US blockade and a war-time political culture ever since the October crisis the people have achieved health and education standards that match or outstrip not only the US but countries in Europe as well.

It is Cuba's selfless internationalism and solidarity, sending teachers, doctors and nurses to over 70 countries around the world, that shows what can be achieved by focusing on humanity and not wars.

As Fidel said in 2005 to an audience of students, "We have never considered producing nuclear weapons.

"We possess a weapon as powerful as nuclear power and it is the immense justice for which we are struggling. Our nuclear weapon is the invincible power of moral weapons."

President Barack Obama ran under the electoral banner "Forward." If he genuinely wants change we can believe in he can start with his anachronistic cold war policy towards Cuba, which not only alienates the US from its neighbours in Latin America but from the rest of the world as well.

When will he accept that 188 countries opposing the US is a mandate for real change?

•    This article was written by Bob Oram for the Morning Star. Bob will be one of over 50 speakers at the Latin America Conference this Saturday at Conway Hall, London WC1. You can book tickets online here.

US-Cuba ties: Obama win stirs little hope among Cubans

The day after the US elections, the central square in Florida was crowded at lunchtime: workers tucking into cheap pizzas on park benches, sheltering from the sun or chatting, leaning on their bicycles.

But unlike in its namesake across the water, President Barack Obama's victory was creating little stir in Cuba's own Florida.

"I didn't follow it at all," said Rafael, a computer technician on his lunch break.

"But I think Obama is better than the other one," he says, referring to defeated Republican candidate Mitt Romney - a common view here.

President Obama is generally seen as the least worst option for Cuba. In his first term, he relaxed travel restrictions for Cuban-Americans to the island and lifted the limit on how much money they could send back to their families. That has made day-to-day life slightly easier for some - including here in Florida, Cuba - and for them, Mr Obama's re-election is a relief. Mr Romney slammed the policy change as "appeasement" and vowed to reverse it.

The changes have provided important funds, and supplies, for many of the Communist-run island's estimated 400,000 new, private businesses; and by extension they have helped those taking advantage of their new freedom to buy cars and houses, if they can afford it.

"That family help is very important in an under-developed country, you can really feel it here," said Rafael.

But, like many here, he had hoped for more.

Endless embargo?

The US president talked of a new era in relations with Latin America at the start of his first term but many Cubans are disappointed with the result.

"The only thing I would ask of him is to lift the blockade, so we Cubans can breathe a little," said Dana Yeves, buying a paper cone of donuts from a street cart.

The "blockade" is how Cubans refer to the five-decade old trade embargo imposed on the island by the United States. The embargo, dating from the Cold War, was aimed squarely at Cuba's leadership. Instead, ordinary Cubans have borne the brunt of a policy that prevents the sale to Cuba of all but medicine and food, while Fidel and now Raul Castro have run Cuba since 1959. Dana believes there is little chance that Mr Obama will end the embargo.

"I think he'd have done it already, if he was going to. The people controlling politics over there are the gusanos," she said, using the pejorative term "worms" for Cuban exiles in the US, who campaign relentlessly against any easing of the sanctions on Communist Cuba.

"Let's hope it happens, but I don't think the gusanos will let him change things even if he wanted to."

This month, the UN General Assembly will hold its annual discussion on the US policy, proposed by Cuba, and, as usual, is likely to vote overwhelmingly to condemn it.

Freeze or thaw?

Ahead of the debate, the Cuban government has been running its usual awareness-raising campaign in the national press, and screened a new documentary in Havana on the embargo's impact.

The film includes a young musician and a circus student explaining their difficulties, with captions blaming everything on the embargo.

"There's no reason to think anything would change, whoever is president," said Andor Piloto, who was in the audience. Like many there, he is an activist with Cuba's Communist Youth.

"I'm really not interested in who wins, we just want them to change more than 50 years of bad policy towards Cuba. We want to live without the blockade one day," Andor says.

"We want to be treated like any other country," he said as he and the other young Communists boarded old, yellow US school buses to head home.

"The Republicans do all they can to squeeze Cuba, but Obama has done nothing for us either," said Havana pensioner Alberto.

Improved remittances and flights for Cuban-Americans were all very well, Alberto said, but meant little to the vast majority of Cubans who like him had to get by with a state salary or pension of under $20 a month.

"I'd say the best thing he can do now would be to lift the blockade. That way it would show that all Cuba's problems can't be blamed on the blockade; they're Cuba's fault too," said Alberto.

With so much to occupy President Obama, it is hard to imagine that ending the embargo will be a priority. But it is the one thing Cubans want from the US - and the one unchanged element of their relationship for more than 50 years.

This article was written by Sarah Rainsford for the BBC

While Miami burns... Obama and Cuban-American politics

In this year's US Presidential election, half of Cuban-Americans who are eligible to vote either came from Cuba after 1994 or grew up in the United States. Unfortunately, the White House is passing up the opportunity to hold a rational discussion of Washington’s policy towards Cuba, writes Arturo Lopez-Levy for Open Democracy.  

A Cuban-American anti-embargo activist. Flickr/futureatlas.com

US policy towards Latin America has paid a substantial price for President Obama’s kowtowing to the Miami hard-right wing. For example, Venezuela withdrew from the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights of the Organization of the Americas (OAS), and there is a chance that no Summit of the Americas will happen in 2015 unless the United States changes its position on Cuba’s participation. Several countries in the Americas, from Nicaragua to Ecuador, spent years without a US ambassador due to Senator Marco Rubio’s (R-FL) obstructionist caprice.

In a clear distortion of American values and presidential foreign policy prerogatives, the pro-embargo machine is taking the debate away from questions related to security threats and the constitutional right to travel theoretically enjoyed by Americans, to whether it is fine, or “ethical”, for an American traveler to smoke a cigar, drink a mojito, and dance salsa. Unfortunately, the Obama administration's Treasury and State Department have surrendered the constitutional and moral high ground. Could somebody in the administration ask Senator Rubio: what is the problem with Americans having a good time once they do their full share of religious, educational, and humanitarian work in Cuba? And exactly what threat does a mojito or a salsa dance pose to American national security? 

According to Ellen Cragger from the Detroit Free Press, "the process of application for a people-to people-travel license grew up from six pages to more than a hundred. There has been also a massive slowdown on the responses of applications for new licenses and renewal of old ones for people-to people-travel."

Appeasement is precisely Obama’s strategy, except that it is aimed towards his adversaries in the Cuban-American right instead of Cuba. Nobody is fooled by such tactics. Watergate (with the Cuban exiles as plumbers) and the 2000 elections Dade County incidents should remind every Democrat that Miami doesn't play "second fiddle" to Chicago or any other place in dirty politics.  By showing no spine to defend democratic ground, the White House will not attract a single Cuban-American vote to its side. In fact, it might make more than one of its supporters stay at home in November.

Meanwhile, the Cuban-American pro-embargo lobby is working full speed to intimidate. In Miami, where nobody has ever apologized for using terrorism inside American territory, “somebody” set fire to the offices of Airline Brokers, the charter company that took American pilgrims to Cuba for Pope Benedict XVI’s visit. Not one of the Miami elected officials called for cooperating with the authorities or for condemning a terrorist attack on a business that honors every single rule in the book. The Democratic Party could have placed Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen between the “rock” of condemning practices that are perfectly fine for her base and the “hard place” of avoiding condemning a terrorist attack. It missed its chance.

What about the South Florida press and TV? The Miami Herald editorial page condemned the attack but did not demand a similar attitude from every elected official in the city. Neither Senators Rubio or Bill Nelson (D-FL) nor Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), who represents the district where the company is located, were ever asked by the press for their opinions.

On Radio Marti, a government-funded "Radio Free Europe"-like broadcast emitting to Cuba, Obama appointed director Carlos Garcia to prove his bona fides to the Cuban-American right. In an editorial page in the spring, Mr. Garcia showed who the boss was when it comes to America's foreign policy towards Cuba. Garcia used taxpayers’ dollars to call Cuban Cardinal Jaime Ortega “a lackey”, because of his perceived indulgence towards the Castro regime. Of course, Garcia is entitled to express his own opinions under our first amendment. However, as long as Congress doesn’t pass a legislation committing the US government to censure and insult the Cuban Roman Catholic Church, the visible spokesman of those who defend dialogue and national reconciliation in Cuba, Mr. Garcia should not use a public institution to vent his adolescent catharsis. 

Garcia’s editorial was not a demonstration of force against the Castro regime but towards moderate Cubans and even Obama’s own State Department, who supported the Pope’s visit. None of this was a surprise to observers within the Cuban-American community, but there was a certain amount of hope that the White House would have some sense of decency and commitment to its own limited engagement policy towards Cuba. Wrong. Instead of supporting a constructive approach to President Raul Castro’s economic reform, Washington, not happy with one bad policy towards Cuba, is en route to having two: Obama’s respect for the 1996 Helms-Burton law (which strengthened the embargo and applied financial sanctions to non-US companies trading with Cuba), and Garcia’s preference for an even more contentious implementation of it.

The lack of commitment to Cuban Americans who defended Obama’s engagement steps, such as the easing of Cuban-American travel and people-to-people contacts, might have negative consequences for his support in South Florida. After many decades of exclusion from political life, both in Cuba and Miami, Cubans everywhere have an instinct to wait and see. One of the reasons why candidate Obama attracted the vote of Cuban-American progressive and moderates in 2008 was his article in the Miami Herald announcing clearly how he would reverse President George W. Bush’s policy on travel and remittances. It marked a contrast with then Republican presidential candidate Senator McCain’s commitment to fifty years of nonsense. 

But since January 2011, when the Obama Administration expanded the categories of people-to-people contacts, the White House has been reluctant to strengthen its followers in the Cuban-American community. Admittedly, the President has firmly defended his policies towards Cuba, especially his family travel policy, from attacks from the Florida right; but he has avoided taking a high profile on this matter.  The end of the restriction against family visits, a disposition that bothered many who were unable to visit sick parents or even to attend relatives’ funerals, was announced a day before the fifth Summit of the Americas. The measures in favor of people-to-people contacts of January 2011 were adopted on a Friday afternoon through a discreet communiqué from the White House. During the 2010 campaign, no major Democratic figure came to campaign with congressional candidate Joe Garcia, who supports the trade embargo but campaigned for everything Obama stands for concerning the travel policy. No wonder a suspicion has grown that Obama is content with the status quo of Republican dominance in the Cuban-American community.

A second term could hopefully prove us wrong on this. To reach Cuban-American voters under 45 years old, increasingly registered as Independents or Democrats, President Obama should double down on his narrative of engagement, people-to-people contacts and dialogue with Cuba. Electoral considerations aside, Cuba has become a symbolic test case of the Obama administration’s will to adopt a realist approach to strategic problems in the hemisphere, such as the calamitous state of the OAS, immigration reform and drug ban efforts. Were a new constructive era of US-Cuba relations to begin, the new populist regimes would lose a rallying flag for their radicalism. A concentration on “good neighbors” actual multilateralism and not rhetorical fights could make a beginning.

Unite Delegates Show Support for Cuba in Face of Blockade

L-R: Elizabeth Palmiero, Diana Holland, Adrian Weir

Approaching 100 delegates attended a Havana Club Rum Reception at Unite Policy Conference yesterday to show solidarity with the Cuban people, oppose the illegal U.S. blockade of the island and welcome the wives of the Miami Five.

Newly elected Cuba Solidarity Campaign Chair and current Unite Assistant General Secretary Diana Holland condemned the ongoing blockade which forbids US-owned and part-owned companies from trading with Cuba. Diana reflected on the extraterritorial nature of the blockade which penalises foreign companies that do trade or process finance from Cuba and re-emphasised Unite’s commitment to campaign against this economic injustice.

Diana referenced a report by the American Association for World Health which observed:

“that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens. ... it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering - and even deaths - in Cuba. ... A humanitarian catastrophe has been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a high level of budgetary support for a health care system designed to deliver primary and preventive health care to all of its citizens.” 

“The blockade is still very much alive and kicking,” declared Diana. “Only last month the ING bank was fined millions of dollars for processing Cuban financial transactions because the US farcically keeps Cuba on its list of state sponsors of terrorism”.

The economic blockade is just one facet of a dirty war against Cuba. “For over 50 years, Cuba has been subjected to continuous terrorist attacks organised, sponsored or tolerated by the US government and its agencies,” said Diana. This has included a range of chemical and biological attacks and the bombings to airliners and hotels.

To defend itself against terrorist attacks, Cuba sent five agents to infiltrate Miami-based terrorist organisations. After the FBI asked for Cuba’s help to deal with the terrorists, it used the evidence to arrest the Five. Despite condemnation by the UN and Amnesty International, the Miami Five remain unjustly imprisoned in America and their families are denied regular visitation rights.

For the first time, Unite welcomed all four wives of the Miami Five to conference. Elizabeth Palmiero – wife of Ramón Labañino– spoke on behalf of the wives and thanked Unite for their continuing support.

“The only thing our husbands are guilty of is protecting the Cuban people against terrorist attacks,” declared Elizabeth. “The case is political and there is no other way to resolve the injustice than building the pressure of international public opinion against the policies of the U.S. government”.

Elizabeth called on President Obama to intervene personally. “For the American authorities, it is not enough to keep our husbands in prison,” she said. “But they must use us – by denying us visitation rights – to further attack our husbands”. 

“We have suffered but we know that tears won’t bring freedom to the Miami Five, so we must continue to fight”.

Diana concluded by reasserting Unite’s support of the Miami Five and their families and called on all Unite branches to affiliate to the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

‘We prepare athletes for sport – and life’

President Raul Castro with 2008 Cuban Olympic team

Morning Star sports editor Greg Leedham talks to Cuban ex-110m hurdler Emilio Valle and Cuban junior athletics coach Alfredo Dijhigo. From today's Morning Star.

Emilio Valle and Alfredo Dijhigo attract a lot of attention on an otherwise uneventful and very blustery autumn afternoon as I take them to see the Olympic Stadium in Stratford.

Walking along the Greenway path that straddles the site, Valle, a successful 110 metres hurdler who narrowly missed out on a medal at the Atlanta Olympics, and Dijhigo, a coach with Cuba’s junior athletics team, are quickly swamped by local teenagers keen to know more about these two men whose colourful Cuban national team uniforms cut through the dreariness of the weather.

The scene is the kind that Olympic organisers dream of — role model athletes inspiring and engaging local children. The pair, visiting London on a cultural and athletics exchange organised by Maurice Sharp of the Hercules Wimbledon Athletics Club, are worthy of the hype.

Valle and Dijhigo work with Cuba’s young athletes from the ages of 14 to 19, preparing them for hopefully successful careers with the senior team. It is a tough job — both earn around $30 a month and they struggle with equipment shortages due to the US blockade of their country, but they stay remarkably upbeat nonetheless.

This is partly due to the fact that, with Dijhigo aged 53 and Valle 44, the blockade has been in place before they were born. It is a way of life, just as struggle against great odds is a part of the Cuban experience.

The Special Period following the collapse of the Soviet Union also ushered in an age of acute austerity even by Cuban standards. Scrimping on sporting equipment was a necessity yet the Caribbean island still thrived on the Olympic stage.

Rigorous planning and ingenuity in making meagre funds go far has been essential to their success, explains Dijhigo back at the Morning Star offices.

“For us discipline is very important,” he says. “It’s possible that we don’t have the same economy as other countries, where development may be better. But the intention and the way we see life — it is the same.”

The willingness of former Cuban athletes to give back to the system that created them is also key. “He (Emilio) was my student, one of my athletes,” Dijhigo explains.

“When he was working in a physical education he was my athlete. Now we are working together as coaches. I gave him my experience. Now he must pass on his experience. We must transmit our experience and we cannot break the chain.”

A few Cuban athletes, such as flyweight boxer Yuriorkis Gamboa who won gold at Athens 2004, have broken that chain by defecting to the United States.

Dijhigo is phlegmatic about those who leave, though he laments that the country’s youth will no longer be able to benefit from their experience.

“If some athletes want to go professional — OK, no problem,” he says. “Only we never stop working. We never stop preparing athletes.”

He expands on his philosophy. “Sport is like the discipline of life. If you obey the discipline of life you can be, you can do better, you can offer more. You can offer more and also you cannot be selfish — it is not only for you.

“You should be grateful to the ancestor, the people who came before you, who give to you all that you received, and now you are offering.”

Cuba have won 194 medals in total at summer Olympics, with 100 of these coming in boxing and athletics. The country is broadening its horizons though, Dijhigo explains, despite incredible logistical issues when it comes to acquiring equipment.

“In cycling, we are getting better. But the bicycles we want to buy are from the United States, which is very close,” he explains. “But we have to buy from another place. We cannot buy from Mexico as the companies are owned by the US companies. We have to, for example, get a Jamaican to go to Mexico and buy a bicycle and bring it to Cuba after going back through Jamaica.

“We have one bicycle for every two or three athletes — a direct effect of the blockade.”

Such struggle would provoke bitterness in many, but not in Dijhigo nor Valle, whose joviality transcends his lack of English.

Valle competed against the likes of Britain’s Colin Jackson in his heyday — and has fond memories of competing at the top in an event in which Cuba now has the Olympic champion in Dayron Robles.

“I competed against athletes from many countries, but we were all friends,” Valle recalls fondly. “We may have a different system or way of life, but we would talk, be friends, no problem.”

As the duo depart, I am told that part of the schedule for their short trip is to take some training sessions with athletes from Sharp’s club and it reminds me of Dijhigo’s earlier remark, “We not only prepare athletes but a person who can be a good person in society.”

Valle and Dijhigo’s actions show that these are not mere words.

UN resoundingly condemns US blockade of Cuba 186 votes to 2

For the 20th consecutive year, the UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution calling for the lifting of the 50-year-old economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba.

The 191-member United Nations body voted to condemn the “adverse effects” of such measures on the Cuban people and on Cuban nationals living in other countries in the non-binding resolution.

Countries from across the world – from China to Mexico and from Algeria to South Africa – queued up to lend their political and diplomatic support to Cuba. The representative from Uruguay noted that “we have witnessed an increase in the restrictions on Cuba’s transactions with third countries” and the blockade is “counter to the principles of justice and human rights, hampers and delays development and seriously harms the Cuban economy”.

The delegate from Bolivia – referencing President John F Kennedy’s “ich bin ein Berliner” quote – said the slogan of our time should be “I am a Cuban” as the Cuban people remain an “inspiration and example” to the rest of the world. He continued, “if we truly believe in democracy then we must listen to the countries in this room”

Venezuela sent a message of support and solidarity to the Miami 5 and appealed to the United States for their release and the return of Rene Gonzalez to his homeland.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said that the sanctions have caused direct economic damages of close to $1 trillion to the Cuban people over nearly half a century and that President Obama had done little to change this.

"Despite the false image of flexibility that the current U.S. administration intends to portray, the blockade and the sanctions remain intact," Rodriguez told the assembly.

"Why doesn't President Obama's administration take care of the U.S. problems and leave us Cubans alone to solve ours in peace?"

American Ambassador Ronald D. Godard, U.S. Senior Area Adviser for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said the embargo is a bilateral issue and "not appropriately a concern of this assembly."

Resolution A/66/L4 received 186 votes in favour and 2 against (USA and Israel), with 3 abstentions (Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands). In 2010 the vote was 187 to 2.

Read the Cuban FM's full UN speech in English

Time to step up campaigning against the blockade - Support the CSC END IT NOW! campaign and appeal

Watch the Cuban FM's UN speech in Spanish

Wikileaks show campaign against Hilton Hotels hit home

Recently released U.S diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks reveal the success of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign and British trade union campaign against the Hilton Group’s ban on Cuban nationals staying in their hotels in 2007.

Leaked cables report on the U.S hotel chain’s response to a boycott of its hotels by the GMB and Unison trade unions. In correspondence to Hilton Hotels International, the GMB made is quite clear that:

…discriminating on legal grounds, which includes nationalities, in the provision of goods, facilities or services is unlawful under the 1976 Race Relations Act

Both the GMB and Unison made it apparent that they could not do business with “any company which pursued racist policies”.

Following intense pressure from CSC and the two unions Hilton International concluded:

that their critics’ legal argument was valid. Hilton International has instructed its staff to obey all local law, including the Race Relations Act, even if doing so violates US Cuba sanctions… Hilton has asked the US hotel industry trade association to begin a dialogue with the US government on this issue on behalf of all US hotels operating abroad

Although referring only to the hospitality industry, the hotel giants stressed that “Hilton would like to see a reform of the US Sanctions”.

A subsequent cable reports on a meeting between the Hilton, CSC and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cuba which reveals that the highly effective boycott of Hilton in 2007 led to concerns regarding the conflict between US sanctions on Cuba and UK law banning discrimination. Members of the Parliamentary Group vowed to “protest the US sanctions with the relevant minister”.

The cables demonstrate the effective lobbying carried out by CSC and the British trade union movement and illustrate the potential for the British government to overrule U.S law. The extraterritorial implementation of the U.S blockade represents not just an affront to Cuban sovereignty, but also that of the British government.

According to comments by the U.S Embassy in London in the same cable, “we have briefed Members of Parliament and the Trade Union Congress that the US does not impose its sanctions obligations extraterritorially on non-US persons”. However, as the experience of Barclays and Lloyds testify, British companies continue to be subjugated to American blockade legislation.

JP Morgan fined $111m for processing financial transactions with Cuba

Recent fines imposed by the US government's Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) against global financial services firm JP Morgan Chase for processing financial transactions with Cuba show that the Obama administration is still focused on punishing trade with Cuba.

According to the US Treasury Department, JP Morgan Chase processed 1,711 wire transfers valued at $178.5m between 12 December 2005 and 31 March 2006 involving Cuban nationals.

The Cuban Assets Control Regulation prohibits  financial transactions with Cuba on the grounds that the country is a “state sponsor of terrorism”. The Cuban Foreign Ministry recently declared that the US government “has absolutely no moral nor any right to judge Cuba, which has an unblemished history in the fight against terrorism and has also been consistently a victim of this scourge.” It said the only reason the island is accused of terrorism “is to discredit Cuba and justify the economic embargo, which has been maintained for half a century.”

As a result of the illegitimate transactions, JP Morgan Chase was fined $111m for violating the control regulations and the company has agreed to pay $88m in settlements to the US Treasury Department.

The fine imposed on JP Morgan Chase is the fourth largest by Washington since the George W. Bush administration when controls relating to the economic blockade of Cuba were tightened.

American majority wants Cuban embargo lifted

This story originally appeared on RT.

Poll after poll show a growing number of Americans want an end to the US embargo on Cuba. It has been in place for over half a century and though it was designed to bring down Fidel Castro, it is Cuba’s citizens who have felt its impact most.

Despite promises from President Obama downwards, it seems America’s powerful anti-Castro lobby is not about to let the embargo drop any time soon.

Following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the US imposed an embargo on all trade, investment and travel in an attempt to bring down the communist government of Fidel Castro

Cubans who fled the island for the US pushed to keep this agenda alive, and so the anti-Castro lobby was born.

“They give a lot of money, US elections are in fact privately financed, and so they've been able to figure out how to play the game. Even though they are a small percentage of the population they play a very big in a key swing state,” Frank Sharry, founder of America's Voice organization, said.

Polls consistently show that two-thirds of Americans favor ending the embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba, and some in Congress agree.

“It’s about time we talked to Cuba and stopped fighting these wars that are about 30 or 40 years old,” Senator Ron Paul said.

But anti-Castro groups have given a total of $1.798.124 in donations to House and Senate candidates from 2004 to 2010, keeping US Cuba policy virtually unchanged.

Fewer than one per cent of Americans are of Cuban origin and the majority emigrated before the end of the Cold War. Unlike the rest of the Hispanic population in the US, 58 per cent of Cubans are US citizens.

"Cubans that arrive and set foot on beaches in Florida are on their way to citizenship. Haitians that arrive and set foot on the beaches of Miami are on their way to a detention center and deportation,” Frank Sharry said.

Cuban Americans are also a force to be reckoned with in Congress. They are the most over-represented community in Congress, with two senators and four representatives, including the powerful Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen.

"I welcome the opportunity to have anyone assassinate Fidel Castro and any leader who is oppressing the people," Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said. 

They have powerful political action committees behind them, like the US Cuba Democracy PAC, the number one campaign donor in 2006 with $569.624.

“Our community is very focused and concentrated in New Jersey and Florida and so we have to make an effort to get out there and create the relationships,” Mauricio Claver-Carone, Director of US-Cuba Democracy Lobby Group, said.

Their agenda has been known to change many politicians’ minds, including President Barack Obama’s.

“I think it’s time to end the embargo,” Senator Barack Obama said back in January 2004.

Yet he changed his mind while campaigning before the Cuban American National Foundation, stressing that: “As president I’m not going to end the embargo.”

But while the majority of Americans favor ending the sanctions against Cuba, even protesting in the streets, they have yet to match the strength of the anti-Castro lobby.

Examples of previous polls in America which have rejected the blockade of Cuba can be found here and here.

Times have changed in Cuba, but softly the struggle continues

On his first visit in 1967, John Pilger witnessed the effects of US efforts to isolate the island. In this week’s New Statesman, Pilger recounts his thoughts on Cuba.

On my first day in Cuba, in 1967, I waited in a bus queue that was really a conga line. Ahead of me were two large, funny women resplendent in frills of blinding yellow; one of them had an especially long bongo under her arm. When the bus arrived, painted in Cuba's colours for its inaugural service, they announced that the gringo had not long arrived from London and was therefore personally responsible for this breach in the American blockade. It was an honour I could not refuse.

United States’ blockade of Cuba is ‘economic warfare’

In a packed fringe meeting at GMB National Conference in Brighton, over fifty delegates heard about Cuba’s social achievements and learnt about the island’s struggle to defend socialism in the face of worldwide economic crisis and within the context of continuing economic blockade.

Cuban Ambassador Esther Armenteros heralded the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and the opportunities it gave her – as a black working-class woman – to build and develop her career. Esther – joking that she was wary of giving away her age – declared she was (just) old enough to remember what life was like prior to the revolution and likened the racial segregation in Batista’s Cuba to apartheid South Africa. The revolution’s victory created unprecedented opportunities for women and black people in Cuba and – whilst Esther concedes the system is not perfect – it has created unparalleled levels of equality and well-being.

Talking about a Revolution

In celebration of the centenary of International Women's Day, we have re-published an interivew with Carolina Amador Pérez from the the Federation of Cuban Women’s (FMC) and Gilda Chacón Bravo from the CTC (Cuban Trade Union Central) which took place in April 2009.

Additionally, CSC are hosting Mujeres, a Cuban cultral night in celebration of International Women's Day at Conway Hall, London on 19th March.

Carolina Amador and Gilda Chacón, leading members of the Cuban women’s and trade union movement spoke to CSC’s Lotte Deckers Dowber on their nationwide tour. The tour was made possible through support from Unison’s General Political Fund offered Chance to build new links between the FMC and UK institutions and bring the agenda of women’s rights in the UK and Cuba to the fore.

Solidarity with Cuba needed 'now more than ever'

Newly appointed Cuban ambassador to the UK, Esther G. Armentheros Cárdenar, was introduced to the CWU's National Executive Council on 23rd February for the first time since assuming the role in October. Joined by Rob Miller, Director of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign - to which the CWU is affiliated - both called for continued political solidarity now more than ever.

Wikileaks report on Hague's Cuba visit

UK Shadow Foreign Minister interviewed by US Embassy on his return from the island

Following a visit to Cuba when he was Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague was interviewed by a senior diplomat at the US Embassy in London who was concerned about a press report in which Hague called for an end to the blockade.