Was Anyone Really Expecting a Complete Fundamental Change in U. S. Policies Toward Cuba?

By Patricio Montesinos on November 18, 2017

Graphic: Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo

I will begin this note by recalling an observation of Fidel Castro that underscores what follows here: “Even when, someday, relations between Socialist Cuba and the empire improve, that empire, even so, would not be giving up on the idea of crushing the Cuban Revolution.”

But the historic leader of the largest of the Antilles said more in a speech for the 32nd anniversary of the Armed Forces and of the Granma’s landing, celebrated in Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution in 1988. He accepted that the empire doesn’t hide its purpose of destroying our revolutionary process.  Apologists for its philosophy are clear on that.

Fidel, one of the great experts on the United states in present-day history, stated then that there are some theoreticians of the neighboring power in the North who have called upon Washington to alter policies toward Cuba in order peacefully to penetrate, weaken, and destroy Cuba, if that is possible.

He referred in that speech also to the idea some people hold that the more Cuba, mentor of the Caribbean archipelago, is the object of hostility, the more active and effective Cuba will be as it struggles on the world scene and in Our America.

The Commander in Chief, as his compatriots and millions of grateful people around the world will always call him, predicted that as long as the empire still exists, the Cuban people will never let down their guard or neglect their defense.

Facts confirm what Fidel guaranteed almost three decades ago. The North American Democratic President Barack Obama, with his “think tanks” standing by, offered up the siren song of overthrowing the Cuban Revolution in a “peaceful” way. But of course they wanted to do that without, once and for all, lifting the criminal blockade the United States has imposed on the Island over the course of almost 60 years.

Now the current occupant of the White House, Donald Trump, stupid and aggressive like his anti-Cuban “advisors,” again chose the wrong, dead-end road of confrontation, while sounding discordant tones of old times, of the so-called cold war. He has just put new measures into effect that aggravate the economic, commercial, and financial war against Cuba.

The purpose has been and will be the same: to smother the Cuban Revolution because, beginning with its victory on January 1, 1959, it represents a model for peoples of the Great Homeland, and for the world – and one of the great obstacles to the hegemonic interests of Washington in this hemisphere.

Successive regimes in the United States, during each of their tenures, have tried to make Cuba, that example of solidarity, selflessness, dignity, peace, and resistance, disappear from the face of the earth, and of course none of them has been able to do so.

Neither Trump nor whoever comes afterwards will be able to do it. To the contrary, they can be sure that the Caribbean island of Cuba will be continuing its long battle against aggression from Washington, and at the same time will be ready to dialogue and to live together peacefully with its powerful northern neighbor – that is,  as long as its sovereignty, independence, and principles are respected.

Indeed, we can all expect and be quite certain that Cuba will never waver as long as there is no honest and valid change in U.S. policies toward the Caribbean nation.

http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2017/11/18/alguien-esperaba-de-eeuu-un-cambio-real-y-limpio-de-su-politica-hacia-cuba/#.WiMOgTRJmvG

Source: Cubadebate – translation Tom Whitney, www.letcubalive.org