By Geraldina Colotti, Resumen Latinoamericano, March 21, 2024.
May 1, 2022, Havana, photo: Bill Hackwell
Cuba is once again in the spotlight, in the center of a media pillory that periodically repeats itself with the same pattern: people protest, socialism has failed, the “dictatorship” does not respect human rights, etcetera. A script that, as historian Ernesto Limia writes in his book “Homeland and Culture in Revolution”, did not begin with the victory of the revolution, on January 1, 1959. Imperialism’s obstinate intention to take over Cuba dates back to the days of independence. The growing sophistication of the apparatus of ideological control has only perfected its techniques of aggression.
José Martí, the Apostle of Cuban independence and one of the greatest writers of the Hispanic world, who died in combat on May 19, 1895, already defined “the greatest war that is being waged against us” as the set of attacks that “use thought as their main weapon and which – he added – we must defeat with thought”. A war that has the simple but fierce purpose of destroying the “bad example” that has arisen 90 miles from the United States, which has tried everything to achieve its objective.
It is not difficult to find similarities between the media aggression unleashed again against Cuba and the one launched against Venezuela immediately after the announcement of the date of the presidential elections, this coming July 28. With the punctuality of a clock, a flurry of “news” began to present in a very bad light that experience that refers to socialism, qualified as deleterious and failed at the economic, political, social and institutional level. And, of course, as a dictatorship violating human rights. The objective is always the same: to exclude from the list of possible options a system that pretends to combine the concept of peace with that of social justice.
Let us return for a moment to the summer of 2023, when the European Parliament approved – with 359 votes in favor, 226 against and 50 abstentions – the shameful resolution against Cuba, formally calling for sanctions against those it considers “responsible for human rights violations”, including President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
The terms of that text, which gave body to the worst ghosts of the past “cold war”, proposed again in a “democratic” style and seasoned with the usual rhetoric on “human rights”, were clear: take the “arguments” of the U.S.-financed opposition, both in Cuba and Venezuela, and build a “legal dossier” against socialist democracy. It could be said that it was a parliamentary lawfare.
We relate some passages of that resolution: “Whereas the communist system gradually imposed in Cuba excludes any prospect of democratic change, since Article 5 of the Cuban Constitution establishes that the ‘Communist Party of Cuba, unique, Martian, faithful, Marxist and Leninist’ ‘ is the maximum leading political force of society and the State, while Articles 4 and 229 define the current political system as irreversible; whereas Article 3 of the Cuban Constitution establishes that a system based on a single political party is declared “irrevocable”; that Article 224 prohibits current generations from altering the future irreversibility of socialism, as well as the current political and social system; that Cuba’s current political system is incompatible with EU requests to conclude cooperation agreements; that respect for human, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights is essential for the EU and is one of its main objectives in its relations with other countries; the resolution ‘condemns, deplores, disapproves’ and urges the EU to “immediately suspend the political dialogue and the cooperation agreement between the EU and Cuba”.
As we can see, it is the whole Cuban (and Venezuelan) institution that must be erased, as it is incompatible with “democracy”. A discourse equivalent to that of NATO which, in the guidelines approved during its last summit, translates the imperialist obsession for the “return” of communism in the current geopolitical forms. And, even in this case, the EU follows.
Does this mean that there are no problems in Cuba, that there are no problems in Venezuela? Not at all, but the negative emphasis that disproportionately amplifies the contradictions, as is happening even now, is tantamount to a silence on the origin of those problems and on the scope of the issues at stake for those who do not consider capitalism as the ultimate destiny of humanity. Naming that origin is not a propaganda exercise.
It serves to avoid taking fireflies for lanterns in a shattered and balkanized world in which, 200 years after the ill-fated Monroe Doctrine, U.S. imperialism seeks to prevent at all costs the possibility of a second time to socialism, even if it is “hybridized and correct”.
The first common sense observation is to admit that Cuba – an island a stone’s throw from the United States – could not prosper economically even if it were an oil well. The blockade (not an embargo, as is often said, giving the impression that there is a certain reciprocity of war against a country that has never attacked anyone) has lasted more than sixty years.
The blockade prevents the sale and purchase of what a country needs; it prevents access to the international market; it excludes it from financial and credit channels. Difficulties are compounded by capitalist globalization and the fall of the Soviet Union, then the mainstay of the Cuban economy. Difficulties are multiplied by the ongoing aggression against Venezuela, which, in spite of being a country rich in the first oil reserves in the world, the second in gold, etc., cannot advance due to illegal unilateral coercive measures.
Cuba has been able to resist with planning and inventiveness, trying not to let the magnitude of the structural problems dictated by the difficult phase of transition, both regionally and globally, sink it. There is no doubt that the Cuban government has not spent the people’s money on imperialist wars and that, had the blockade not existed -which in more than six decades caused damages of almost 160 billion dollars- the island’s GDP would have grown by at least 9% only between 2022 and 2023, when the blockade caused damages of almost 5 billion dollars every month.
And so we can better understand the causes of the protests that took place on March 17 in three areas of Cuba, especially in Santiago, where hundreds of people took to the streets to protest against the long power outages, the lack of fuel, the high prices, the shortage of subsidized products and the general crisis. These facts are a direct consequence of the economic war to which the U.S. government is subjecting the Cuban people.
And the height of cynicism took place when, relying on the information short-circuit produced by U.S. propaganda, the U.S. embassy in Havana sent messages of “support” to the demonstrators, urging the Cuban government to respond to their “legitimate requests”. Needs denied, precisely, by the imposition of the ferocious blockade, which aims to make the people suffer in order to push them to turn against their legitimate representatives.
This is what has happened and is happening in Venezuela, where more than 900 illegal unilateral coercive measures have brought down the economic balance and, consequently, the purchasing power of the popular sectors. Moreover, this time the huge clash between the avalanche of articles trying to transform a peaceful protest into a revolt against the government and reality is even more evident: because the government responded immediately with dialogue and not with repression, as we have seen and continue to see in European countries.
What is certainly not lacking in Cuba is the study and debate on structural issues, present in books and articles as well as in popular assemblies. The Communist Party, in which generations have passed so far with the inevitable reflection of the different schools of thought, has guaranteed a high level of political preparation of young people, who are the main targets of imperialist propaganda: to divert them, to get them out of commitment and transform them into zombies of consumerism, as in capitalist countries.
Cuba is open to the world and, therefore, also to the risk of “infections”, but it has built its own antibodies and also its own vaccines: in a literal sense, as was seen during the Covid-19 pandemic. The first of the antibodies is undoubtedly the popular consensus, with which the Cuban CP approved the lines of economic policy to adapt its productive model to the international context. And there were those who, even within the party and from a revolutionary point of view, pointed out the dangers of the “Cuban NEP”.
The terms of the new transitory cap that now has to face the post-covid situation and the crisis in the tourism sector -one of the most significant revenues for the Cuban economy- were illustrated by Cuba in various international forums, both regionally and globally. Capturing a greater amount of foreign investment flows is decisive. Therefore, it is necessary to adapt the regulatory system to international standards and to the level of technological innovation, and to ensure that the regulation is attractive to new forms of non-state management, functional to the productive transformation.
The experience accumulated so far by Cuba demonstrates the existence of a compass to choose the quality of foreign investments, so that they prioritize the local dimension of productive transformation, placing the role of municipalities and communities at the center. Adapting the state machinery to the rhythms and transitions of the new stage, however, is not an easy task, nor can the problems that arise and the costs involved be solved with doctrinarism.
During the January 1st celebrations, President Miguel Díaz-Canel stated that “deep distortions” had been created in the management, due to the effort to overcome an adverse situation, and to square the economic variables with the very limited availability of foreign currency and with the commitment to maintain social achievements. The reforms, initiated in the early 1990s to adapt the Cuban model to the changes in the international context, allowed for a recovery of growth, but left some unresolved weaknesses in the background.
Weaknesses that, in order to reach the present, have inevitably exposed Cuba to the effects of the systemic crisis -economic, social and health- highlighted by the pandemic at global level, and continued in the post-pandemic period. A situation that, as in a sort of “perfect storm”, has affected developing economies more deeply and at all levels. A scenario further complicated by the consequences of the conflict in Ukraine.
For the Cuban economy, a victim of the blockade even during the pandemic, despite the scientific successes achieved, the consequences in terms of internal growth and inclusion in the international context were even more serious. The areas in which the effects of the world crisis on the Cuban economy are manifesting themselves most strongly and exponentially are undoubtedly foreign trade, tourism and foreign debt, and inflation which, in 2023, has reached 30% and continues to rise.
It should be remembered that the Cuban model of insertion in the international economy is based fundamentally on the export of raw materials (nickel, sugar, lead and zinc recently), some productions of low technological content (rum, tobacco, coal) and on tourism. Moreover, its external economic relations are concentrated in a few markets and countries, which accentuates its vulnerabilities.
The increase in oil prices had a special impact. Due to its very limited export capacity, and its high dependence on imports, and of course due to the blockade, Cuba suffers from a chronic shortage of foreign currency and recurrent periods of debt crises, which exacerbate the problems in the current context. A context that evidently reactivates the eagerness of US imperialism in its strategy of obtaining a “regime change” by increasing the suffering of the people.
Therefore, once again, the Cuban government has called on the U.S. to stop interfering and has summoned the U.S. Chargé d’Affaires. Meanwhile, a delegation of the Alba countries, now led by Venezuelan Jorge Arreaza, went to Havana to meet with Díaz Canel. Against the new aggression, regional and international solidarity has been launched: “Cuba is not alone, the majority of the peoples support it”, say the messages that, all over the world, invite to spread the hashtag #LetCubaLive. Let Cuba live.