http://www.arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=93468&d=11&m=3&y=2007&pix=opinion.jpg&category=Opinion
Sunday, 11, March, 2007 (21, Safar, 1428)
Cuba's 50-Year Inspiring Defiance of US
Philip Agee, The Guardian
There is a wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the
Caribbean after the many lonely years in which Cuba held high the torch, with
free universal health care and education, and world-class cultural, sports and
scientific achievements. Although you won't find a Cuban today who says things
are perfect - far from it - probably all would agree that compared with
prerevolutionary Cuba, there is a world of improvement. George Bush, the
antithesis of this process, is now in Latin America at the start of a mission
to lure five countries away from regional economic integration. However, the
many thousands in the streets demonstrate the region's vast repudiation of Bush
and what he stands for, something polls reflect unanimously.
All Cuba's achievements have been in defiance of US efforts to isolate
Cuba; every dirty method has been used, including infiltration, sabotage,
terrorism, assassination, economic and biological warfare and incessant lies in
the media of many countries. I know these methods too well, having been a CIA
officer in Latin America in the 1960s. Altogether nearly 3,500 Cubans have died
from terrorist acts, and more than 2,000 are permanently disabled. No country
has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.
The Cuban Revolution has always needed intelligence capabilities in the
US for defense purposes, even before it took power in 1959. Such was the fully
justified mission of the Cuban Five, who have been in jail since 1998 after
being convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage in Miami, where they had no
chance of a fair trial. Their sights were set exclusively on terrorist
operations against Cuba - activities ignored by the FBI - and they neither
sought nor received any classified government information. Their cases are
still on appeal, and will be for years, but their biased convictions rank with
the legal lynching in the 1920s of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, the
anarchist immigrants, among the most shameful injustices in US history.
Current US policy can be found in the 2004 report of the Commission for
Assistance to a Free Cuba (updated last year with a secret annex). A
fundamental goal - the same, I remember, as in 1959 - is the isolation of Cuba
to stop this bad example spreading. If successful, this would mean no less than
annexation by, and complete dependence on, the US, in fact if not in law. Other
goals still intact are to foment an internal political opposition and economic
hardship, leading to hunger and despair.
Yet nearly 50 years of US economic warfare hasn't worked, even though
Cubans estimate the cost to them at more than $80 billion. After the free fall
in the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the economy began to
recover in 1995. By 2005 growth was 11.8 percent and in 2006 12.5 percent, the
highest in Latin America. Exports of services, nickel and pharmaceutical and
other products are booming, and the US has not been able to stop this.
In the end efforts to isolate Cuba have failed. Last September Cuba was
elected, for the second time, to lead the Non-Aligned Movement of 118
countries, and two months later the UN voted for the 15th consecutive year to
condemn the US embargo, by 183 to 4. In 2007 Cuba has diplomatic or consular
relations with 182 countries, and Havana hosts seemingly endless international
conferences. In recent years Cuba's resorts have been attracting more than two
million tourists annually. Far from isolating Cuba, the US has isolated itself.
More than 30,000 Cuban doctors and health workers are saving lives in 69
countries, many in difficult areas. Meanwhile 30,000 young people from dozens
of countries are studying medicine in Cuba on full scholarships. All come from
areas lacking doctors.
Cuba's literacy program, known as "Yes I can", has been adopted in nearly
30 countries, with thousands of Cuban volunteers teaching. The scheme,
conducted in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Creole, Quechua and Aymara, has
helped some two million people to read and write, most of whom continue their
education afterward.
Thanks to this international assistance, Cuban prestige and influence -
and international solidarity with Cuba, - have never been greater. It was to
defend these worthy programs that the Cuban Five, unjustly convicted, went to
Miami in the 1990s. Freedom for them should be the cause of everyone for whom
human rights and justice are important, both in the US and around the world;
and that cause can be supported in 300 Free the Five solidarity committees in
90 countries.
- Philip Agee, a former CIA secret operations officer, is author of
Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He travels in Cuba and Latin America as a
campaigner, and manages an online travel service to Cuba.
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