I, Too, Have a Dream

“Alexis García Iribar was born in Cuba, in Guantanamo province, with a congenital heart condition, and at the age of six, after successive delays and complications, was forced to undergo open heart surgery on March 9, 2009, because the United States government prohibits the U.S. companies NUMED, AGA, and Boston Scientific from selling Amplatzer and Embolization Coil, the devices needed to carry out a pediatric cauterization, to Cuba, which would make the surgery unnecessary. I could cite 12 other cases involving children between the ages of 5 and 13 . . .”

” . . . Cuban children who suffer from linfoblastic leukemia, whose systems reject the usual medications, cannot receive treatment with the U.S. product Elspar, created precisely for cases of intolerance, and as a result their life expectancy is reduced while their suffering increases. The U.S. government prohibits Merck and Co. from exporting this product to Cuba.”

The words quoted above are from a speech made at the United Nations last October 28 by Mr. Bruno Rodriguez, Cuban chancellor; they constitute a humanistic plea made from the perspective of a human right that is easy to appreciate, the right to life of the most vulnerable group: children.

The examples are incontrovertible and remind us of the most brutal effects of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade which the number one world power imposes on the small country of Cuba. This is an obsolete, anachronistic, and absurd policy, which has caused suffering, such as that endured by Alexis, a dark symbol of the cruelty inherent in this brutal violation of human rights with genocidal effects – unacceptable, as a matter of human decency.

There is no shortage of arguments – political, historical, philosophical, legal, economic and social – to condemn and repudiate the blockade, which has turned into a form of economic warfare implicated in many of the shortages which afflict the citizens of the “island of dignity”, who have stoically resisted the belligerence of the Trading with the Enemy Act (the name of the U.S. government’s infamous law), applicable only during wartime, and whose failure has been recognized by Americans and foreigners alike.

Only imperial pride and arrogance can explain the maintenance of this measure, considering the entire international community has rejected the embargo against Cuba, affirmed by nearly every member of the U.N. General Assembly – however the U.S. government does not recognize the binding power of a U.N. decision, which, for the umpteenth time, destroys the political and moral basis of the blockade. This situation calls into question the current U.N. system of decisions and resolutions, becoming convincing proof of the need for a profound reform which would empower international conscience to make universal decisions that overcome the stubbornness of superpowers like the U.S.

Seventy-six percent of U.S. society is in favor of ending the blockade and normalizing relations with Cuba. President Obama, himself, from his culture of erudite, universal humanism, has spoken words that tend towards the improvement of relations with the largest island in the Antilles, though his decisions have not always coincided with these intentions.

All would seem to indicate that the extreme right wing of the U.S., expressing itself through hawks and hard-liners in powerful communications media which manipulates the truth, and, among the financial speculators responsible for the latest international financial crisis, are in the end accountable for this unacceptable situation. International democracy, as well as domestic U.S. democracy, is mocked by this right wing.

The Reverend Martin Luther King, in his struggles against segregation and for civil rights for Blacks in the U.S., said in a historic speech, “I have a dream.” Paraphrasing that great African American religious leader, we can say, “I, too, have a dream: that one day little Cuban boys and Cuban girls will be able to join hands with little North American boys and North American girls as sisters and brothers, without fear that other children like Alexis will be painfully wounded, and that their family will have to suffer from human evil; that one day all of God’s children will be able to sing, ‘We are free at last from this infernal blockade’.”

President Obama, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, must face the Shakespearean dilemma of “to be or not to be.” The end of today’s wars and of this inhumane blockade would constitute living proof of a change in international relations, which is what the world community is waiting for.

We invite President Obama to dream with us and convert that dream into a fait accompli under his leadership.