When the Cuban Blockade Is Lifted

When the U.S. government eventually decides to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade it has imposed on its small and poor neighbor during who knows how many years, Cuba will emerge transformed into a moral superpower of enormous prestige for having shown itself capable of resisting the longest siege in history carried out by the most aggressive military, economic and technological superpower the world has ever known.

It will represent an unprecedented defeat for the imperial superpower because it will have failed to achieve the original purpose of the measure, as set forth in State Department documents dated April 6, 1960, and declassified in 1991:

“The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba … a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Obviously, such a cruel aggression on the part of a power with so many resources of all kinds, against a nation underdeveloped in economic, technological, military and scientific terms, and having a population adversely affected by illiteracy, poor health, lack of education and by a dependence in its international relations on precisely the same superpower that was trying to impede its access to independence, seems impossible to comprehend.

But there haven’t been many Cubans who have danced to the beat of the American drummer. A very small group has chosen to take advantage of the confrontation between the small island and the enormous American power in order to, by serving in counterrevolutionary capacities directly or indirectly financed by the American government, enjoy a less austere style of life than that which the third-world status of their country imposes upon their compatriots and which is aggravated by the hostility of the Empire.

Not a few, however, have taken advantage of the measures put in place by Washington that give Cuban immigrants priority over other nationalities as part of its strategy for overturning the revolution, and have opted for emigration without political motivation, knowing full well that the existence of such emigration was being used in the defamatory media campaigns employed against Cuba.

On Oct. 26, 2010, for the 19th consecutive year, the General Assembly of the United Nations declared its opposition to the irrational siege that has cost Cuba, according to very conservative calculations, $750 billion at the current rate of exchange.

The vote took place in a plenary session of the General Assembly called to consider a resolution entitled “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed by the United States of America Against Cuba.” On this occasion, there were 187 countries who voted in favor of the resolution condemning the U.S. blockade against the Caribbean island, with only two votes against (United States and Israel) and three abstentions (Palau, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia).

Voting against the blockade began in November 1992, when the 47th session of the General Assembly approved, for the first time — with 59 votes in favor, 3 against and 71 abstentions — such a resolution. Each year, the number of countries condemning the blockade has increased.

Last year (2009), there were also 187 countries that voted to censure the blockade, the difference being that in 2010 there was one less country voting against the measure — Palau, which this time limited itself to abstaining.

This is the second time since Barack Obama assumed the U.S. presidency that the international community represented in the United Nations has voted, virtually unanimously, against the genocidal policy of the United States toward Cuba, without any sign up to now of [Obama’s] willingness to rectify the situation in the face of international consensus, or of his respect for this evident global unanimity.

Obviously, as a result of the consistent manipulation of the media over the years, the majority of the U.S. population will continue being unaware that, for nearly a half century, its government has attempted genocide against the people of this small neighboring nation. They will continue to believe that Cuba has been, and continues to be, a danger for the security of the United States and a threat to regional and world peace.

For 50 years, Cuba has resisted the criminal blockade. How much longer will the superpower resist the shameful isolation to which it is condemned each year by the international community for its illegitimate policy against Cuban independence?