BREAKING NEWS! Obama Moves Toward Normalizing Relations With Cuba
The U.S. today exchanged 3 Cuban intelligence agents held since the 1990s for American government contractor Alan Gross, imprisoned in Cuba since 2009, and an unnamed “U.S. intelligence asset” an administration source said has been imprisoned in Cuba for more than 20 years, but President Obama’s initiative goes far beyond a prisoner swap. It embraces lessened travel restrictions, easing the trade embargo, and establishing a U.S. embassy in Havana.
The president said “decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our enduring objective of promoting the emergence of a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba. At times, longstanding U.S. policy towards Cuba has isolated the United States from regional and international partners, constrained our ability to influence outcomes throughout the Western Hemisphere, and impaired the use of the full range of tools available to the United States to promote positive change in Cuba.” He also said, “The policy changes [will] make it easier for Americans to provide business training for private Cuban businesses and small farmers and provide other support for the growth of Cuba’s nascent private sector.”
This photo of Obama shaking hands with Raul Castro in 2013 drove rightwingers wild. Obama’s moves to end the U.S. policy of isolating the Castro regime and normalize relations with Cuba will drive them even wilder. Cigar aficionados are dancing in the streets.
Some Costs of Sanctions and “Regime Change”
Secret Team – By Fletcher Prouty
inside-the-company-cia-diary-philip-agee
cia-book-review-inside-the-company
“I believe that there is no country in the world including any and all the countries under colonial domination, where economic colonization, humiliation and exploitation were worse than in Cuba, in part owing to my country’s policies during the Batista regime. I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear.”
— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, interview with Jean Daniel, 24 October 1963[
Background and causes
Fulgencio Batista, who had served as the elected President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, became President for the second time in March 1952, after seizing power in a military coup and cancelling the 1952 elections.[11] Although Batista had been a relative progressive during his first term,[12] in the 1950s he proved far more dictatorial and indifferent to popular concerns.[13] While Cuba remained plagued by high unemployment and limited water infrastructure,[14] Batista antagonized the population by forming lucrative links to organised crime and allowing American companies to dominate the Cuban economy.[14][15][16]
During his first term as President, Batista had been supported by the Communist Party of Cuba,[12] but during his second term he became strongly anti-communist, gaining him political support and military aid from the United States.[14][17] Batista developed a powerful security infrastructure to silence political opponents, leading John F. Kennedy to describe the Cuban government as a “complete police state” in 1960.[14] In the months following the March 1952 coup, Fidel Castro, then a young lawyer and activist, petitioned for the overthrow of Batista, whom he accused of corruption and tyranny. However, Castro’s constitutional arguments were rejected by the Cuban courts.[18] After deciding that the Cuban state could not be overthrown through legal means, Castro resolved to launch an armed revolution. To this end, he and his brother Raúl founded a paramilitary organization known as “The Movement”, stockpiling weapons and recruiting around 1,200 followers from Havana’s disgruntled working class by the end of 1952.[19]
During this time, Castro’s forces remained quite small in numbers, sometimes fewer than 200 men, while the Cuban army and police force had a manpower of around 37,000.[37] Even so, nearly every time the Cuban military fought against the revolutionaries, the army was forced to retreat. An arms embargo – imposed on the Cuban government by the United States on 14 March 1958 – contributed significantly to the weakness of Batista’s forces. The Cuban air force rapidly deteriorated: it could not repair its airplanes without importing parts from the United States.[38]
In 1959, Castro travelled to the United States to explain his revolution. He said, “I know what the world thinks of us, we are Communists, and of course I have said very clearly that we are not Communists; very clearly.”[44]
Reforms and nationalization[edit]
During its first decade in power, the Castro government introduced a wide range of progressive social reforms. Laws were introduced to provide equality for black Cubans and greater rights for women, while there were attempts to improve communications, medical facilities, health, housing, and education. In addition, there were touring cinemas, art exhibitions, concerts, and theatres. By the end of the 1960s, all Cuban children were receiving some education (compared with less than half before 1959), unemployment and corruption were reduced, and great improvements were made in hygiene and sanitation.[46]
According to geographer and Cuban Comandante Antonio Núñez Jiménez, 75% of Cuba’s best arable land was owned by foreign individuals or foreign (mostly American) companies at the time of the revolution. One of the first policies of the newly formed Cuban government was eliminating illiteracy and implementing land reforms. Land reform efforts helped to raise living standards by subdividing larger holdings into cooperatives. Comandante Sori Marin, who was nominally in charge of land reform, objected and fled, but was eventually executed when he returned to Cuba with arms and explosives, intending to overthrow the Castro government.[47][48] Many other non-Marxist, anti-Batista rebel leaders were forced into exile, purged in executions, or eliminated in failed uprisings such as that of the Beaton brothers.[49]
Shortly after taking power, Castro also created a revolutionary militia to expand his power base among the former rebels and the supportive population. Castro also created the informant Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) in late September 1960. Local CDRs were tasked with keeping “vigilance against counter-revolutionary activity”, keeping a detailed record of each neighborhood’s inhabitants’ spending habits, level of contact with foreigners, work and education history, and any “suspicious” behavior.[50] Among the increasingly persecuted groups were homosexual men.[51]
In February 1959, the Ministry for the Recovery of Misappropriated Assets (Ministerio de Recuperación de Bienes Malversados) was created. Cuba began expropriating land and private property under the auspices of the Agrarian Reform Law of 17 May 1959. Farms of any size could be and were seized by the government, while land, businesses, and companies owned by upper- and middle-class Cubans were nationalized (notably, including the plantations owned by Fidel Castro’s family). By the end of 1960, the revolutionary government had nationalized more than $25 billion worth of private property owned by Cubans.[8] The Castro government formally nationalized all foreign-owned property, particularly American holdings, in the nation on 6 August 1960.[9]
In 1961, the Cuban government nationalized all property held by religious organizations, including the dominant Roman Catholic Church. Hundreds of members of the church, including a bishop, were permanently expelled from the nation, as the new Cuban government declared itself officially atheist. Education also saw significant changes – private schools were banned and the progressively socialist state assumed greater responsibility for children.[52]