US Embassy in Havana – The Cuba Caper: Havana BEWARE!
The lame duck, Obama, extending a conciliatory hand to Cuba by opening an embassy in Havana, by reopening, after 54 years of a criminal and crippling embargo, diplomatic relations? – At the same time Obama is making not a single concession in terms of lifting the blockade. This smells like a trap. Cuba beware!
Imagine – a US Embassy in Havana – it would open the floodgates for US NED (National Endowment for Democracy) funded ‘NGOs’, for Washington’s spies and anti-Castro propaganda machine; it would have free hand to destabilize the country. And what would Cuba gain? – Zilch, zero, nothing. Not even a gradual lifting of the embargo had been announced.
To the contrary, it would open Cuba’s borders to the vultures of Florida Cubans, eventually to theirs and other foreign investments, subjugating the country’s huge social gains over the last half a century – universal free education and health services, by far the best social system of the Americas – to the sledgehammer of neoliberal privatization.
Why would Cuba now need a US Embassy? After 54 years of struggling and surviving against Washington’s nod? – In fact, nobody needs the empire – the empire’s consent to financially and economically survive.
Suffice it to look at the ‘engineered’ decay of the Russian ruble which eventually will leave Russia better off than before the downward slide of its currency and the likewise ‘engineered’ downward spin of the price of petrol.
Everybody knows that the Middle Eastern oil producers, Obama’s stooges, will not forever shoot themselves in the foot by flooding the petrol market and foregoing their oil revenues.
What Cuba needs is free access to international markets – outside and independent of the United States. Cuba needs to integrate into an independent financial and monetary system, detached from the corrupt casino dollar.
Solidarity by the rest of the world which has already helped Cuba survive the illegal, inhuman US embargo is now more than ever of the order. The support of a unity of nations must now help stem the temptation to bend to Washington’s offer of ‘diplomacy’.
With the establishment of diplomatic relations, Cuba would be condemned to adopt the dollar as trading currency – no escaping the dollar, if ever Cuba wanted to hope for the good deeds of the empire – the lifting of the blockade.
Look what happened in Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador – once a US Embassy is established, all the nefarious destabilizing elements could sneak in, willy-nilly. Plus, economic ‘sanctions’, would be nearer than ever, if Cuba doesn’t behave.
Both Bolivia and Venezuela have learned their lessons the hard way.
After they closed the US Embassy and sent US organizations and NGOs home, they could breathe again. Though Venezuela is still suffering from Washington’s diabolical arm of propaganda and direct interference in domestic affairs, she has no longer the burden of maintaining a ‘diplomatic’ tie with the northern aggressor.
Most importantly, however – the US is vying for Cuban hydrocarbons, estimated today at 20 billion barrels of offshore oil reserves. Cuba, like Venezuela, is close to US Mexican Gulf shores, where the major refineries are waiting for the crude.
During his tour of South America in July 2014, President Putin in a meeting with Cuban President, Raul Castro, signed an agreement whereby the Russian oil company, Rosneft, will assist the Cuban oil producer, Cupet, exploring and exploiting the island’s offshore petrol.
Is it coincidence or sheer self-interest, that just now, when Russia is digging for oil in Obama’s backyard that he is offering diplomatic ties with the 54 years embargoed Caribbean island? – Your guess.
Venezuela has the world’s largest remaining hydrocarbon reserves, about 300 billion barrels. They are close to the US shores and would be the best bet for US mega-oil. But the White House’s destabilizing efforts in Venezuela seem to fail. These efforts and other State Department blunders have helped increase US isolation in Latin America.
Why not trying another approach? – A well disguised lie; insinuating with the opening of an embassy in Havana that the deadly embargo might ease in some undefined future between the brutal Goliath of the north and castigated, downtrodden David of the Caribbean.
An embassy in Cuba may also earn some much needed kudos with other Latin American neighbors which have been upset for years about the criminal strangulation by the empire of one of their brothers.
In fact, first reactions from Latin America to Obama’s diplomatic initiative were positive. But more than caution is in order. – The establishment of a US embassy in Havana might be more than just a floodgate for US secret service agents and anti-Cuba propaganda.
A US Embassy in Havana might begin breaking down US isolation in South America, especially in Brazil and Argentina. It might become a backdoor for Washington to gain access to these countries huge natural resources.
Knowing about Washington’s agenda of world dominance, it would be difficult to imagine that there is even a shred of goodwill behind Obama’s move to ‘normalize’ relations with Cuba. – Havana beware!
Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe.
There are a couple of things worth note in the recent coverage of improved Cuban and American relations. First was the tone of exaggerated sympathy expressed by the TV talking heads over the five year imprisonment of Alan Gross, it sounded as though it was the harshest possible punishment anyone has ever suffered, even though, in the the United States five year prison sentences are common, given the toss them in jail and throw away the key mentality of our politicians.
The second thing I noticed were the many claims of rampant human rights violations in Cuba.
Last time I checked Cuba was not flying drones over Key West and bombing wedding parties or invading countries using a case of premeditated lies as justification.
Cuba’s public health care puts the public health care of the U.S. to shame.
Cuba’s hurricane preparedness also puts the U.S. to shame, Cuba sits right in the middle of hurricane alley and is regularly battered by the storms yet hurricane deaths in Cuba are quite rare.
Why is that?
Cuba has very well planned hurricane procedures, with planned evacuation routs and shelters in place, Cuba forbids building in mudslide and flood zones and there exists a social responsibility among Cubans where the strong care for the weak.
Another reason Cuba’s hurricane preparedness is excellent is that if there was a failure like the one in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans the public officials responsible would have faced a trial and criminal punishment.
I also noticed the mention of political prisoners in Cuba but there are also plenty of political prisoners here in the U.S.
I’ll start with the hundreds of thousands of young black males behind bars for the economic crime of dealing drugs even though their neighborhoods have unemployment rates three times higher than the norm.
At the other end of the spectrum there’s Don Siegelman, a former Democratic Governor imprisoned by Republican partisans on bogus bribery charges.
I noticed that journalists were mentioned as being the victims of human rights violations…President Obama has prosecuted far more government whistle blowers than any President in recent memory, including using the 1917 Espionage Act to prosecute leakers.
Finally I noticed that one of the supposed human rights violations of Cuba was the prohibition of labor unions, given the all out war on labor unions here at home by the Republicans over the last decade you will have to excuse me for being so rude as to point out the monumental hypocrisy on this issue.
The new opening of relations by the United States with Cuba is once again another dose of “Do as I say, not as I do.”