As
usual, the U.S. is singling out Cuba for human rights abuses ahead of
Barack Obama's historic visit to the island - but what of Washington's
abuses?
The issue of human rights in the context of Cuba-U.S.
relations has erupted once again on the eve of Obama’s visit to the
island, March 21 and 22, 2016.
In Geneva on March 2, the deputy
secretary of state of the U.S. Department of State, Antony Blinken,
issued his country's national statement to the Human Rights Council. He
dealt with several countries that are always the target of U.S.
accusations of supposed human rights violations, such as China, Russia
and Venezuela.
As is always the case, Cuba was also singled out. Concerning this country, the Blinken statement indicated:
“In Cuba, we are increasingly concerned about the government’s use of
short-term detentions of peaceful activists, which reached record
numbers in January. We call on the Cuban government to stop this tactic
as a means of quelling peaceful protest. President Obama will make a
historic visit to Cuba in a few weeks and will emphasize that the Cuban
people are best served by an environment where people are free to choose
their political parties and their leaders, express their ideas, and
where civil society is independent and allowed to flourish.”
The Cuban Response
The head of the Cuban delegation to the council, Pedro Nuñez Mosquera,
who is general director of the Division on Multilateral Affairs and
International Law at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was not at all
intimidated by the superpower. Since 1959, Cuba has had a history of
defending its interests in all international forums. Cuba is a small
country, but with a voice that is respected internationally. In Geneva,
Nuñez turned the tables on the U.S. by calling it out for the gross
violations of human rights that the U.S. itself is responsible for,
including racial discrimination, police violence, persecution of
immigrants and torture that takes place in the Guantanamo prison. In
addition, he insisted, the U.S. is responsible for violations of the
human rights of the Cuban people because of the blockade against the
island.
Blinken’s statement on behalf of the Obama administration
is notable for being yet another gross attempt at interfering in the
internal affairs of Cuba. However, let us leave this aside for the
moment and deal with his accusations against Cuba.
Peaceful Activists and Protests
Blinken charges Cuba of temporarily arresting “peaceful activists” as
part of a strategy of “quelling peaceful protest.” The term “peaceful”
is arbitrary. In the U.S., for example, when African-Americans and their
allies in the U.S. revolt against police assassinations of
African-Americans, they are called violent and are referred to as thugs.
However, in January and February 2016, when armed right-wing
individuals in Oregon occupied a federal agency, the government and
media politely labelled the occupiers “protesters” and “militia.” The
latter term “militia” provided legitimacy to these armed people. They
were never categorized in any derogatory way as being violent.
Turning south to Latin America, the same double standard applies. The
State Department's national statement demands the release of two
imprisoned pro-American individuals in Venezuela. It respectfully refers
to them as “opposition leaders.” However, they were responsible for
violent terrorist acts against the constitutional order in which 43
people were killed and over 800 injured. The U.S., therefore, is far
from being a reference point in dealing with peaceful or violent
protests.
In the Cuban context, the individuals to which the
U.S. refers cannot be seen as merely “peaceful protesters.” Mainly, they
are directly or indirectly paid mercenaries of the U.S. Their publicly
stated goal is regime change in Cuba. The very essence of the objective
is to smother the Cuban Revolution as the basis of Cuban sovereignty.
This means turning Cuba once again into a de facto neo-colony of the
U.S., making it safe for capitalism. Cuban independence, in turn, is the
safeguard of the Cuban Revolution, whose mission is to strive
continuously to develop and improve its socialism.
Thus, the
reactionary change that the “peaceful protesters” seek is a rupture from
the Cuban constitutional order to satisfy U.S. interests. Therefore, by
its very nature, this goal is violent, as it translates into a breach
from the road that the overwhelming majority of Cuban people have taken
since 1959. Whether, at the time of their detention, these individuals
were or were not violent is irrelevant. Cuba has every right to defend
itself from the coordinated efforts of the U.S.-funded “opposition” and
mainstream media to foment regime change in Cuba.
Choosing Political Parties and Leaders
The Blinken Statement also highlights one of the goals of Obama’s March
21-22 visit to Cuba, that being to emphasize “that people are free to
choose their political parties and their leaders.” The U.S. is blinded
by the U.S.-centric notion of political parties and elections. The U.S.
has its “multi-party” political system and the Cubans have an altogether
different system.
The Cuban process resulted from the
revolution. An essential feature of this revolution stems from the
tradition emerging out of the second half of the 19th-century
revolutionary wars of independence against the Spanish colonizers. An
essential ingredient was – and is – the need for one unifying political
force to lead the Revolution.
The Communist Party of Cuba was
born out of the combined political forces that were sacrificing their
lives to defeat the bloody, U.S.-backed Batista dictatorship in the
1950s. The Cubans chose their leading political force and indeed their
leaders during the 1950s until the triumph of the revolution in 1959.
Furthermore, in that period and since, millions of Cubans have chosen to
be part of that revolution, rather than to stand on the sidelines
“choosing leaders” according to some preconceived-U.S. notion of
leadership.
The role of this unifying political force is
entrenched in the Cuban Constitution, which people at the grassroots
contributed to drafting. In 1976, in a referendum on the constitution,
98 percent of the electorate voted and, of those voters, 97.7 percent
approved of the constitution.
The Cuban political system also
affords other formal legal channels so that Cubans can vote for their
leaders. Once again, it does not conform to the U.S.-centric notion.
Cuba is not based on the presidential system as it exists in the U.S.
and other countries.
On Cuban Leadership: Raul Castro
Let us take the example of Raul Castro based on a very summary
description of some of the steps leading to his election as president of
the councils of state and ministers. In the last 2013 general
elections, he was elected as deputy to the Cuban National Assembly of
People’s Power (parliament) from a municipality in his home province of
Santiago de Cuba. While there is only one candidate per seat, a
candidate needs at least 50 percent of the popular vote.
In the
2013 general elections, Raul Castro garnered 98 percent of the vote.
This was one of the highest among the 612 deputies who were elected.
Once the elections are over, in order to elect leaders, the deputies
have their input on an individual basis and in private. Resulting from
this consultation, a list of candidates to the Council of State,
including the president of this body, is drawn up. The newly elected
legislature meets, as it did, for example, on Feb. 24, 2013. It chooses
among the deputies in a secret ballot vote. It is beyond the scope of
this article to cover more of the details and analysis of how this and
the general elections occur. However, this is how Raul Castro was
elected as president of the Council of State (and therefore also of the
Council of Ministers). This role is carried out as a function of being a
member of these collegial and collectives councils. These bodies are in
turn accountable to parliament.
On Cuban Leadership: Fidel Castro
Furthermore, a country that has forged itself in revolution has its own
standards on leaders. Fidel Castro is known as the historic leader of
the Cuban Revolution. In the preamble to the constitution approved by
the population, the Magna Carta recognizes the “leadership of Fidel
Castro.” Whether it is in the constitution or not, the fact is that he
is the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution and is recognized as such
by the overwhelming majority of Cuban people.
These cursory facts regarding Cuba’s leaders do not seem to be of interest to the U.S. ruling circles.
'Presidential Systems' of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador
In any case, Washington’s ideological/political pressure for people
choosing their leaders is arbitrary. For example, from a superficial
standpoint, one can say that Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador all have
“presidential systems.” Nevertheless, the U.S. does not really recognize
as presidents the directly elected leaders, including Nicolas Maduro,
Evo Morales and Rafael Correa. Rather, the U.S. is continuously engaged
in regime change in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador to overthrow these
elected leaders and everything they stand for. The U.S. thus has an
erratic stand with regards to leaders that is manipulated to serve its
own purposes.
Cuban 'Civil Society'
In Geneva, the U.S.
also rolled out its requirement for Cuba that “civil society needs to be
independent.” The U.S., according to its own formula and in the context
of Obama’s upcoming visit to Cuba, recognizes the “members of civil
society, including those who certainly oppose the Cuban government’s
policies.”
One could ask the U.S., if it succeeds in further
winning over those individuals to U.S. policy, which is a foregone
conclusion, is it not a fact that they will no longer be independent? On
the contrary, they will be even more dependent on the U.S. than they
were before Obama’s visit. According to the U.S., if Cuban civil society
works in harmony with the Cuban political process, then they are not
independent. However, if they act in accord with the U.S., they receive
bona fide credentials as being independent.
Improving the Cuban Political System
Considering the above-mentioned themes with regard to the Cuban
political system, this not to say that there is no room for improvement.
However, the Cubans who debate this issue do not need advice from the
U.S. It is up to Cubans to bring about changes.
For example,
during the joint press conference in Havana given by Secretary of State
John Kerry and Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodriguez Aug.
14, 2015, a reporter asked Rodriguez a question about democracy in Cuba.
He responded:
“I feel very comfortable with Cuban democracy,
and at the same time there are things that could be further perfected,
as we are actively working on today with the processes related to the
updating of our socialist economic and social model.”
The
necessity to ideologically and politically revamp the political system
is part of their life-and-death struggle to bring about transformations
in Cuba’s socioeconomic system despite the crippling U.S. blockade and
other factors that are domestic in nature. This is, and will be, Cuba’s
own path.
