|
Brutal
economic and political measures against our country and against
Cubans resident in the United States
YESTERDAY,
May 6, the U.S. government announced new measures for intensifying
even further its aggressive and hostile policy towards Cuba.
In
the morning, President Bush, setting forth the measures during
brief comments to some representatives of the media, reiterated
his hatred of and aggressiveness toward our people, repeating his
habitual and cynical attacks and outlining his escalation of
interference.
He
went as far as to shamelessly affirm that the objective of the
measures was to speed up the day that Cuba will be a free country.
Later,
during the afternoon, Mr. Roger Noriega, undersecretary of state
for Western Hemisphere affairs, one of the authors of the Helms-Burton
Act and a U.S. government representative for the terrorist mafia
of Miami, gave a presentation in Washington where he provided
details of the contents of a report given to the U.S. president by
the so-called “Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba,”
emphasizing, above all, the new economic and political measures
that the Bush administration is planning to apply against Cuba.
In
six chapters and more than 450 pages, the so-called Report from
the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba could not contain
more lies, malice, frustration and interference in the internal
affairs of any country.
The
document incorporates the following as strategic tasks to achieve
the overthrow of the Cuban government: increased support to
international campaigns against Cuba; the intensification of
subversive actions and disinformation against our country; the
adoption of new measures that will affect the Cuban economy, and
what they are given to call “undermining the regime’s
succession plans.”
In
the first chapter, dedicated wholly to new measures aimed at
destroying the Revolution, the following stand out:
1.
To make available $59 million in the next 2 years for
financing actions directed at destroying the Revolution. This
money would be used, among other purposes:
a)
To create an international fund for the development of the
“civil society” in Cuba, which would attract “voluntary”
personnel from third countries to travel to our country and offer
aid to the mercenaries in its service in Cuba. In practice, it is
the organization of a messenger corps to supply financial and
logistical help to the counterrevolution.
b)
To establish, together with the OAS, a “scholarship
plan” to enable counterrevolutionary elements selected by them
to study in U.S. and Latin American universities. It is, in
essence, their plan to form cadres for the counterrevolution in
Cuba.
c)
To finance programs to support what they call
“pro-democracy efforts among Cuban youth, women and men of
African origin.” An unusual objective, coming from the country
of all kinds of discrimination and the Ku Klux Klan.
d)
To dedicate $18 million to transmissions from the ill-named
TV and Radio Martí via a C-130 airplane devoted exclusively to
that purpose.
e)
To maintain and increase public campaigns against Cuba in
other countries in the context of the alleged violation of human
rights in Cuba, “espionage committed against other countries,”
the “subversion of democratically elected governments in Latin
America,” and other acts defined as a threat to U.S. interests;
likewise, the promotion of national or international conferences
in third countries to “disseminate information” on U.S.
policies for promoting a “transition” in Cuba. It is the
announcement of further $5 million for financing the international
campaign of discredit and lies against Cuba.
2.
To limit those who receive remittances of money and
packages to immediate family members of Cuban resident in the
United States, defined exclusively as grandparents, grandchildren,
parents, siblings, spouses and children. This means that from now
on, Cubans residing in the United States are the only immigrants
to be prohibited from sending economic aid to an elderly aunt or
another close family member.
3.
To prohibit Cubans resident in the United States from
sending remittances of money and packages to family members if the
latter are “government officials or members of the Communist
Party.” A 70-year-old mother, for example, would have to
renounce her political rights in order to receive a remittance.
4.
To reduce visits to our country by Cubans resident in the
United States from the current one per year to one every three
years. The additional restriction is established by the obligation,
from now on, to seek specific permission for each trip, instead of
the general license that currently exists. It limits the granting
of permission to travel to Cuba only for visiting immediate family
members. To this effect, the U.S. government has decreed that from
this moment on, the definition of family is: “grandparents,
grandchildren, parents, siblings, spouses and children.” That is,
from now on, a cousin, aunt or other close family member is not
– according to President Bush – a family member. It also
establishes, as well, that Cubans who have recently arrived in the
United States will only be able to travel to Cuba three years
after having emigrated. While the Cuban government is continually
making visits to the country by emigrants more flexible, the U.S.
government is increasing the obstacles. What is it afraid of?
While the Cuban government is constantly making émigré visits to
the country more flexible, the U.S. government is increasing the
obstacles. What is it afraid of?
5.
Reducing the quantity of money that Cubans resident in the United
States can spend to cover their costs during
visits to Cuba from $164 to $50 per day. A new and arbitrary
discrimination against the Cuban community in the United States.
6.
Ordering the U.S. authorities to mount “covert operations” on
any person bringing money from Cubans resident in the United
States to relatives on the island, including recompensing
individuals who inform on illegal transfers of family remittances.
7.
To continue restricting the granting of licenses for educational
visits and academic exchanges to U.S. citizens and institutions by
means of tighter regulations than those currently existing. It
should be recalled that licenses for so-called people to people
exchange have already been eliminated by the Bush administration.
8.
To undertake a rigorous study to evaluate whether the application
of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act is contrary to U.S. interests
or whether its application could accelerate the fall of the Cuban
Revolution. In practice, this evokes the possibility of
authorizing trials in U.S. courts against businesspersons from
third countries engaged in business with Cuba, which has not been
applied to date.
9.
To firmly apply the sanctions contained in Title IV of the same
act, which prohibits the granting of entry visas to the United
States of foreign investors in Cuba, and to supply more resources
and personnel to apply the Helms-Burton Act.
10.
To “neutralize” Cuban companies dedicated to economic activity
linked to the external sector, and to create an Assets Evaluation
Group to investigate Cuban companies and those of other nations
trading with Cuba.
11.
To increase efforts to involve the governments of third countries
in campaigns against the Cuban Revolution.
12.
To support actions in third countries to discourage tourism to
Cuba.
13.
To continue refusing visas to Cuban officials who have to travel
to the United States.
14.
To create the post of a Coordinator for the Transition in Cuba at
State Department level, who will be responsible for checking the
application of all these measures.
The
other five chapters brazenly cover the measures that the U.S.
government would bring into effect in our country once it has
achieved its dream of overthrowing the Cuban Revolution. For now,
we will not analyze it in detail, but merely quote one example.
One of the measures proposed is “to immediately immunize all
children under five years who have not as yet been vaccinated
against the principal childhood ailments.” Our people can draw
their own conclusions. This is the plan for Cuba’s annexation
and the return to the fake republic of the Platt Amendment.
The
cruelty and hatred that inspire this new aggression against our
country is really incredible. It attempts to increase the
difficult conditions already imposed on us by the criminal U.S.
blockade by all means possible. It constitutes a flagrant
violation of the human rights of 11 million Cubans, whom it is
trying to force to their knees through hunger and disease for the
sole “crime” of wishing to be free, independent and not
subjected to imperial rule.
The
measures announced yesterday likewise constitute a violation of
the rights of citizens of Cuban origin resident in the United
States who now face new and draconian restrictions in relation to
travel to the island and sending economic aid to their families in
Cuba.
All
these measures and the U.S. policy as a whole openly flout the
real interests of the U.S. people, the vast majority of Cubans
resident in the United States, a large part of the U.S. Congress
and broad sectors in that country who want normal relations with
the island.
Assigning
tens of millions of dollars to provoking mercenary acts in Cuba,
violating international law in order to transmit subversive
broadcasts from aircraft, compounded by the scandalous and
internationally criticized installation of a concentration camp in
territory occupied by its army in our country, constitute unheard
of provocations in total breach of the regulations and principles
of international law, which will have to be debated in diverse
international forums, including the Human Rights Commission in
Geneva.
The
cunning, cynical and cruel nature of the present administration is
fully demonstrated in the face of adopting these measures against
our people at a time when the price of foodstuffs and their
transportation have virtually doubled on the world market, that of
sugar is hardly exceeding its cost of production, and that of fuel
is steadily rising, having reached the astronomical price of
almost $40 per barrel. And now, there is to be an additional
attempt to hit tourism, which was beginning to show a strong
upturn, as hard as possible.
Listening
to promises to vaccinate children in a country where preventative
medicine and immunization have attained the highest levels in the
world is derisive coming from a country where tens of millions of
men, women and children have no access to medical attention, and
whose infant mortality rate per thousand live births is above
Cuba’s. The real fact is that the Führer is maddened by the
vast human capital created by our nation; its capacity to send
tens of millions of doctors to the most remote areas of the Third
World, a total that exceeds the possibilities of all the developed
countries together; and the advances in education, public health
and culture that will soon rank Cuba in first place among all the
nations of the earth. The solid support for the Revolution of
almost its total population makes it invulnerable to the rotten
ideology of Mr. Bush. The example of Cuba has to be made to
disappear from the map. That is the aim of the insults of the
manic and crazed program of transition in Cuba devised by a
fraudulently elected president.
In
that way the aim is to destroy everything than a heroic people is
constructing with immense love. Cuba might be erased from the map,
but no threat, no senseless madness from Mr. Bush can make it lose
heart. Without any doubt his cruel and cowardly measures will
impose a certain sacrifice on our people, but those measures will
not succeed in detaining for even one second the people’s
advance towards the human and social objectives that have been
drawn up, and nobody will left unprotected. Cuba will never return
to the horrible, merciless and inhumane condition of a U.S. colony.
As
our president stated on May 1 before more than one million Cubans:
“Without violating the standards that it has always applied in
its struggles, this country will defend itself with laws and will
defend itself with arms when necessary, until the last drop of
blood has been shed.”
The
Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Revolutionary
Government of Cuba.
May
7, 2004.
|
