Just plain wrong

The US blockade must end

By Stephen Wilkinson, IISC director

In the past month, Cuba has experienced the biggest energy crisis in the history of the Revolution, with almost the entire island and 10 of its 11 million people being deprived of electricity for many days. Blackouts, that had been occurring with increasing frequency and duration for some time, turned into a total collapse of the electrical system following the shutdown of the country’s main thermoelectric plant on Thursday 17^th October and it took more than a week for the power to be restored to the whole island. During the recovery phase, a hurricane hit the province of Guantanamo in the East and caused further blackouts and huge destruction. Across the island schools were closed and almost all economic activity ceased while the authorities and technicians worked to restore power. The population now fears that this situation will lead to the threat of famine due to the putrefaction of food because refrigerators stooped working.

The immediate cause of the crisis was the lack of fuel to feed the thermoelectric plants, worsened by a climatic situation that delayed the arrival of a ship with fuel oil. However, the ultimate cause is the same as that shared by the large and small problems of the island: the commercial and financial embargo imposed by Washington more than six decades ago Rightly, the Cuban government calls this policy a blockade because it has an extra-territorial reach, limiting supplies, credits and investments from third countries, with the declared purpose of reducing the Cuban population by starvation and forcing it to revolt against its authorities. Although this sinister objective has been frustrated, the endless difficulties that Cuba must face in obtaining foreign currency and acquiring essential supplies have led the country to a lacerating shortage of everything necessary for daily life.

This blockade is frequently thought to be a mere pretext of the Cuban government the blame its failings on the United States and the criminal nature of the dozens of laws and decrees that make it up is forgotten. As an island located in the Caribbean Sea, Cuba’s natural economic vocation is in tourism, and its location, just 144 kilometres from the United States, makes the Americans its logical and basic market. But Washington’s illegal regulations effectively prohibit its citizens from travelling to the island. The application of sanctions not only affects US citizens, but any company, from any part of the planet, that buys or sells any object – be it an onion, a medicine for cancer or a notebook for children to study – to Havana is likely to be persecuted by the US. One of the most important sources of income for almost all Latin American and Caribbean states, remittances sent by their compatriots working abroad, is also restricted for Cubans because it is not allowed access to the international payment system, one of the many tentacles of US imperialism.

Since Hugo Chavez democratically came to power in Venezuela at the head of the Bolivarian Revolution in 1998, Caracas has provided invaluable assistance to the Cuban people by providing oil. But as Washington has made Venezuelans victims of the same sanctions policies it perpetrates against Cubans, the government of Nicolas Maduro has had to cut its aid to Cuba, which has made an extremely precarious situation even worse. Likewise, Cuba is prevented from buying machinery, tools and spare parts to reverse the deterioration of the electrical energy infrastructure, so the failures will continue to be structural as long as Washington’s boot remains pressed against the island’s throat. Cuba is also not even allowed to access the technologies necessary to undertake the energy transition, despite the fact that US and other Western countries proclaim themselves to be promoters of the fight against climate change.

This century, with the exception of Israel against the Palestinian people, no country has been as systematically and long-lastingly sadistic towards a civilian population as the United States has been in its attack on the Cubans. The human suffering and the deprivation of any prospect of a dignified life in their own land are testimony to the total contempt of the American political class towards the well-being of the Cuban people and their basic human rights.

What is remarkable and should be acknowledged, however, is the stoicism, serenity and downright determination of the Cuban people. Imagine – a total blackout for three days! If what happened in Cuba this past month had happened anywhere else in the world there would have been chaos, looting and riots in the streets.

Cuba deserves our solidarity and the United States our opprobrium.