November 14, 2021
Once again, the U.S. government is trying to overthrow the Cuban government — this time by orchestrating a “color revolution” — through funding and organizing a nationwide protest by dissident elements, who blame the socialist government for the conditions created by the crippling 62-year siege and blockade imposed on Cuba by the imperialist state to the north.
“The United States government is playing a key role in organizing, promoting and amplifying upcoming nationwide protests,” according to Alan McLeod of MintPress News. He points out that U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price refused to deny direct U.S. involvement in the planning of the overthrow of the Cuban government, when questioned by reporters. Indeed, the U.S. has lavished tens of millions of dollars to generate opposition elements in Cuba to implement its explicit policy of regime-change. According to Rosa Miriam Elizalde of People’s Dispatch (November 13), “In September 2021, the Biden administration gave almost 7 million dollars to 12 organizations that almost daily publicize the “civic march for change” in Cuba.”
These destabilizing actions come, according to the Cuban government, “after tough months of pandemic, harsh global economic crisis, and a tightened and sustained blockade that has ostensibly affected our people [and just when] Cuba has started to revive its social life, public places and services, schools, tourism, and other sectors of the economy.”
The main objective of these efforts is to reverse the immense gains the Cuban Revolution has achieved despite intensifying U.S. blockade. Revolutionary Cuba has achieved so much with so little and under such constraints exposes what the richest and most powerful nation in the world has not been able to do under its present social and political order. Despite the U.S. efforts to prove socialism is a failure, the Revolutionary Cuba has:
- Sent 3,700 health workers to 39 countries in the past year.
- Developed five vaccines against COVID-19, two of them advanced for use on its whole population, and made them available for other underdeveloped countries.
- Achieved a more literate society than the U.S.; rated fifth in the world in literacy, according to the CIA Factbook.
- Provided universal healthcare, education through university, subsidized food, subsidized housing, and annual paid maternity/paternity leave.
- 85% of Cubans own their own home; for the rest, rent is capped at 10% of income.
- Ranks 9th highest of 163 countries on the Sustainability Development Index, which considers life expectancy, schooling, income, CO2 emissions; U.S. ranks 160th.
Despite all these achievements, which have made the Cuban Revolution an inspiration for the oppressed nations of the world, President Biden has cruelly seized upon what his own party members call a “humanitarian crisis” as an opportunity to ever more punish a sovereign, independent nation unwilling to submit to the will of the U.S. empire.
Yet, not even all members of his party agree. A dear colleague letter from U.S. Representatives Jim McGovern, Barbara Lee, Gregory Meeks, and Bobby Rush, while stressing that the Cuban people “are experiencing the worst economic and humanitarian crisis in recent history,” minimally urges the U.S. government to stop the unconventional warfare against Cuba instead of escalating it. Some of the demands raised in their letter are:
- Suspend U.S. regulations that prevent food, medicine, and other humanitarian assistance from reaching the Cuban people.
- Normalize U.S.-Cuba relations.
- Remove the specific licenses required to send medical supplies, such as testing kits and respiratory devices, to Cuba.
- Lift all restrictions on banking and financial transactions related to humanitarian aid.
- Eliminate all restrictions on family and on non-family (donative) remittances.
- Roll back restrictions on travel to Cuba.
- Drop Cuba from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list.
The U.S. Peace Council strongly condemns the U.S. regime-change campaign against Cuba and defends the sovereign right of peoples to determine their own destiny; stands in solidarity with the Cuban people and their leadership; and calls for mass mobilization in support of these demands.
The Cuban Revolution threatens the U.S.-imposed and led neoliberal world order, not by its actions but by its example. Cuba is living proof that a better world is possible, which is why imperialism is compelled to plague it. The Cubans can and have resisted. But however noble and committed they may be, there is a breaking point. Our responsibility is to take the boot off them before the U.S. government achieves its goal of reversing their Revolution.
Hands off Cuba!
Let the Cuban Revolution live!
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