[News] Ricardo Alarcon - The Truth About the "Embargo" on Cuba

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/alarcon10052006.html

October 5, 2006


An Economic War


The Truth About the "Embargo" on Cuba

By RICARDO ALARCÓN

"To bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government"

State Department, April 6, 1960

A few weeks from now, the UN General Assembly 
will pass, with practical unanimity, a new 
resolution, the number 15, condemning the 
blockade on Cuba, which Washington tries to 
describe as barely an "embargo". The United 
States Government will try to justify its policy 
once again without success. They have been doing 
this for almost half a century now, concealing 
the truth behind their fabrications and lies.

The truth is, however, contained in documents 
that were kept secret by Washington until 1991. 
More than an embargo or blockade, it is in fact 
an act of ¨economic warfare¨, as the then 
secretary of state, Christian Herter, said in 
1959. An economic warfare that began with the 
triumph of the Revolution in January of 1959 and 
it is still in force today, a war which has 
always had the same genocidal purpose: to bring 
about hunger, misery and desperation among the people of Cuba.

Dictator Fulgencio Batista and his main 
accomplices plundered the Republic's Treasury and 
upon fleeing Cuba in January of that year they 
took with them more than 424 million dollars 
which came to rest in the United States and form 
the economic basis of a mafia often hailed by the 
US press as ¨successful businessmen¨ of Miami. 
For Cuba the situation was critical and 
Washington knew it. The Department of State 
described it as such, saying in February 1959 that:

"the serious threat to the stability of the Cuba 
peso which results from the fact that following 
the departure of the Batista administration it 
was determined that the currency reserve of the 
country is depleted", something which, "would tax 
the governing abilities of any of the best leaders".

The Central Bank of Cuba sent a team of experts 
to Washington to seek a modest loan that would 
alleviate such a crisis. The issue was analysed 
by the National Security Council on February 12, 
1959. The decision was unequivocal: they would 
listen to the Cubans but offer them nothing at 
all. They didn't grant any kind of loan. They 
didn't even promise to look into the matter. 
Needless to say, not one cent of the money stolen 
from the Cuban people was ever returned.

The dispossession of Cuban bank reserves, which 
constitutes a blatant act of economic aggression, 
took place long before any revolutionary measure 
was adopted on the Island (the first being the 
Law of Agrarian reform, passed on May 17 of that year).

On March 26, 1959, the National Security Council 
also discussed the Cuba situation. At this 
meeting CIA's director, Allen Dulles, said that: 
"it was quite possible that the US Congress would 
do something which would affect the sale of Cuban 
sugar in the US". Depriving Cuba of its main 
source of income, sugar exports to the US market, 
would become a recurrent theme of Washington's 
secret meetings before, long before, 
relationships with the Soviet Union were 
re-established and before socialism was 
proclaimed to be Revolution's goal. They did that 
when sugar was still being grown on large landed 
estates and processed in factories -many of which 
were US owned- that had not been expropriated and 
were still in the hands of the Island's oligarchy and foreign companies.

US Government officials were aware of the 
consequences of such action. A report from the 
Department of State acknowledged that: "If Cuba 
were deprived of its quota privilege, the sugar 
industry would promptly suffer an abrupt decline, 
causing widespread further unemployment. The 
large numbers of people those forced out of work would begin to go hungry".

But they weren't just talking about sugar: "if we 
were to cut the Cubans off from their fuel 
supply, the effect would be devastating on them within a month or six weeks".

Nobody in Washington claimed to have been 
deceived. They knew that the actions taken 
against the Revolution would cause pain and 
suffering to all the Cuban people. They did it 
with premeditation and full knowledge of the 
effect, converting the act of genocide into a 
malicious political instrument. An analysis from 
this same Department, dated April 6, 1960 and 
approved with the signature of Assistant 
Secretary, Roy Rubottom, offers us explicit proof of this policy.

In this analysis it is flatly affirmed that:

"The majority of Cubans support CastroThe only 
foreseeable means of alienating internal support 
is through disenchantment and disaffection based 
on economic dissatisfaction and hardshipit 
follows that every possible means should be 
undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life 
of Cuba it should be the result of a positive 
decision which would call forth a line of action 
while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, 
makes the greatest inroads in denying money and 
supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real 
wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government".

Note that they acknowledged they should act in a 
manner "as adroit and inconspicuous as possible", 
something that fits with a criminal behaviour, 
and not just any crime, but rather one that has 
been particularly condemned by humankind: the 
crime of genocide clearly defined by the Geneva 
Convention of 1948 as any attempt to cause total 
or partial damage to any human group. What is 
this if it isn't precisely that: an attempt at 
¨bringing about hunger and desperation¨ among all Cubans?

It is probably the most prolonged act of genocide 
in history. It began before the majority of 
Cubans alive today were born, meaning that they 
have spent their entire lives under the blockade.

Soon it will be condemned again by humankind as a 
whole. Once again the US administration will 
reveal its arrogance and ignore the demand being 
made worldwide. When will it end?

NB: All quotes are from the official documents 
compiled in the book published by the Department 
of State: Foreign Relations of the United States, 
1958-1960 Volume VI Cuba, United States Goverment 
Printing Office, Washington, 1991.

Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada is Cuba's Vice 
President and President of its National Assembly.


The Freedom Archives
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