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<font size=3><b>Noam Chomsky on the Cuban Five: “A High Mountain to
Climb” <br><br>
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<br>
</font><font size=3> Bernie Dwyer <br>
2009-09-15 <br>
<br><br>
Professor Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, (MIT)
Boston, talks by telephone from his office at the MIT to Bernie Dwyer for
Radio Havana Cuba on 11th September 2009.<br><br>
Bernie Dwyer interviewed Professor Chomsky for Radio Havana Cuba on the
eve of the 11th anniversary of the arbitrary arrest and detention in
Miami of Cubans Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Gerardo Hernandez,
Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez, who after a legally flawed trial in
Miami District Court, are incarcerated in US prisons for infiltrating
anti-Cuba Miami based groups of terrorists with the aim of defending Cuba
against US based terrorism. As Professor Chomsky says in this interview
“They weren’t criminals. They were heroes”. He points out “that the only
way to remedy the injustice is to withdraw the charges completely”.
<br><br>
Bernie Dwyer (RHC)-: The five Cubans arrested and held in Miami in 1998
are now entering their 12th year of incarceration. You have often
commented on the United States government’s hostile policy towards Cuba.
Would you see the Cuban Five as victims of that hostile policy towards
Cuba rather than criminals who have committed crimes that deserve to be
harshly punished?<br><br>
Noam Chomsky: They weren’t criminals. They were heroes. I mean they were
exposing to the US government crimes that are being committed on US soil;
crimes the US government is tolerating and theoretically should be
punishing itself. The government should have welcomed that, fine, we can
put an end to the crimes. The five Cubans took a risk in doing that
and that was a heroic act and instead of being honored for it they are
being severely punished for it. <br>
And that’s why global opinion is so appalled by this travesty. <br><br>
RHC: Three of the Cuban Five are back in Miami District Court on the 13th
October for re-sentencing. Would you see this as an opportunity for the
US judicial system to right some of the wrongs perpetrated against
them?<br><br>
Noam Chomsky: It’s certainly an opportunity but the proper way to remedy
the injustice is not just to improve their prison conditions and allow
visits and reduce the sentence but it’s to withdraw the charges
completely since they are completely illegitimate. Unfortunately I don’t
anticipate that. The courts rarely go against state policy to that
extent. In fact I doubt very much if the courts are even aware of the
background. Remember there is an atmosphere of dense, intense propaganda
on this.<br><br>
RHC: So you would feel that independence of the judges is not holding
forth here or do you think that the judges were punishing these men as
part of US policy?<br><br>
Noam Chomsky: I don’t have any personal knowledge of the judges in the
case but my guess would be that they must know about the illegal
irregularities and the sometimes absurdities but they probably accept the
general government line on this. Most educated people do. It’s a very
indoctrinated society. And it’s not surprising, as they don’t hear
anything else.<br><br>
RHC: The US Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, acting on behalf of the
US National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, filed a lawsuit on
September 9, 2009 against the US Broadcasting Board of Directors (BBG)
because it has "unlawfully failed to disclose specific U.S.
government-paid contracts with journalists" who published materials
that were negative to Cuba and prejudicial to the case of the Cuban Five.
How does this reflect on the BBG and journalists and media who publish
the material? <br><br>
Noam Chomsky: As far as the propaganda arm of the government is
concerned, one doesn’t expect propaganda agencies to do anything else but
to produce propaganda by whatever means they can get away with. But it
reflects very badly on the journalists and the journals that permitted
this. I think the case may go forward for that reason. It’s a revelation
of practices that the journals would like to prevent people from knowing
about because it undermines their own credibility.<br><br>
RHC: Is it not fair comment to say although the BBG is the propaganda arm
of the US government, it is outside their brief to pay people to write
incendiary material during a trial where the US government is
prosecuting?<br><br>
Noam Chomsky: It’s the wrong thing to do. It may be even criminal but it
doesn’t mean that I didn’t expect it. That’s the way states behave.
<br><br>
RHC: You would expect that to happen?<br><br>
Noam Chomsky: Unfortunately<br><br>
RHC: If the US public were more engaged in the case of the Cuban Five, do
you think they could effect some change in their status as prisoners
serving long sentences in US gaols or even bring about their
release?<br><br>
Noam Chomsky: They could but that is more generally true about relations
with Cuba. Polls have now been taken I think for about thirty years on
whether the United States should normalise relations with Cuba, and it’s
fairly steady. Roughly two thirds favour normalization, which is pretty
remarkable since they never hear any positive comment on Cuba. Everything
you hear is bitter condemnation. But nevertheless, the majority of the
population thinks we should normalize relations. If there were any
meaningful discussion and interchange allowed, it would almost surely be
considerably higher than that. But it has no effect on policy, including
Obama. It’s a very interesting case. <br><br>
There are many cases where public opinion and policy diverge very sharply
but the standard situation is that policy corresponds to the interests
and concerns of the business world. But not in this case; in this case
too, quite substantial components of the corporate sector favour
improvements or normalisation of relations; pharmaceutical corporations,
agribusiness, energy corporations and so on who are usually quite
influential in determining policy. But this is one of those cases. There
are interesting ones where state policy, not only diverges from public
opinion, which is normal, but also diverges from the interests of the
business world which is far from normal. So something separate is
involved. <br><br>
There are other cases like this. And I think what is involved is a sort
of principle of international relations that is not recognised by the
profession and is not studied very much, but I think it is significant.
We might call it the mafia principle. If, say some small store keeper
doesn’t pay protection money, the god-father doesn’t just send goons out
to collect the money, they make an example of the person. They kill him,
beat him up, and destroy his store or something. They make an example of
him. <br><br>
Now you can’t accept disobedience, not even from the smallest guy not
because the god-father needs the money, maybe it’s an insignificant
amount of money but it’s because if disobedience succeeds, it can spread.
It can have a demonstration effect. If one small store keeper disobeys
and gets away with it, another one might. And then the whole system of
control unravels. But it’s often based on fear rather than real exercise
of power. So that’s a significant principle. It’s standard in criminal
enterprises like say the mafia. <br><br>
But it also enters into state behaviour. The problem of Cuba for the
United States as is explicit in the internal documents is disobedience.
Go back to declassified internal documents of the Kennedy, Johnson and
the liberal periods, the documents refer to “Cuba’s successful defiance
of US Policies” tracing back then 150 years, leading to the Monroe
doctrine. So it’s nothing to do with the Russia but that Cuba is
disobeying a principle that says the United States must dominate the
hemisphere. <br><br>
Of course in the1820s, it couldn’t dominate the hemisphere but in later
years it became capable of doing so and disobedience is not accepted,
it’s dangerous for them on the principles of the mafia. If one country
disobeys and gets away with it, the others will get the same idea and
pretty much the system unravels. And you find that steadily in the
internal secret documentary record. For example in the case of the
overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, the national Security
Council, while supporting taking the measures to overthrow the
government, explained that the problem is not just limited to
Chile. As they put it, if we can’t control Latin America, how are
we going to control the rest of the world?<br><br>
So this is our backyard and if we cannot keep it in order, other people
are not going to be properly afraid of us so we won’t be able to control
them. Going back to Cuba again, when John F Kennedy came into office,
unlike Eisenhower, he was going to pay attention to Latin America. So he
had a Latin American Study Group headed by Arthur Schlesinger, well-known
liberal historian, and they came back with recommendations which were
given to them by Schlesinger who wrote that the problem with Castro, he
says is the Castro idea of taking matters into one’s own hands instead of
listening to us and obeying us and if that succeeds, it could be a
spreading danger in other places of Latin America where people face
pretty much the same problems as in pre-Castro Cuba. And then the system
will unravel. <br><br>
And you find this in case after case. I won’t run through examples but
the mafia principle is often there. It makes sense and it makes policies
very resistant to change because there is a state interest which has to
do with long term problems of domination and control and it tends to be
resistant to public opinion which is normal but also to business opinion
which is less normal. There are other current cases. <br><br>
Take US policy towards Iran. Most of the world, a large majority thinks
that Iran should have the same right to enrich uranium as any other
signer of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. The majority of Americans agree.
That’s certainly not government policy. In fact it’s not even on the
agenda for government policy. A large majority of Americans think that
there should be a nuclear weapons free zone in the region including
Israel, Iran and any American forces deployed there; that’s over 80% but
that’s not even imaginable. <br><br>
Furthermore a strong majority is opposed to threats against Iran quite
contrary to policy. <br><br>
As in the Cuba case, larges sections of business agree. The energy
corporations, who are usually quite influential in policy formation,
particularly in the Middle East, many of them would appreciate
normalization of relations. Iran has unexploited reserves of oil and gas,
very substantial ones, and they would like to be in on the profit-taking
from them but they are blocked by the state policy. So we again have a
situation in which public opinion, crucial sectors of the business world
and others, are in favour of moving towards some sort of normalization of
relations and negotiations and settlement on the basis of Iran having the
same rights as other signers of the Non Proliferation Treaty but the
state won’t accept it. And again I think it traces back to successful
defiance. In 1979 Iranians overthrew the tyrant who the US had imposed
twenty five earlier in a military coup and they had remained independent
and that’s dangerous on the mafia principle. <br><br>
The fanatic hostility to Hugo Chavez is another case. You can think what
you like about Chavez, like him, dislike him, whatever it may be, but the
demonization goes vastly beyond any rational assessment of the policies
he’s carrying out. And the demonization began when he showed he was going
to be independent. In the early days of his presidency he was treated
like a bad boy who we just couldn’t get civilized but when it became
clear he was going to pursue his own policies, the demonization took off.
It’s more of that ¨taking matters into your own hands¨, which could have
appeal elsewhere and could cost the system of control to erode. <br><br>
And I think the case of the Cuban Five falls into that category
unfortunately. So, yes to get back to your question, public opinion can
make a difference but it’s a high mountain to climb in this case.
<br><br>
<br>
<i>This interview was first broadcast by Radio Havana Cuba on the 12th
September 2009<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
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