Sanctions as weapons of mass destruction
The US embargo against Cuba was once again universally condemned at the UN General Assembly, writes Faiza Rady
Nowadays there is always talk about the so-called international community and its political will, or lack thereof. Although a nebulous and often elastic entity, the "international community" usually refers to the world's richest nations like the United States, the European Union and Japan. More often than not, however, the US is the lone referent to and representative of the "international community". The US government thus uses the term to push its own political agenda, while attempting to give it a more palatable cachet of legitimacy and multilateralism.
However, superpower politicking and euphemisms aside, a more representative international community does exist beyond the lone superpower and its handful of rich allies. It is represented in the UN General Assembly (GA) and includes 180 member states.
This other international community, as embodied in the GA, voted on Tuesday for the 12th consecutive year on "the necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". The outcome of this year's vote did not differ much from the previous years, where a majority of the world's countries voted in favour of lifting the blockade, while only two countries -- the US and Israel -- consistently voted against the resolution.
In their argument to the GA, the Cuban delegation reaffirmed among other UN principles, "the sovereign equality of states, non-intervention and non-interference in their internal affairs and freedom of international trade and navigation", which are all violated by the embargo.
Although the embargo is in flagrant violation of UN and other binding international conventions, its terms are currently being reinforced by the Bush administration. "On the campaign trail and pandering to the extreme right-wing of the Cuban-American community in Florida, the US president is trying to undermine the very existence of the Cuban nation," Cuban Ambassador to Cairo Luis E Marisy Figueredo told Al-Ahram Weekly. "But he is suffering from delusions if he believes he can overthrow Fidel and our government. After all, the Cuban Revolution survived the terrorist attacks and attempted coups of 10 US administrations, and it will survive this one."
Dating back to the early days of the 1959 Revolution and having reached the ripe age of 44, the US embargo against Cuba is the longest-lasting in history. The reason the US remains so persistent, despite universal condemnation of the embargo, is fear of Cuba's influence in the Americas.
"They are concerned that the spread of the Castro idea of taking matters into one's own hands will have a lot of appeal to suffering and impoverished people around the hemisphere who are facing very similar problems. They are worried about Cuba's successful defiance," distinguished linguist and political writer Noam Chomsky explained.
In the meantime, the embargo is killing people. This bit of information comes directly from the horse's mouth. In effect, declassified US State Department information dated 6 April 1960 (Foreign Relations of the United States, Cuba, Volume VI, 1958-1960), says that the embargo's expressed purpose was to cause "hunger, despair and the overthrow of government".
Although the information is available to the public, the American media rarely picks it up. As with all "rogue" states, who lack the benefit of employing a host of "embedded" journalists, there is a media blackout on the US role in Cuba. "Instead, the US is directing a concerted disinformation campaign against Cuba," Figueredo commented.
So long as the declassified State Department records remain an underutilised transcript for understanding the dynamic of American involvement, the US can continue labeling Cuba a "terrorist" state. This after the US has busily destabilised Cuba for the past four decades, using among other terror tactics, military aggression, biological warfare and hundreds of assassination attempts against Cuban leader Fidel Castro. When terrorism failed to cow the Cuban people into submission and reverse the revolution, the US went to work through the embargo.
Following the breakup of the Soviet Union and the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the US proceeded to further consolidate the terms of the embargo to hasten "regime change". Constantly on the lookout for ever more effective props to expedite President Fidel Castro's fall, the Clinton administration discovered an ingenious new hitch. Globalisation, they believed, might ultimately do the trick and cause sufficient additional "hunger and despair" to topple the Cuban government. What with dramatic downsizing and plant closures in the North, followed by relocation to distant and more profitable Southern lands -- where life is merry and labour is cheap -- extra-territoriality becomes an essential tenet of production.
The idea was simply to think global: expand the terms of the embargo to include both Northern and Southern countries and choke the Cuban economy in the process. Expanding the embargo against Cuba beyond US borders thus became the Clinton administration's creative contribution to the anti-Cuba campaign. In 1992, the US Congress passed the Torricelli Act which prohibits foreign subsidiaries of American multinationals to trade with Cuba. Threatening to slap transgressors with severe sanctions, the Torricelli Act also imposes a six- months ban on ships having anchored in Cuban ports.
Torricelli was then toughened and systematised with the Helms-Burton bill of 1996, also known as the Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act . One part of Helms-Burton requires that imports into the US be free of Cuban ingredients. For example, before being granted American import permits, traders have to prove that their products do not include Cuban sugar or nickel. A model of its kind, Helms- Burton also outlines the modalities of the post-Castro era -- including its relationship with the US.
The Cuban government estimates that the direct costs of the embargo have exceeded $70 billion since 1959. The human costs are naturally devastating. Although the health sector and foodstuffs are not officially included in the embargo, the sanctions' fallout has caused shortages in medicines, complicating the treatment of HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, leukemia, cardiovascular and kidney diseases. According to political analyst Remy Herrera writing on ZNET, pressures from the State Department and the fear of sanctions have further compromised the supply of life-saving medical equipment including radiology equipment, artificial breathing machines and dialysis apparatuses.
In the words of Ambassador Figueredo, "the aim of the embargo is to undermine the very existence of the Cuban nation." A sinister and deadly enterprise like the long-standing sanctions against Iraq, the embargo aims to kill. But, as always, Cuba is fighting back.
