Tag: Cuba

UN forcefully hits at US blockade of Cuba, at prison in Guantanamo / By W. T. Whitney Jr.

The control tower of Camp VI detention facility is seen in Guantánamo Bay in April 2019. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

South Paris, Maine

Nothing on the horizon now threatens the end of the U.S. economic
blockade of Cuba. Critical voices inside the United States and beyond
fall flat; nothing is in the works, it seems. Recently, however, the United
Nations put forth a denunciation that carries unusual force, mainly
because of the UN’s legal authority and its practical experience in Cuba.
Criticism of U.S. policies on Cuba from within the United States is
usually brushed aside due in large measure to the low priority
Washington officials assign to Cuban affairs. Coalitions of nations that
condemn the blockade may lack staying power and surely have no
means for enforcement. The anti-blockade opinions of nations or
individuals, alone or together, are useful mainly for consciousness-
raising.
The United Nations is different on account of its institutional capacity. It’s
on display when the UN General Assembly annually votes on a Cuban
resolution calling for an end to the blockade. Every year word of its
overwhelming and inevitable approval goes worldwide, because of the
UN connection.
The United Nations is unique on account of its Charter, which took effect
on October 24, 1945. This founding instrument outlines purposes as to
peace, no war, and human rights. It is legally binding on participating
nations, like a treaty. Additionally, the history and expectations
associated with the United Nations endow that organization with
institutional power. That’s something that neither NGOs operating in
Cuba or the time-limited projects of various governments on the scene
there can claim.
Another element emerges. The United Nations works within Cuba and
participates in Cuban affairs. On that account, UN complaints about
U.S. all-but-war against Cuba take on special authority.

On the ground

UN workers and technical specialists since 2015 have been
implementing the UN’s “National Plan[s] for Sustainable Economic and
Social Development” in dozens of countries since 2015, including Cuba.
Work is carried out inside countries and territories in order to fulfill a
“Development Agenda [for] 2030.” The main goals are: government
efficiency, transformation of production, protecting natural resources and
the environment, and human development with equity.
The Cuba section of the so-called “United Nations System” consists of
22 “agencies, funds, and programs,” 11 of which are physically present
on the island. That section recently issued a report on its activities in
2022.
Francisco Pichón is a Colombia native serving as the UN program’s
“resident coordinator.” In comments to the Cuban News Agency, Pichón
noted that in Cuba his teams participated with Cubans in dealing with
disaster situations and introducing developmental assistance.
Collaboration was impaired, he observed, by the “the economic,
commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States.”
Pichón testified to the constant necessity for making adjustments. What
with the impact of Covid-19; the increase of prices of food, sources of
energy, and more; and the war in Ukraine, his associates had to
“circumvent U.S. economic sanctions” and work around Cuba’s
exclusion from “international financing mechanisms”. UN personnel
found it necessary to divert funds in order to mount special assistance
programs after Hurricane Ian and in response to problems in Pinar del
Rio.
He indicated that “pre-positioning of essential resources for emergency
situations” was essential in order to mount quick and efficient responses.
That was helpful in reacting to the Hotel Santiago explosion in Havana
and the terrible fire at an oil storage facility in Matanzas.
Pichón highlighted the complexity of making any kind of payments,
especially because costs go up when resources are imported from far-
distant countries and because Cuba is excluded from international
lending agencies and banking services.

Guantanamo

The idea that the United Nations is a potentially capable partner in
warding off U.S. aggression against Cuba gains additional strength

following the recently concluded visit to Cuba of the UN Special
Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counterterrorism. Through her visit
and report, the United Nations was asserting legal norms.
Law professor Fionnuala Ni Aolain examined the plight of prisoners at
the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo in Cuba. The U.S. government
occupied land there as a condition of its approval in 1902 of a
constitution for newly-independent Cuba. Cuba’s government denounces
the occupation as violating international law.
Of the almost 800 men imprisoned there at one time or another since
2002, 30 prisoners remain, of whom 16 have been cleared for release
and represent no danger.
In an interview, Aolain testified to U.S. violation of human rights: “Men
are shackled as they move within the facility. They were shackled when
they met me.” She referred to “enormous deficits … in health care, in the
standard operating procedures … [Men] are called by numbers, not by
name.
She added that, “Those who tortured betrayed the rights of victims …
[W]hat they ensured is that you couldn’t have [a] fair trial … [And
therefore] it would be impossible for the victims of terrorism to redeem
their rights.” And, “let me be clear. Torture is the most egregious and
heinous of crimes.”
Quoted in a Cuban news report, Aolain referred to “cumulative
aggravating effects on the dignity, freedom and fundamental rights of
each detainee, which I think amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment, according to international law.”

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

Reports on a Possible Spy Base in Cuba Miss the Main Point / By W.T. Whitney Jr.

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT

The Wall Street Journal reported on June 8 that Cuba would receive “several billion” dollars in return for China building a “spy base” in Cuba. The story mentions an “electronic eavesdropping” facility that would represent “a brash new geopolitical challenge by Beijing to the US.” Other news platforms offered their own versions of the story.

Chinese, Cuban and U.S.  spokespersons took exception to the report, but none of them specifically denied the existence of such an installation on the island.  The spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council indicated merely that the reports were “not accurate.”

Asked about a “Chinese espionage facility” in Cuba, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin stated that he “was not aware of what you mentioned.” He quickly moved on to U.S. interventionist activities throughout the world. Cuban Foreign Ministry official Carlos Fernández de Cossío recalled his familiarity with “this kind of slander” having been employed to justify anti-Cuban aggression and to manipulate public opinion.

However, a U.S. Defense Department spokesperson on June 8  declared that, “we are not aware of China and Cuba developing a new type of spy station.” He was introducing the possibility that a spy station already existed.

The New York Times two days later indicated that, indeed, such a facility had been “up and running since or before 2019.” The Associated Press reported the same. 

U.S. anti-Cuban counter-revolutionaries pounced, specifically Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, Vice Chairman Marco Rubio and Senator Bob Menendez, chairperson of the Senate foreign relations committee. Menendez condemned the alleged spying facility as “a direct assault upon the United States.”  A constant theme in their complaints was Chinese influence expanding in Latin America.

Florida Congresspersons Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Mario Diaz-Balart sent a letter to Secretary of State Blinken and Defense Secretary Austin.  They requested a briefing for Members of Congress. “This escalation,” they insisted, was “the latest step in a long series of Chinese interventions in the Western Hemisphere.” They mentioned an “increasingly symbiotic relationship between Cuba and China.”

Fallout from the report may adversely affect U.S. solidarity efforts on behalf of Cuba. The possibility of Chinese spying on the United States from a base in Cuba, reminiscent of the Cuban Missile crisis of 1962, may end up discouraging any intentions of the Biden administration to deal with anti-Cuban measures in force now. Solidarity activists are demanding an end to the U.S. designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism and the easing of regulations imposed under the U.S. economic blockade.

The possibility of a spy station in Cuba somewhat darkens the atmosphere ahead of solidarity demonstrations set for Washington and nationwide on June 24.

The timing of the news report on a Chinese spy base in Cuba may have been calculated. Bad news about China can be useful to the U.S. government. The spy-base story represents an opportunity for corroborating supposed Chinese perversity evident recently in fruitless contacts between officials of the two countries.

Exploration of the possibility of arms-control talks apparently yielded very little.  Recently the two countries’ defense ministers were unable to agree on meeting on the sidelines of a security conference in Singapore. A proposal for talks on regulating artificial intelligence is going nowhere. And a report surfaced recently on Chinese attempts to gather public information on U.S. military affairs.

Additionally, speculation is flourishing that news about a Chinese spy base in Cuba may irretrievably complicate Secretary of State Andrew Blinken’s plans to visit Beijing on June 18. He had canceled a trip there in February in the wake of the Chinese balloon sailing across North America. Elements of the U.S. government may, in fact, have little enthusiasm for improved U.S. relations with China. They may prefer that Blinken’s visit not take place.

The New York Times reports that “the Biden administration … has been trying to normalize relations with China after a protracted period of heightened tensions.” Even so, “several diplomatic, military and climate engagements between the two countries were frozen” in the wake of Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in 2022.

As reported, the fuss over possible Chinese spying in Cuba looks to be a kind of replay of familiar themes. One is the myth about Cuba as failed state and oppressive society. The other has the United States and China jostling over Taiwan and for regional control.  One looks in vain for reporting that deals with those aspects of U.S. relations with Cuba and China that are of immense concern worldwide.

Masses of people everywhere know something, or a lot, about U. S. determination to control the world’s political and economic affairs. Many admire Cuba for resisting for so long.  The agenda of media bosses and U.S. powerbrokers is otherwise.

More immediately, peoples of the world don’t want world war. That prospect, associated as it is with nuclear war, hovers over potential U.S. conflict with China. It’s acceptable, surely, to subscribe to the truism that working people everywhere, and multitudes who are abandoned and marginalized, do want peace. 

The main message to be taken from the China-spy-base story is that readers of news reports deserve more than they are often getting. Reports they encounter ought, at least, to touch upon those aspects of a story that matter most.  Questions of war and peace amply qualify.

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

Cuba’s President Extolls the Cuban People, Discusses Problems / By W.T. Whitney Jr.

President of the Republic of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez | Photo: Estudios Revolución

Addressing Cuba’s recently-convened National Assembly on April 19, President Miguel Díaz-Canel expressed confidence that the Cuban People would overcome warlike measures imposed by the United States.

“Congratulations to everyone on the Day of Victory!” he proclaimed. “On April 19 in 1961 on the sands of Playa Girón (Girón Beach) Cuba won the right to celebrate this day in providing for the first great defeat of imperialism in America. It was the triumph of the just against the unjust, of little David against the giant Goliath, of a socialist Revolution under the nose of the empire.”

“Thanks to this victory we today, on the tenth such occasion, install the People’s Assembly.” He declared that each of the 470 deputies “defends the interests of the majority,” that none of them won their seat through money or from the backing of an electoral party.

Referring to the Cuban Revolutionary Party founded by José Martí, he extolled “the single party that is the guarantee of unity” and through which, “the forces of a little nation do not disintegrate or fight each other.”

Díaz-Canel catalogued manifestations of U.S. all-but-war: invaders “working out of their caves on social networks,” and the “perennial cruelty of a blockade reinforced during the pandemic,” and “millions of dollars offered to those preparing to subvert Cuba’s internal order,” and “inclusion of Cuba on a list of supposed sponsors of terrorism that blocks access to financing.”

He stated that, “someday, earlier than later, the politics of hegemony will have to cease; multilateralism will take its place, and Cuba will be able to show how far a noble creative and talented people can go if they are united around clear objectives and if they are freed from pressures and blockades.”

Offering praise, Díaz-Canel maintained that “elections to the National Assembly are aimed at choosing the best people. That’s difficult … [because] there are many more good Cubans than there are seats in parliament.”

He expressed “certainty that no simulation of artificial intelligence could match the Cuban people’s achievements in recent years and their creative resistance. Their resilience exceeds the limits of any simulation or prediction. There is no algorithm capable of reflecting what we have lived through.”

Díaz-Canel highlighted the transparency of recent election campaigns, noting that voter participation was ample enough to waylay “hate-inspired” foreign-media expectations of low voter turnout indicative of a failed Cuban state. The recent elections included the Family Code referendum on September 25, 2022, elections for delegates to municipal assemblies on November 27, 2022, and voting for National Assembly deputies on March 27.

The Cuban president noted that the 75.8% of Cubans who voted on the last occasion was “above average for the other models of democracy in the world and [represented] “a show of citizenship, … patriotism, and above all, of political consciousness.”

The recently elected National Assembly overwhelmingly approved new terms for the Council of Ministers, the Council of State, and for Díaz-Canel, who will be serving his second and last five-year presidential term, as prescribed by recent constitutional changes.

Díaz-Canel outlined difficulties and unfinished tasks, observing that:

The world economy, uncertain and unstable in all latitudes, poses the first and greatest challenge for the new Council of Ministers … Leadership should focus on food production, the use of idle productive capacities, increased reliance on foreign-currency income, transformations required by the socialist state enterprise, enhanced efficiency of the investment process, and synergy of our economic actions and foreign investment. We do all this to increase the supply of goods and services and control inflation, which is the main priority in the economic battle. 

Even as he acknowledged “obstacles external to our economy that present profound difficulties,” the President “condemned bureaucratism, indifference, and corruption” in Cuba. He expressed confidence in the deputies’ “commitment and dedication,” while insisting that, “we will overcome the blockade without waiting for them to lift it.”

Díaz-Canel extolled Cuban youth “as the best revolutionaries because, dealing with every-day difficulties, they confront, try to fix, and achieve much. Despite adversity, they keep on smiling, loving, and believing in the possibility of a better country.” In fact, “socialism is closest to youth because it too is unfinished work.”

A persisting undertone of Díaz-Canel’s presentation was that of values, particularly those of solidarity and revolutionary service. Coinciding with the April 20 presentation of Díaz-Canel’s speech on resumenlatinoamericano.org were two news reports that exhibited diverse Cuban and U.S. purposes as regards Ukraine and expressed values.

A report from Argentina announced a public television showing on April 23 of the Cuban film “Sacha, a child of Chernobyl,” first viewed in 2021. Living in Ukraine, Sacha was one year old and living in Ukraine on April 28, 1986 when the Chernobyl nuclear power installation exploded and radioactivity and radiation-caused diseases spread far and wide.

Sacha, un niño de Chernobyl, película completa

He was one of 26,000 children in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia who received sophisticated medical care and rehabilitation in Cuba for their illnesses between 1990 and 2011, at no cost to families or governments. In the 1990s, Cuba was suffering the economic disaster of its “Special Period.” The film may be viewed here; Spanish language subtitles are provided.

Also on that day, a report appeared indicating that “The United States announced … the sending of another package of military aid worth $325 million for the fight against Russian forces. The U.S. Defense Department highlighted through a communique that this aid ‘will allow Ukraine to continue bravely defending itself in a brutal war against Russia, unprovoked and unjustified.’”

During another April, 200 years ago, an early warning sign cropped of a reality that would from then on plague Cuba, provoke revolution and bolster counter-revolution.  In his speech, Díaz-Canel recalled that John Quincy Adams, as secretary of state, statedon April 28,1823 that, “if an apple severed by the tempest from its native tree cannot choose but to fall to the ground, Cuba, forcibly disjoined from its own unnatural connection with Spain, and incapable of self-support, can gravitate only to the North American Union.”

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

China, Brazil Lead in Chipping Away at U.S. Economic Power Abroad / By W. T. Whitney Jr.

United States hegemony in Latin America is in question | credit Prensa Latina

The United States proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine 200 years ago and ever since has arranged Latin American and Caribbean affairs to its advantage. Nevertheless, struggles for national and regional independence did continue and the poor and marginalized classes did resist. Eventually there would be indigenous movements, labor mobilizations, and progressive and socialist-inclined governments. Cuba’s revolutionary government has endured for 63 years.

The U.S. political hold may have weakened, but U.S. control over the region’s economies remains strong; after World War II it extended worldwide.  Now cracks are showing up. In particular, the U.S. dollar’s role as the world economy’s dominant currency may have run its course. 

In 1944, 44 allied nations determined that the value of their various currencies would correlate with the value of the U.S. dollar instead of the value of gold. The nations since then have relied on the U.S. dollar for their reserve currencies, for foreign trade and in banking transactions.

There seemed to be good reason. The United States was supreme in producing and marketing goods and so, presumably, the dollar’s value would remain stable and predictable. The dollar would be readily accessible to bankers and traders and its valuation would be unambiguous. Nations could also build their currency reserves through the dollars they accumulated in the form of bonds sold by an increasingly indebted United States.  

The United States has benefited. In currency exchanges involving the dollar, U.S. companies and individuals experience only minor add-on costs. U.S. importers know that the more the dollar strengthens in value, the less expensive will be products they buy abroad. U.S. borrowing costs overseas are relatively low because U.S. bonds, and the investments they represent in dollars, are appealing abroad, for a variety of reasons.

Dollar dominance has caused pain abroad. Exporters to the United States take a hit when the exchange value of the dollar weakens. Importers of U.S. goods are hurt when the dollar strengthens.

Most importantly, the U.S. government gains an opening to punish enemy countries through their use of dollars in international transactions. It imposes economic sanctions requiring that dollars not be used in a targeted country’s overseas transactions. The U.S. Treasury Department penalizes foreign banks and companies that disobey. Sanctioned nations have included Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and more recently, China and Russia.

The U.S. government’s frequent resort to economic sanctions has greatly contributed to new stirrings on behalf of a new international currency system. Confiscation of currency reserves deposited in U.S. and European banks that belong to Iran, Venezuela, and Afghanistan have likewise encouraged calls for change.

On March 29 China and Brazil announced they would use their own currencies in trading with each other. China is Brazil’s biggest trade partner.  China’s renminbi currency presently constitutes a major share of Brazil’s currency reserves.

Earlier in 2023, Brazil and Argentina proposed cooperation toward creating a common currency for themselves.  At the January meeting of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Brazilian President Lula da Silva opined that, “If it were up to me, I would promote a single currency for the region.” He would call it the “SUR” (South).  The ALBA regional alliance in 2009 proposed an electronic currency called the “Sucre” aimed at reducing dollar dependency.

Former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is the recently named head of the New Development Bank which, headquartered in Shanghai, serves the BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). The bank represents an alternative to the U.S. -dominated International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

The shift away from dollar dependency is evident elsewhere. At a Russian-Indian “Strategic Partnership …Forum” recently, a Russian official announced that the BRICS states would be creating a new currency and that the formal announcement would be made at the BRICS summit meeting in Durban South Africa in August.

The BRICS countries account for “40% of the global population and one-fourth of the global GDP.” According to People’s Dispatch, Iran and Saudi Arabia, having recently signed a peace accord, will soon be joining BRICS.  Egypt, Algeria, the UAE, Mexico, Argentina, and Nigeria apparently are giving consideration.  The values of new currencies will rest not on another currency but on the value of “products, rare-earth minerals, or soil.”  

Iran and Russia in January agreed on methods useful for bypassing the SWIFT banking system, the U.S. tool for servicing its dollar dominance.  To evade U.S. sanctions, the two countries reply on their own currencies for most transactions.

At their summit in March, Russian and Chinese leaders reiterated their intention to expand bilateral trade and utilize their own currencies. China increasingly is using its own currency in transactions with Asian, African, and Latin American countries. The yuan “has become the world’s fifth-largest payment currency, third-largest currency in trade settlement and fifth-largest reserve currency,” according to Global Times.

Saudi Arabia is on the verge of selling oil and natural gas in currencies other than the dollar, and China occasionally pays Arabian Gulf nations in yuan for those products.   

The finance ministers and governors of the central banks of the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) met in Indonesia on March 28. At the top of their agenda were “discussions to reduce dependence on the US Dollar, Euro, Yen, and British Pound from financial transactions and move to settlements in local currencies”. The ASEAN nations, an alliance of 10 southeast Asian nations, are developing a digital payment system for member states’ transactions.

Dollar dominance may be losing its appeal closer to home.  Former Goldman Sachs chief economist Jim O’Neill claims that, The U. S. dollar plays a far too dominant role in global finance … Whenever the Federal Reserve Board has embarked on periods of monetary tightening, or the opposite, loosening, the consequences on the value of the dollar and the knock-on effects have been dramatic.”

Gillian Tell, chair of the Financial Times’ editorial board notes that, “concerns are afoot that this month’s US banking turmoil, inflation and looming debt ceiling battle is making dollar-based assets less attractive.” Plus, “a multipolar pattern could come as a shock to American policymakers, given how much external financing the US needs.”

There are wider implications. Argentinian economist Julio Gambina bemoans “disorder in the world economy …[and] this attitude of unilateralism represented by the US sanctions.” Interviewed on March 29, Gambina points out that “wealth has a father and a mother: labor and nature.”

He adds that, “Latin America and the Caribbean … where inequality is growing the most …  have a highly skilled working class, willing to carry forward the production of wealth. We have the resource of assets held in common for sovereign development through which the interests of our peoples and the reproduction of nature, life and society are defended.”

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

U.S. Congress terrorizes Cuba: GOP seeks power to designate island a terrorism sponsor / W. T. Whitney Jr.

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., speaks during a news conference to highlight ‘Cuban Independence Day’ outside the Capitol on Thursday, May 20, 2021. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., left, and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., also appear. | Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call via AP

Originally published in the People’s World on April 6, 2023

Although Cuba’s Revolution survived military invasion, guerrilla actions, terrorist attacks, and bacteriologic warfare, enough was not enough. Now, there are pay-offs to dissidents, manipulation of worldwide media coverage, and weaponization of social media capabilities. And of course, the U.S. economic and financial blockade persists, after 60 years, with no sign of stopping any time soon.

That’s mostly because power to end the blockade switched from the executive branch to Congress, courtesy of the Helms-Burton Law of 1996. Now, the House of Representatives will be considering a bill that, similarly, would have Congress and no longer the president decide on removing Cuba from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations.

Miami’s Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar introduced H.R. 314, the so-called FORCE Act, on Jan. 12, 2023. Its aim is to “prohibit the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism until Cuba satisfies certain conditions, and for other purposes.”

GOP Sen. Marco Rubio introduced a companion bill in the U.S. Senate on March 16. The House bill has 24 co-sponsors; five are Floridians. The House Foreign Affairs Committee sent the bill to the House floor on March 28.

Meanwhile, a revived campaign is pressuring President Joe Biden to end the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. That campaign takes on urgency now, inasmuch as Congress may soon co-opt Biden’s power to do so.

The designation represents a false account of Cuba’s facilitation of peace talks between Colombia’s government and leftist guerrillas. It traces back to old accusations that Cuba was harboring fugitives from the United States.

The designation persisted from the 1980s until 2015, when President Barack Obama removed it, only to be reinstated by White House occupant Donald Trump in 2021. The effect is to broaden economic war and bring new grief to the people of Cuba.

U.S. dollars are weaponized; they are still the de facto currency in all international financial dealings, anywhere, by anyone. A convenient choke point exists, as pointed out recently by Cuban diplomat José Ramón Cabañas: “The issue is the clearing system based in New York. 90% of [Cuba’s] international transactions with U.S. dollars go through that system … [and are] automatically frozen.”

U.S. regulations, introduced through executive action, long ago prohibited state sponsors of terrorism from using U.S. dollars in international transactions. Consequently, payments that Cuban exporters expect from foreign buyers may not arrive, and Cuban importers have difficulties paying foreign suppliers. International loan payments are blocked, and grants from international agencies go astray.

The U.S. Treasury Department may impose heavy fines on those international banks and foreign corporations that do handle dollars in transactions with Cuba. Non-offenders avoid Cuba, out of caution. The connection between the terrorism-sponsoring designation and prohibition on the use of U.S. currency has led to shortages and economic distress in Cuba.

Massachusetts Peace Action has spearheaded the necessary campaign against H.R 314. A recent communication provides information and shows how to contact members of the House of Representatives.

The extended Cuban exile community provides the main political support for the anti-Cuba legislative proposals in the House and Senate. The Cuba part of U.S. foreign policy is regularly farmed out to the population sector with the most to lose or gain. That approach is dysfunctional, irrational, and unfair.

The text of the proposed bill assigns Cuba goals, fulfillment of which would signal that the country is no longer to be designated as a sponsor of terrorism. These are the very goals that, as specified in the Helms-Burton Law, need to be achieved so that the blockade may be ended.

The goals are:

  • Release all political prisoners and allow for investigations of Cuban prisons by appropriate international human rights organizations.
  • Transition away from the “Castro regime” to a system that guarantees the rights of the Cuban people to express themselves freely.
  • Commit to holding free and fair elections.

Perspective reveals contradictions in all of this. The subject of political prisoners demands consideration of the fate of U.S. prisoners held at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo Bay.

It’s worthwhile also to recall that neither Fidel nor Raul Castro now plays a part in Cuba’s government. As for Fidel, he’s dead. And when it comes to the retired Raul, his influence may persist, just as does that of former presidents in the United States, but he occupies no leadership role. His thinking is sought from time to time in Cuba when, for instance, organized discussion among wide sectors of the population precedes the introduction of important initiatives. The last such occasion was the discussion period in 2022 prior to the vote on the Constitutional Amendment for a Family Code.

And, lastly, Cuba’s conduct of elections is exemplary. In voting on March 26 for Cuba’s National Assembly, 75% of the voting population took part. The portion of those who vote in U.S. national elections is far smaller. Plus, the make-up of delegates to the Assembly actually reflects the demographics of Cuba’s population, unlike the U.S. Congress.

The National Assembly then chooses from among its members to be Cuba’s leaders. That’s the standard process followed in the parliamentary systems of many countries.

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

Proposal in Congress Would Prolong Designation of Cuba as Terrorism Supporter – Biden Dithers / By W. T. Whitney Jr.

Cuba is not a state sponsor of terrorism but a state sponsor of global well-being | credit: People’s Dispatch

Although Cuba’s Revolution survived military invasion, guerrilla actions, terrorist attacks, and bacteriologic warfare, enough was not enough. Now there are pay-offs to dissidents, manipulation of worldwide media coverage, and weaponization of social media capabilities. The U.S. economic and financial blockade persists, after 60 years, and will continue.

That’s mostly because power to end the blockade switched from the executive branch to Congress, courtesy of the Helms Burton Law of 1996. Now the House of Representatives will be considering a bill that, similarly, would have Congress and no longer the president decide on removing Cuba from the U.S. list of terrorism-sponsoring nations.

Miami representative María Elvira Salazar introduced H.R. 314, the so-called FORCE Act, on January 12,2023.  Its aim is “To prohibit the removal of Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism until Cuba satisfies certain conditions, and for other purposes.”

Senator Marco Rubio introduced a companion bill in the U.S. Senate on March 16. The House bill has 24 co-sponsors; five are Floridians. The House Foreign Affairs Committee sent the bill to the House floor on March 28.

Meanwhile, a revived campaign is pressuring President Biden to end the designation of Cuba as terrorism-sponsoring nation. That campaign takes on urgency now inasmuch as Congress may co-opt Biden’s power to do so.

The designation represents a false account of Cuba’s facilitation of peace talks between Colombia’s government and leftist guerrillas. It traces back to old accusations that Cuba was harboring fugitives from the United States.

The designation persisted from the 1980s until 2015, when President Obama removed it, only to be reinstated by President Trump in 2021. The effect is to broaden economic war and bring new grief to Cuba.

U. S. dollars are weaponized; they the de facto currency in all international financial dealings, anywhere, by anyone. A convenient choke point exists, as pointed out recently by Cuban diplomat José Ramón Cabañas: “The issue is the clearing system based in New York. 90% of [Cuba’s] international transactions with US dollars go through that system … [and are] automatically frozen.”

U.S. regulations, introduced through executive action, long ago prohibited state sponsors of terrorism from using U.S. dollars in international transactions. Consequently, payments that Cuban exporters expect from foreign buyers may not arrive, and Cuban importers have difficulties paying foreign suppliers. International loan payments are blocked and grants from international agencies go astray.

The U.S. Treasury Department may impose heavy fines on those international banks and foreign corporations that do handle dollars in transactions with Cuba.  Non-offenders avoid Cuba, out of caution. The connection between the terrorism-sponsoring designation and prohibition on the use of U.S. currency has led to shortages and distress in Cuba.

Massachusetts Peace Action has spearheaded the necessary campaign against H.R 314. A recent communication provides information and shows how to contact members of the House of Representatives.

The extended Cuban exile community provides the main support for the legislative proposal. The Cuba part of U.S. foreign policy is regularly farmed out to the population sector with the most to lose or gain. That approach is dysfunctional, irrational, and unfair.

The text of the proposed bill assigns Cuba goals, fulfillment of which would signal that Cuba no longer is be designated as a sponsor of terrorism. These are the very goals that, as specified in the Helms-Burton Law, need to be achieved so that the blockade may be ended.  The goals are:

·        Release all political prisoners and allow for investigations of Cuban prisons by appropriate international human rights organizations.

·        Transition away from the Castro regime to a system that guarantees the rights of the Cuban people to express themselves freely.

·        Commit to holding free and fair elections.

Perspective reveals contradictions.  The subject of political prisoners demands consideration of the fate of U.S. prisoners held in Guantanamo. It’s worthwhile also to recall that neither Fidel or Raul Castro now plays a part in Cuba’s government; that their influence may persist, just as did Abraham Lincoln’s in the United States; and that in Cuba organized discussion among wide sectors of the population invariably precedes the introduction of important initiatives. The last such occasion was the discussion period in 2022 prior to the vote on the Constitutional Amendment for a Family Code.

And, lastly, Cuba’s conduct of elections is exemplary. In voting on March 26 for Cuba’s National Assembly, 75% of the voting population took part. The portion of those who vote in U.S. national elections is far smaller. The make-up of delegates to the Assembly reflects the demographics of Cuba’s population. As delegates, they choose Cuba’s leaders, who are themselves members of the National Assembly. That’s a process followed in the parliamentary systems of many countries.

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

US General Hypes China as Threat in Latin America / By W.T. Whitney Jr.

The U.S. government has long intervened in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). Now the U.S. military is paying attention to China’s economic activities there. 

General Laura Richardson on March 8 reported to the Armed Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives on actions and needs of the Southern Command, which she heads. She has charge of all U.S. military operations in the region. 

Citing the 2022 National Security Strategy, Richardson declared that “no region impacts the United States more directly than the Western Hemisphere …. [There] autocrats are working overtime to undermine democracy.” And security there “is critical to homeland defense.”

Richardson stated that “the PRC (People’s Republic of China) has both the capability and intent to eschew international norms, advance its brand of authoritarianism, and amass power and influence at the expense of the existing and emerging democracies in our hemisphere.” The Southern Command’s “main priority … is to expose and mitigate PRC malign activity.”

She sees a “myriad of ways in which the PRC is spreading its malign influence, wielding its economic might, and conducting gray zone activities to expand its military and political access and influence.” A “grey zone,” according to the NATO-friendly Atlantic Council, is a “set of activities … [like] nefarious economic activities, influence operations, … cyberattacks, mercenary operations, assassinations, and disinformation campaigns.”

Richardson highlighted China’s trade with LAC that is heading toward “$700 billion [annually] by 2035.” The United States, in her view, will be facing intense competition and presently “its comparative trade advantage is eroding.”

She added that, “The PRC’s efforts to extract South America’s natural resources to support its own population … are conducted at the expense of our partner nations and their citizens.” And opportunities for “quality private sector investment” are disappearing.

Competition extends to space: “11 PRC-linked space facilities across five countries in this region [enable] space tracking and surveillance capabilities.” Richardson complained of “24 countries [that] have existing Chinese telecommunication infrastructure (3G/4G), increasing their potential to transition to Chinese 5G.” 

She expressed concern both about surveillance networks supplied by China that represent a “potential counterintelligence threat” and about Latin Americans going to China “to receive training on cybersecurity and military doctrine.” Richardson denounced China’s role in facilitating environmental crimes and pointed to “potential dual use for malign commercial and military activities.”

“Relationships absolutely matter,” she insisted, “and our partner democracies are desperate for assistance from the United States.” Plus, “if we’re not there in time, they … take what’s available, creating opportunities for the PRC.”

Moving beyond China, Richardson indicated that “many partner nations …  see TCOs (transnational criminal organizations) as their primary security challenge.” That’s because drug-cartel violence leads to deaths and poverty and “illicit funds exacerbate regionalcorruption, insecurity, and instability.”

Her report avoids mention of particular countries other than offering brief references to Haiti, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. She criticized Russia for “military engagements with Venezuela and Nicaragua” and for spreading “false narratives.” Richardson praised Colombia for providing military training in other countries. 

The Southern Command gains “exponential return” on supplying various countries with U.S. weapons and supplies. It conducts joint military exercises, and “provides professional military education to personnel from 28 countries.”

Richardson reported at length on processes she sees as fostering useful relationships between her command and the various governments and military services. The tone of urgency characterizing her discussion on China was entirely lacking. 

Economic intervention

General Richardson’s view that China has greatly expanded its economic involvement with the LAC nations is on target.

Since 2005, China’s state-owned banks have arranged for 117 loans in the region worth, in all, more than $140 billion. They averaged over $10 billion annually. Since 2020, China has made fewer loans.

Chinese trade with Latin America grew from $12 billion in 2000 to $448 billion in 2021. China’s imports of “ores (42%), soybeans (16%), mineral fuels and oils (10%), meat (6%), and copper (5%)” totaled $221 billion in 2021. The value of exported manufactured goods that year was $227 billion. By 2022, China had become the biggest trading partner in four Latin American countries and the second-largest in many others.  

China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) has long represented China’s strongest economic tie to the region. FDI signifies funding of projects abroad directed at long-term impact. China’s FDI from 2005 to mid-2022 was $143 billion. Energy projects and “metals/mining” accounted for 59% and 24% of the total, respectively. Of that total, Brazil and Peru received 45% and 17%, respectively. 

The FDI flow since 2016 has averaged $4.5 billion annually; worldwide, China’s FDI has contracted.

Chinese banks and corporations have invested heavily in lithium production in Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, which, together, account for 56% of the world’s lithium deposits. China is the largest investor in Peru’s mining sector, controlling seven large mines and owning two of Peru’s biggest copper mines. Brazil is the world’s largest recipient of Chinese investments.  

China’s government has linked FDI to its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that began in 2013. As of May 2022, 21 Latin American and Caribbean countries were cooperating with the BRI and 11 of them had formally joined.

On the ground

U.S. military intervention in LAC is far from new. Analyst Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein complements Richardson’s report with a three-part survey, accessible here, here, and here, of recent U.S. military activities in the region.

He indicates the United States now has “12 military bases in Panamá, 12 in Puerto Rico, 9 in Colombia, 8 in Perú, 3 in Honduras, 2 in Paraguay, as well as similar installations in Aruba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Cuba (Guantánamo), and in other countries.”

Rodríguez maintains that, “levels of aggressive interference by Washington in the region have increased dramatically” and that U.S. embassies there are supplied with more military, Cuba, Nicaragua, and CIA personnel than ever before.

Rodríguez notes features of the LAC region that attract U.S. attention, among them: closeness to strategically-important Antarctica; reserves of fresh water and biodiversity in Amazonian regions; the Guarani Aquifer near the triple frontier of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina, the largest in the world; and huge reserves of valuable natural resources.

Among ongoing or recent U.S. military interventions are these:

·        The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is implementing a “master plan” for navigability of the Paraguay River and Plata River Basin. The nearby Triple Frontier area supposedly harbors international terrorism and drug-trafficking.

·        The U.S. military facility in Neuquén, Argentina is turning from its alleged humanitarian mission to activities in line with local preparations for oil extraction.            

·        U.S. officials on October 13, 2022 announced that 95 military vehicles were being donated to Guatemala for drug-war activities.   

·        In Brazil in September 2022, General Richardson indicated that U.S. forces would join Brazilian counterparts to fight fires in the Amazon..

·        The Southern Command’s fostering of good relations with Peru’s military has borne fruit. Under consideration in Peru’s Congress is a proposal to authorize the entry of foreign military forces. To what nation would they belong? Hint: former CIA operative and U.S. Ambassador Lisa Kenna met with Peru’s Defense Minister the day before President Pedro Castillo was removed in a parliamentary coup on December 7, 2022.

·        In March 2023, two U.S. congresspersons proposed that U.S. troops enter Mexico to carry out drug-war operations.

·        Presently the United States is making great efforts to establish a naval base on Gorgona island off Colombia’s Pacific coast. It would be the ninth U.S. base in Colombia, a NATO “global partner.”

·        In Colombia, U.S. troops acting on behalf of NATO, are active in that country’s Amazon region supposedly to protect the environment and combat drug-trafficking.

·        The U.S. National Defense Authorization Act of December 2022 awarded the Southern Command $858 million for military operations in Ecuador.

·        In a second visit, the US Coast Guard Cutter Stone was plying Uruguayan waters in February ostensibly to train with local counterparts for search and rescue operations. The ship was also monitoring the nearby Chinese fishing fleet.

Rodríguez does not comment on U.S. interventions in Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. That’s because they’ve persisted for “more than 60, 40, and 20 years, respectively” and each requires a “special report.”

John Quincy Adams returns

Proclaiming the Monroe Doctrine 200 years ago, Secretary of State Adams informed European powers that the United States regarded “any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.”

General Richardson would apply the warning of that era to the PRC. Yet signs of hegemonic aspirations from that quarter are absent.

Commenting recently, Argentinian economist and academician Claudio Katz notes that, “China concentrates its forces in the economic arena while avoiding confrontations at the political or military level … Investments are not accompanied by troops and bases, useful for guaranteeing return on investments.”

Besides, China “does business with all governments, without regard to their internal politics.” That tendency, Katz writes, stems from the PRC having “arisen from a socialist experience, having hybrid characteristics, and not completing a passage to capitalism.” He maintains that China, with its economic involvement, contributes nothing to advancing socialism in the region.   

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

Mexico’s President Would Build Alliance to Counter Cuba Blockade / By William T. Whitney Jr.

Photo credit: People’s Dispatch

On the occasion of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s visit recently to Mexico, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) raised the possibility of many nations cooperating to oppose the U.S blockade of Cuba. AMLO has become Cuba’s champion in the international arena, and perhaps not accidentally: the governments of the two nations each originated from social and political revolutions.

The two leaders have built a tight relationship.  Diaz-Canal visited to Mexico in September, 2021. AMLO was in Cuba in May, 2022. And AMLO refused to attend a U.S – organized Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles in June 2022 because Cuba had been excluded. 

Accompanied by Cuban government officials, Díaz-Canel on February 11 joined AMLO in the Mexican state of Campeche. That Cuban medical teams are working there now may have helped determine the meeting’s location.

In remarks at a medical center,  AMLO lauded Cuba’s medical solidarity and described his own people’s unmet social needs. He called upon the U.S. government to end its blockade of Cuba:

[Cuba] has our respect, our gratitude, our support, and we are going to continue demanding the removal, the elimination of the blockade against Cuba, which is inhumane. And there’s more than voting in the United Nations where the anti-blockade resolution is always approved overwhelmingly, and then it’s back to the way it was.

I promise President Miguel Díaz-Canel that Mexico will be leading a more active movement so that all countries come together and defend the independence and sovereignty of Cuba. No longer will there be anything about treating Cuba as a terrorist country or putting Cuba on the black list of supposed terrorists.

Cuba has been able to count on support from Mexico. As the Bay of Pigs invasion was unfolding in 1961, former Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas spoke in defense of Cuba before 80,000 people in Mexico City’s Zocalo. Soon afterwards, Mexico’s government backed Cuba in the United Nations. Later Mexico rejected calls by the U.S. – dominated Organization of American States for member states to impose economic sanctions against Cuba and break off diplomatic ties.

AMLO visited Cuba in May, 2022. Speaking before Cuban leaders, he recalled “times when the United States wanted to own the continent …. They were annexing, deciding on independence wherever; creating new countries, freely associated states, protectorates, military bases; and … invading.”  The U.S. government, he declared, needs to know “that a new relationship among the peoples of America … is possible.”

While in Cuba he signed agreements for Mexican young people to study medicine in Cuba, for Cuba to provide Mexico with anti-Covid vaccines, and for hundreds of Cuban physicians to work in Mexico in underserved areas.

Months before, in September 2021, Díaz-Canel was the honored guest at celebrations in Mexico City of the 200th anniversary of Mexico’s national independence. Welcoming his guest, AMLO praised Cuba’s steadfastness in defending its revolution. Calling upon U.S. political leaders to lift the blockade on Cuba, he appealed to their good sense and rationality, saying nothing about nations uniting in opposition to the blockade. 

Photo credit: People’s Dispatch

[The U.S. government] must lift its blockade against Cuba, because no state has a right to subjugate another people, or another country … [And] It looks very bad that the U.S. government uses the blockade to hurt the people of Cuba in order to force them by necessity to confront their own government … President Biden, who shows political sensitivity, [must] take a wider view and put a permanent end to the politics of grievances against Cuba.

The emphasis was different, however, when the two leaders met recently, on February 11 in Campeche. AMLO unveiled an evolved and more forceful approach to ending the blockade. He bestowed upon Díaz-Canel Mexico’s highest recognition extended to foreign notables, the Aztec Eagle, and then praised Cuba as a special case for its strenuous resistance to U.S. enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine. He continued: 

I also maintain that it is time for a new coexistence among all the countries of America, because that model imposed more than two centuries ago is completely exhausted, it is anachronistic, it has no future. There is no way out, it no longer benefits anyone, we must put aside the trade-off imposed on us either to go along with the United States or be in opposition, courageously and defensively. 

It is time to express and explore another option, that of dialoguing with the leaders of all the countries and especially with U.S. leaders, and convince and persuade them that a new relationship between the countries of our continent, of all America, is possible. I believe that conditions are perfect now for achieving this goal of mutual respect.

In an interview later on, Mexican foreign minister Marcelo Ebrard offered some specifics:

President Lopez Obrador wants to bring the presidents of the progressive states of Latin America together to address food security, well-being and other issues that are important for our community of nations. This is something we have to discuss with other foreign ministers and move forward in the coming months. 

The progressive governments AMLO has in mind, according to Ebrard, are Mexico, Argentina, Brazil. Colombia, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Chile, and Honduras. They include “the three largest economies in Latin America.” The implication may be that these countries, collaborating on various issues, political ones included, have sufficient economic clout to pressure the United States on Cuba.

President Díaz-Canel himself has been building other bridges. In recent weeks he visited Belize, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados, for the 7th CARICOM (Caribbean Community) – Cuba Summit meeting.

AMLO’s focus on progressive nations is crucial. He has worked toward reviving the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) as a vehicle for collective action, despite participation there by conservatively-governed nations. Yet he did not attend the CELAC summit taking place in January and so may be discouraged as to prospects for CELAC serving his purposes. 

AMLO’s power to orchestrate regional support is limited. Only 18 months remain of his six-year term as president of a country dependent economically on the United States and divided geographically, ethnically, and by social class. Nevertheless, Cuba, whose external resources for ending the U.S. economic blockade are hardly infinite, badly needs international partnering that offers persuasive power. Lifelines thrown by AMLO are a start in that direction. 

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

The Cuban Revolution: Made by teachers and students / by W.T. Whitney Jr.

Teacher Graciela Lage gives an English lesson at the Cuban School of Foreign Languages in Havana. | Desmond Boylan / AP

Cuban education has long been ground zero for ending inequalities.

Schools on the island are places where doors opened up for all Cuban young people to learn and for students, even of oppressed classes, to prepare for one or another kind of work that would contribute to Cuba’s development as an independent nation.

Cuban literacy teachers, 123 of them, arrived in Honduras on Dec. 20. With Honduran colleagues, they will be utilizing Cuba’s special method, “Yo sí puedo” (Yes I can), to teach literacy. It’s a technique that has found worldwide application.

Dec. 22 in Cuba is Teacher’s Day. On that date in 1961—Cuba’s “Year of Education”—Fidel Castro, speaking before a large crowd in Havana, announced the end of Cuba’s literacy campaign of that year. He declared Cuba to be a “territory free of illiteracy.”

On hand were 100,000 young people who had volunteered to teach the rudiments of reading and writing to illiterate adults living in rural areas. These young people, mostly from Cuba’s cities, lived with families they were teaching and did farm work.

Joining them in the island-wide literacy campaign were tens of thousands of volunteer teachers, unionists, and other working people. In the end, 271,000 literacy volunteers enabled 707,000 Cubans (out of a population of 7,291,200) to learn how to read.

The figure of José Martí, Cuba’s national hero, epitomizes for Cubans the affinity of education and revolution. Introducing Martí’s book On Education (Monthly Review Press, 1978), editor Philip Foner observes that, “Basic to the foundation of liberty, in the eyes of José Martí, was the education of the people. Nothing guaranteed that a government was anxious to serve its citizens as much as the haste it displayed in educating its people.”

Fidel Castro waves at literacy teachers and students in Havana after declaring Cuba free of illiteracy, Dec. 22, 1961. | Cuba Debate

In comments in September 1961 about the literacy campaign, Castro updated Martí’s idea: “One does not conceive of a revolution without also a great revolution in the educational arena … revolution and education are almost two synonymous ideas … [The] Revolution will advance and be successful the more it works in the field of education, the more competent technicians there are, the more competent administrators, teachers, revolutionary cadre it has.”

Foner notes that in 1959, 23% of Cubans were illiterate, the “average school education was below third grade,” and “only a few thousand” children were attending secondary schools. By December 1961, according to Castro, the revolutionary government had created 15,000 schools while converting military installations into schools and building schools for handicapped children.

By 1973, literacy was all but universal. Some 1,898,000 children were attending primary school, and 470,000 were enrolled in secondary schools, according to Foner. By that time, a “second educational revolution” was in progress with the training of 20,000 additional teachers to handle waves of students now attending secondary and pre-university schools.

A third educational “revolution” was underway from 2000 on. Associated with what the Cuban state referred to as the “Battle of Ideas,” it called for teaching that emphasized social justice and equality and was accompanied by moral and social support for students. Education in the arts expanded, and there were new social-work schools. Visual, audio, and computer-based methods were newly available to teachers.

University enrollment increased as authorities extended instruction to students’ own localities while relying on computer-based and televised teaching aids. By 2015, 80% of university students were studying close to home.

Some problems emerged, however. Teaching programs in science and technology lost students to courses in the humanities and social sciences. University teaching was contributing less than before to the country’s economic development. Fewer students were preparing to be teachers, and 20,000 teachers had left their posts for the sake of better-paying jobs.

Reversing course, the government cut back on university teaching at the local level, made entrance exams more competitive, re-emphasized scientific and technical training, and shortened the university course of study. As of 2019, 241,000 students, or one in three Cubans between 18 and 24 years of age, were studying in 50 university centers. Almost 50% of them were taking medical-sciences courses; 8,542 were art students.

All along, the U.S. economic blockade was causing shortages and adding difficulties. A report presented by Cuba’s Education Ministry in early 2022 explains:

  • Under blockade rules, Cuba lacks access to the credit needed for buying goods abroad.
  • Importing is difficult due in part to price hikes resulting from high freight costs for importing goods from places other than the United States.
  • The inflated costs of goods purchased abroad from third-party intermediaries discourage imports.
  • Under blockade regulations, specific items manufactured anywhere with even tiny U.S. components are prohibited.

The list of necessary and often missing items is long: paper, books, notebooks, computers, audio-visual devices, laboratory supplies, laboratory equipment, writing materials, art supplies, sports equipment, special devices used by handicapped students, musical instruments, recording devices, English language texts and books, broadband internet connections, and replacement parts for equipment.

Nevertheless, as the result of sustained efforts over decades, students have been prepared to take on varied tasks aimed at developing Cuba’s economy and building socialism.

  • Between 1960 and 2017, Cuban universities graduated 1.2 million “professionals,” including 80,000 physicians. Women accounted for 64% of university graduates in 2010, up from 3% in 1959. University graduates in 2019 made up 2.2% of Cuban workers.
  • Spending on education in Cuba in 2012 represented 9% of the GDP. The comparable figure in the United States currently is 4.96% of GDP. Cuba in 2018 dedicated 13% of its national budget to education.

In Cuba in 1995, a Cuban woman hitched a ride on a small bus carrying Maine visitors, myself included, from Havana to Trinidad. “We Cubans want producers, not consumers,” we heard her say. Fidel Castro spoke similarly on that first Teachers Day in 1961.

He dismissed fellow University of Havana law students as “all those people with nothing to do but to study to be a lawyer.” At that time, “the ruling class was not teaching the children of workers.” That “half the population, the rural population, had no secondary school” he regarded as a “serious problem for any revolution in an underdeveloped country like ours. What few technical workers there are come from upper-income sectors … from the economically and politically dominant class, which, logically, is opposed to revolutionary change.”

Leftists in the United States and elsewhere often regard reform and revolution as separate projects. Cuba’s experience of preparing young citizens to work at what would become socialism may be relevant.

Small though they may be, certain reforms happening now within U.S. schools, rife with inequalities, could end up serving the revolution on the way, and in that way be revolutionary. Such reforms: the fostering of equality among students, the inculcation of real knowledge about societal problems, and students’ work projects that are oriented to the common good.

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

People’s World, January 4, 2023, https://www.peoplesworld.org/

UN Condemns US Blockade as Crisis Builds in Cuba / by W. T. Whitney Jr

Cuba thanks universal support against the US blockade | Image: Prensa Latina

A long-running show played out in the United Nations General Assembly once more on November 3 as nations of the world for the thirtieth year voted overwhelming to approve a Cuban resolution calling for an end to the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba. The vote was 185 nations favoring the resolution, two nations opposing (The United States and Israel, as usual), and Ukraine and Brazil abstaining.

Cuba has withstood the blockade for 60 years, so long as to equal one fourth of the years of U.S. national existence.  In that time, Cuba has lacked the resources and powerful allies that might have forced the U.S. government to backtrack. 

Cuba instead has had to rely on ideals, high principles, and widespread consensus in its favor, epitomized by the yearly votes in the General Assembly The blockade is cruel, immoral, unfair, and illegal the under international law. Even so, an opportunistic and powerful U.S. ruling class has not budged. 

The U.S. blockade will not end soon inasmuch as U.S. law assigns that task to the Congress. Another way for the blockade to go is for outcomes  envisioned by U.S. State Department official Lester Mallory in April 1960 to have worked their way. The U.S. government, through the blockade, was seeking “economic dissatisfaction and hardship,” “hunger,” “desperation,” and “overthrow of government.”

Except for the last one, these policy goals are far advanced in being realized and a crisis may be at hand in Cuba.

Disruption

At a press conference on October 19, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez explained how the workings of the blockade led to those results. He noted that Cuba had suffered the loss between August 2021 and February 2022 of $3.8 billion, which “is a historical record for such a short time.”  Losses over six decades amount to $154 billion. With inflation, that’s $1.391 trillion.

The U.S. government designates Cuba as a terrorist-sponsoring nation. That means foreign companies and financial institutions face severe U. S. penalties if they handle dollars in transactions with Cuba. Dollars are the principal currency used in international monetary transactions. As a result, Cuba’s income from exports is reduced and international loans are largely unavailable. 

Without much money to pay for imports, Cuba experiences shortages of food, spare parts, raw materials for drug manufacture, and all kinds of supplies and equipment. Rodriguez mentioned long lines and “anxiety among the population.” The blockade affects “every Cuban family” and the government cannot “guarantee medicines that an ill person requires.”

“Cuba can in no way … buy technologies, equipment, spare parts, digital technologies or software containing more than 10 per cent US components.” The blockade has aggravated difficulties caused by “international crises,” inflation, and lingering effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Blockade restrictions “gravely hinder our fuel purchases by making them … [up to] 50 percent more expensive.” Electrical power generation “is going through an extremely serious situation” because of unavailable replacement parts. Blackouts bedevil Cubans every day and restoration of electrical power in hurricane-damaged Pinar del Rio has been slow.

First hand report

Richard Grassl, friend and political colleague, visited Cuba recently with his wife, who is Cuban. He recalls conversations touching on shortages, distress, and uncertainty as to who is to blame. 

10/16      Talked to first cousin of wife …  He told me I will learn the real Cuba this time.  He says not to believe what the Cuban government says about the US blockade.  There are many lies.  My wife’s nephew says the economy is “nothing. Many Cubans think the blockade [itself] is secondary to issues of daily living like [shortages of] food, medicine, water and lack of opportunity because there is no money. 

10/17     I asked him from where most food for Cubans comes from and about food imports.  He said most food comes from Miami.  [President] Diaz-Canel gets some blame for the situation.

10/18    There is not much social distancing as the times are urgent.  Food, consumer goods, fuel, construction materials are very expensive.  Eggs are $8USD / dozen.  The exchange rate is 80 CUP / USD which is 4x higher than before Covid-19.   No one talks about the blockade.  The problem is scarcity of money. 

10/19     I talked with a friend.  He says the US has so much and we have so little.  He asks why cannot there be trade?  …  At several bodegas and public markets, many people, perhaps hundreds, waited all day for cooking oil, rice, beans, chicken etc. at prices subsidized by government. 

10/20     I talked to another cousin from Matanzas who said the economy is “on the floor”.  It is very hard with little money.  A round trip from Matanzas to Havana (500 km) was $500 CUP/person one way or $2000 round trip for both persons by bus.

Corruption and blockade

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro delivered wide-ranging speech on November 17, 2005 notable for his highlighting of corruption: “This country can self-destruct; this Revolution can destroy itself, but they can never destroy us; we can destroy ourselves, and it would be our fault.”

Similarly, President Miguel Díaz-Canel on October 26 convoked a meeting of Cuba’s Council of Ministers at which a plan was unveiled with “more than 40 directives aimed at confronting crime, corruption, and lack of social discipline.” The report appearing on the presidential website characterized the President’s remarks as “a forthright analysis of illegalities, stealing and price-gouging imposed on a population with no economic means.”

Both earlier and now, the toxic mixture of shortages of goods and money has led to stealing and lawlessness. The progression suggests that shortages of both are sufficient to exert a destabilizing effect on society. That evolution of blockade effects, which have reached crisis proportions, is consistent with how the blockade was supposed to operate.

President Díaz-Canel explained to the Council that, “neither the Party or the government can remain on the sidelines of what’s happening in society.” Therefore, “we must not allow those who neither work nor contribute, and are beyond the law, to acquire more and have more possibilities for life than do those who actually contribute. We have it backwards now and are breaking with the ideas of socialism.”

He pointed out that, “Many of these things are the result of us not attending to the powers and responsibilities assigned to our institutions.” [Corrupt activities] “take place in full view of the Party centers, the administrative institutions, and leadership bodies.”

The President asserted that anyone able to work who is not doing so is not so vulnerable as to require “welfare assistance.” In fact, “the building of socialism does not depend upon a welfare system. What we have to seek out, instead, is social transformation.” 

Díaz-Canel observed that, “We don’t do away with taxes here so that the rich get richer and poorer people have less. Here, we do have taxes so that those who have more give something up so that those who have less are better off.”  “That’s socialism,” he explained. 

While celebrating another Cuban victory in the UN General Assembly, supporters of revolutionary Cuba, we think, ought to recognize that

the survival of Cuba’s government is now at unprecedented risk, thanks to the U.S. blockade. U.S. supporters of Cuba’s revolutionary project would do well to elevate actions of resistance against their own government to a new level, with new intensity. That’s because realities in Cuba appear to have altered, ominously so. 

Already new mobilization may be underway. In the days prior to the General Assembly’s vote on November 3, dozens of rallies for ending the blockade took place in cities and towns throughout the United States (two of them in Maine, the author’s home state), with particularly big ones in Los Angeles, Portland Oregon; and New York. There, an impressive march took place between Times Square and the United Nations Plaza.    

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

Cuban Adjustment Act of US Still Privileges Cuban Migrants, Hurts Cuba / by W. T. Whitney Jr.

The Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, the only one of its kind in the world, continues to encourage irregular emigration, the repeal of which will be essential to achieve normal migratory relations between the two countries | Credit: Granma – en.granma.cu

“Maybe if you had printed more about the operation, you would have saved us from a colossal mistake.” President John Kennedy was berating New York Times editor Turner Catledge. The Times and the U.S. media generally had glossed over widely-known preparations for the Bay of Pigs attack in April 1961. Catledge had removed the revealing substance of reporter Tad Szulc’s detailed news story 10 days beforehand.

Media silence has attended other Cuba -related developments over the years. Many U.S. progressives and liberals also tend to mention little about U.S-Cuban affairs, the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba being one example.

The Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA), which is about Cubans migrating to the United States, receives little attention, while fuss and fury grow over an unprecedented number of migrants, Cubans among them, crossing the U.S. southern border now. Officials there apprehended 1.8 million migrants between October 2021 and August 2022.

Most respondents to an NPR/Ipsos poll believe an “invasion” is taking place. Anti-migrant measures have led to political division and stalemate. Senators Lindsay Graham and Ted Cruz sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on October 5. The Biden administration’s migration policies, they claimed, represent “gross dereliction of duty … violation of your oath of office …[and] grounds for impeachment.”

Cubans, enabled by the CAA, find welcome in the United States. That 1966 law allows Cuban immigrants and their immediate families to become permanent U.S. residents. To be eligible, the Cuban migrant on arrival has to be “inspected, admitted or paroled.” He or she waits for one year, while receiving social services, and then applies for permanent residency, and gains a work permit. Other immigrants must wait five years to apply.

Why is Cuban immigration encouraged? The idea may have been that of displaying the failure of a Communist government through Cubans leaving, or of fracturing popular unity in Cuba through emigration, or of strengthening the Cuban-American voting bloc through new Cuban arrivals.

Numbers of Cuban migrants have increased recently. There were 9,822 “southwest border encounters” of border officials with Cubans in fiscal year 2020, 38,674 in FY 2021, and 174,674 Cubans in the FY ending on October 1, 2022. Between October 2021 and June border officials detained more than 1300 Cubans arriving by sea in Florida.

Cubans have been enduring shortages, high prices, and low income due mostly to the U.S. economic blockade and cut-backs on the remittances Cuban-Americans send to family members on the island. That’s one set of reasons for leaving Cuba.

Additionally, Nicaragua in November, 2021 began allowing Cubans to enter without an entry visa. Migrants can now start on their trip closer to the border than, as before, having to travel through South America.

And most of the 20,000 Cubans who would have entered the United States annually, as authorized by a 1994 bi-national agreement, have not done so. That’s because almost no processing of entry visas has taken place since 2017, when the State Department recalled most of its Embassy staff in Havana. That was in response to a mysterious neurological syndrome afflicting U.S. diplomats and staff.

Few Cubans have been able to afford travel to U.S. embassies in other countries to secure visas. Consequently, departing Cubans have resorted to irregular means. The State Department has recently begun to send diplomatic staff back to its Havana Embassy.

New rules are in place. The Obama administration in 2017 ended the government’s “wet foot, dry foot” policy, in force since 1995. During that period, Cubans apprehended at sea were returned to Cuba. Those who arrived and touched U.S. soil could stay and eventually gain permanent residency status.

Cuban migrants crossing at the U.S. southern border still receive preferential treatment. Unable to show the required evidence of “lawful entry,” they benefit from creative arrangements that convert an irregular entry into a legal one.

Presently, “nearly 98 %” of Cuban migrants entering the United States stay. Border officials apply public health (anti-Covid 19) regulations known as Title 42 to all would-be immigrants. They immediately exclude half of them, but not the Cubans. Excluded migrants wait in Mexico or elsewhere for immigration judges to decide on their applications for asylum.

Some of the entering Cubans receive “humanitarian parole.” Under CAA regulations, that status qualifies as “lawful entry” and the migrant is able to wait for a year in the United States and then apply for permanent residency – and usually receive it.

Other Cubans not receiving humanitarian parole also remain in the United States by means of a “bond” requiring them to appear before immigration judges “where they can launch a defense for staying.” Most migrants in this group whose appeals are successful can count on gaining permanent residency.

A few have been unsuccessful and that group received good news on February 23, 2022. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that Cuban migrants whose appeal for permanent residence had failed now may try again, with likely success. The agency was responding to an immigration court ruling in 2021 that any release of Cuban migrants from custody at the border, whatever the circumstances, actually does represent “lawful entry” or parole, as required by the CAA.

Most of the Cubans exiting from their country are young adults and children. They benefited from the high-quality education, healthcare, and social support that was their birthright. Their energy, talents, labor, and potential commitment would no longer be contributing to Cuba’s national project of development and recovery. Their departure, one supposes, weakens the bonds of family life in Cuba and thereby makes Cuban society less cohesive.

The U.S. leadership class likely has little regret. The U.S. intention, after all, is to cause distress in Cuba leading to regime change. Moreover, U.S. economic blockade of Cuba, occupation of territory in Guantanamo, destabilizing interventions inside Cuba, and the CAA, taken together, add up to attack on Cuba’s independence and national sovereignty. The silence of the media and of political activists on these matters takes on an ominous quality, that of complicity with crimes.

The community of nations enabled the United Nations to deal with international crimes. Under the United Nations Charter, the Security Council may confront “any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” of one nation against another. The General Assembly in 1965 unanimously approved Resolution 2131 which states that, “No State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any State.”

What situations would these authorizations be applied to, if not to the instances recited here of U.S. aggression against Cuba?

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.

Cuba Approves New Family Code with Updates on Equality within Family Life / by W. T. Whitney Jr.

Ramon Espinosa / AP

The Cuban people, voting in a national plebiscite on September 25, gave their approval to a new Family Code. According to the National Electoral Council, preliminary results showed that of almost six million Cubans who cast a valid ballot, 66.9% voted Yes; 33.1% voted No. The New Family Code was left-over business from a new Cuban Constitution approved on April 10, 2019.

The new Code promises all Cubans protection of democratic and legal rights within the context of family life, both existing rights and new ones. It represents revision of the Family Code contained in Cuba’s Constitution of 1976. The principal impulse for a new one stemmed from recognition since then, worldwide and in Cuba, that notions of sexual diversity and gender equality were expanding.

The opportunity came in 2018. A Constituent Assembly that year was undertaking extensive alterations of the 1976 Constitution. In the process of devising what became a new Constitution, opposition to certain provisions of a proposed new Family Code cropped up both in the Assembly and in public consultations. On the table had been authorization of same-sex marriages and allowance for gay people to adopt children.

The Assembly determined that the process “should be pursued in more depth.” The new Constitution ended up with a provision for a new Family Code to be created later and then be approved by “attending to the results of a plebiscite” taking place in two years. The Covid-19 pandemic led to that plebiscite’s delay until September 25, 2022.

The Family Code that resulted would protect the right of same- sex marriage and the right of same-sex parents to adopt children. The first article under the title “Marriage” in the final document – there are 301 articles under that heading – states that, “Marriage is the voluntary union agreed to by two legally competent persons with the purpose of living life in common …” Similarly, provisions relating to adoptive parenting refer exclusively to “persons.” The message conveyed is that marriage does not necessarily require a man and woman.

Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz Canel casts his vote at a polling station during the new Family Code referendum in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2022. He encouraged Cubans to vote yes in the lead-up to the poll. | Jose Manuel Correa / Pool photo via AP

The government had carried out vigorous publicity efforts on behalf of the new Code. In nationally televised remarks to the country on September 22, President Miguel Díaz-Canel called upon Cubans “to participate in an action of enormous responsibility.” Catholic clergy and evangelical churches mounted opposition campaigns. The anti-government Havana Times noted that in view of distress in Cuba and sharply increased migration, the Code was just “Bla, Bla, Bla.”

An important point to be emphasized here is that the new Code epitomizes Cuba’s revolutionary zeal as it offers assurance that family life in Cuba will be characterized by equality, democratic rights, and protection. The Code is vast in its reach; it extends to all aspects of family life and establishes principles and values entirely fit for guiding citizens in maintaining family relationships and the state in prescribing for family life.

The Code presented on September 25 was a 63-page document that, on line, displays 11 “titles” representing major categories, dozens of chapters, hundreds of articles, and 2283 paragraphs. Subjects that are covered, all pertaining to family life, include: protection of the rights of children, women, elderly people, persons with disabilities, and members of the LBGTQ communities; arrangement for the handling of property and money; duties and responsibilities, adoption of children and custody arrangements; the special needs and rights of elders and persons with disabilities, and, lastly, aspects of marriage and of parenting and becoming a parent.

The Family Code begins by outlining purposes. Among them are these:

· “To strengthen family members’ mutual responsibilities to assure the emotional and economic well-being of vulnerable family members, and their education and training.

· To establish love, affection, solidarity and responsibility as among the highest of family values.

· To enhance gender equality within the family and strengthen shared responsibly for domestic work and childcare.

· To broaden the range of economic activities within marriage to allow for autonomy of spouses in making decisions favorable to their interests.

· To recognize the right of grandparents, other relatives, and others involved with the children to experience harmonious communications among all family members.”

· To recognize the self-determination, preferences, and equal opportunity for older adults and handicapped persons within the family.

· To respect the right of families to lives that are free of violence and the necessity for preventative measures.”

A statement of principles appears at the beginning of the document: “Relationships that develop in the family setting are based on dignity as the most important value and are governed by the following principals, among them – equality and non-discrimination, plurality, individual and shared responsibility, solidarity, the seeking of happiness …respect, the greater interest of children and adolescents, respect for the desires and preferences of older adults and people with disabilities …”

The far-ranging collection of standards and precepts that are laid out for relationships within all aspects of family life are consistent with the nature of a Cuban society that aims both to follow long-established principles of democracy and equality and to evolve according to new expectations for a just society. As regards the latter, the main impetus for a new Family Code had been mounting agitation for equality between men and women, for women’s empowerment and for arrangements supportive of gender diversity.

This report would emphasize one more important aspect of the new Family Code, specifically the extraordinary process undertaken to fashion the Code. Those who were responsible for creating it and securing its approval did so in a way that makes for the Code’s comprehensiveness and for full participation by the Cuban people in building and evaluating it. The process testifies to the Cuban government’s serious purpose, dedication, competence, and inclination to democracy.

Here is the story of what happened after approval via a plebiscite of that new Cuban Constitution in early 2019. As outlined above, the Constitution provided for the development of a new Family Code over the course of two years. The Ministry of Justice on July 16, 2019 announced the existence of an ad hoc working group that would begin the task. Joining the working group were judiciary, health, and foreign-relations officials, United Nations experts, representatives of the Federation of Cuban Women, the National Center of Sex Education, statisticians, and academicians from the University of Havana.

The working group elaborated one version of a proposed Family Code after another, and finally determined upon version 20. The Council of State on March 22, 2021 announced the creation of an editing commission to be made up of deputies to the National Assembly and representatives of institutions and people’s organizations. On completion of its work, version 22 of the proposed Code appeared on the Ministry of Justice’s web page on September 15, 2021. Expert consultations followed, taking place between September 25 and October 15 and involving representatives of 47 institutions, agencies, and organizations. Changes were made.

Residents attend a popular consultation to discuss the draft of a new Family Code, in Havana, Cuba, Feb. 11, 2022. This past Sunday, Cubans voted to approve the measure, which legalizes same-sex marriage, authorize LGBTQ adoption, expands grandparents’ rights, and allow prenuptial agreements, among other things. | Ramon Espinosa / AP

The National Assembly initiated discussion of version 23 of the Code on December 21, 2021. Once again provisions were altered and new ones added. The Assembly approved version 24 of the Code and submitted it to a popular consultation that took place between February 1 and April 20 of 2022. More than six million Cubans participated in the exercise, the resulted of which being that 49 % of the contents of the proposed Code were changed. In the end, 62 % of Cubans who participated expressed approval of the Code. Finally, version 25 of the Family Code moved on to the National Assembly and its approval came on July 22.

Now the proposal qualified for the September 25 plebiscite. From the beginning to the end of the process, various reviewing bodies and the popular consultation had changed hundreds of the document’s articles and added new ones.

On display had been consistency of purpose, attention to detail, search for perfection, and commitment to objectives of the Code that, together, signify dedication to Cuba’s revolutionary underpinnings. The causes of equal rights, fairness, and safety for all Cubans, no one excluded, evidently have not lost their appeal.

A final observation would be admiration of Cuba’s socialist government and Cuban society for successfully pursuing a project made difficult because of special requirements and meanwhile they are having to cope with a crisis of survival. The latter, of course stems mostly from the U.S. economic blockade that has lasted for over 60 years. Evidently Cubans approach the job of governing with a seriousness entirely lacking in the capitalist United States. There, things are left to chance as wheelers and dealers advance their interests, divisions are cemented, and dark forces have a field day.

W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A CubaW.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine. solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine.