3485. Russian Cities Will Join International Caravan Against US Blockade of Cuba

By Radio Cadena Agramonte, March 18, 2021

More than 10 Russian cities will join with initiatives to the International Caravan against the US blockade of Cuba, on March 27, Lena Loshkina, coordinator of the action program in this country, assured today.

At the head of the Russian Committee to Fight for the Elimination of the Blockade on Cuba, the activist explained to Prensa Latina that if the weather permits that day, in the city of Zhukovsky , in the Moscow region, the aerostat with the image of the Commander Ernesto Che Guevara.

He recalled that his pilot, Igor Naimilov , has carried out this mission for years. In the basket appears a call for the lifting of the blockade on Cuba, a message that he shares in the various balloon festivals in Russia and other countries where he participates.

Loshkina said that members of the Venceremos Social Movement plan to hold protest actions in front of the US embassy in Moscow.

He reported that activists from the Committee and the Russian Society of Friendship with Cuba participated in activities in Saint Petersburg, Magnitogorsk , Lugansk , Donetsk, Tyumen , among other cities in the country.

Unfortunately, the bike race format is not available to us in Russia because of the level of the snow cover, he
commented, but indicated that society activists in Transnistria promised to hold a car race.

Loshkina urged those who cannot participate in direct action to support us this day with their activity on social media.

In this regard, he pointed out that both the Society and the Committee will do everything possible to transmit from Russia, through the Europe for Cuba channel, YouTube, details about the passage of the Caravan through the country and the world.

In addition to preparing the actions in Russia, Loshkina stressed that at the moment the Committee is helping the organizers of the Caravan, the Europa por Cuba channel, to promote this initiative among as many friends as possible in the world.

We are confident that the action will not only sound strong on all five continents, including Russia, but that it will actually make a tangible contribution to the fight against the genocidal blockade of the island of freedom, he stressed.

The Russian activist pointed out that people around the world must see with their own eyes that Cuba is not alone. 

2741. Cuba Will Persevere: Cuba's Foreign Minister's Speech at the United Nations

By Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Granma, November 2, 2017

Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla speaking at the United Nations

Editorial note: Full text of speech by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, on the "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba," in United Nations headquarters, New York, November 1, 2017

*     *     *

Mr. President;

Your Excellencies permanent representatives;

Distinguished delegates;

U.S. citizens and Cubans resident in the United States who are present in this hall:

I would like to express to the people and government of the United States; Mayor Bill De Blasio; Governor Andrew Cuomo; and other authorities in New York; as well as its citizens and especially families of the victims, our most heartfelt condolences, in the name of the Cuban people and government, for the terrorist attack which occurred yesterday afternoon.

I also express our sincere condolences to the peoples and government of Argentina and Belgium.

Mr. President:

I express the most energetic condemnation of the disrespectful, offensive, and interventionist statements made by the United States Ambassador to the United Nations against Cuba and against the Cuban government, a few minutes ago.

I recall that the United States, where flagrant violations of human rights are committed, of deep concern to the international community, does not have the slightest moral authority to criticize Cuba, a small, solidary country, with an extensive, recognized international record; an honorable, hard-working, and friendly people.

She spoke in the name of the head of an empire that is responsible for most of the wars in progress on the planet today, and which murders innocent people, and is the decisive factor in instability worldwide and the very serious threats to peace and international security, trampling international law and the United Nations Charter, which she has just cynically evoked.

It has not been 55 years, Madam Ambassador, you erred in your first sentence; it has been 26 of these sessions, and more than half a century since the events being discussed today originated.

She lies, uses the same style that predominates in U.S. politics today. This all began before the Cuban nation even existed. When the Cuban people, for the first time rose up in arms in 1868, the appetite for annexation and domination, of what was and is today U.S. imperialism, had already been unleashed.

In 1898, using a pretext - as is characteristic of the modern history of the United States: the explosion of the ship, the Maine, in a Cuban port, they entered as allies of Cuban independence forces and then occupied the country as invaders, and imposed the Platt Amendment, cutting short the independence and sovereignty of Cuba; they conducted three military occupations, imposed 60 years of total domination that ended January 1, 1859, with the entry of the Rebel Army to Havana and the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, that continues to this day carrying on the same struggles that have inspired our people for over 100 years. (Applause)

She lies, she used a phrase, attributing a statement on the so-called October or Missile Crisis to a supposedly Cuban source. I invite her to state the source, to state its author, to present evidence. It sounds like one of the tweets proliferating in this country, in these times of hate, division, and dirty politics. (Applause)

When the Cuban Revolution triumphed, the United States set regime change as its objective. The policy announced by President Trump on June 16 is not new; it is the same policy, it is an old policy anchored in the past.

She mentioned the illustrious U.S. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson. She forgot to say that he was the person who, deceived by his own government, had the unfortunate duty during a session of the Security Council, to show photos of supposed Cuban aircraft, actually of U.S. origin, bearing the emblem of the Cuban Air Force, that on April 15 bombed the city of Havana, caused numerous casualties, and was the prelude to the attack, the invasion, at Playa Girón or the Bay of Pigs.

These bombings and the involuntary lie of Ambassador Stevenson, who had been deceived by his government, occurred even before the declaration of the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution. These bombings took place prior to the declaration of the socialist character of our Revolution.

She has spoken of the October Crisis.

She has spoken of the days of President Kennedy's assassination, and the declassification of documents. They have really been hidden from the U.S. people too long. Declassify them all.

But if she wants to talk about these issues, I suggest she read the book

Trained to Kill: The Inside Story of CIA Plots against Castro, Kennedy, and Che, by CIA agent Veciana, in which he recounts his meeting with CIA agent David Phillips and with Lee Harvey Oswald, in Dallas, during the third week of September, 1963.

It has been a history of lies and aggression: Operation Northwoods, Operation Mongoose. Information was just declassified showing that at that time the United States had prepared 261,000 soldiers, ready for a direct invasion of Cuba. Functioning in Florida was the CIA's largest base in history, until that time, with more than 700 agents, until the creation of the even bigger CIA base in Saigon.

She uses a style reminiscent of the trial of Alice in Wonderland: sentence first, trial later.

I speak for my people, and I also speak for those who cannot call President Trump or the U.S. Ambassador by their name, but feel and think like me.

At least she has recognized the total isolation of the United States in this hall and in the world. You are alone on the issue of the blockade of Cuba! (Applause) She ignores the power of the truth, underestimates the strength of an idea at the bottom of a cave, which is more powerful than an army, as José Martí said, who wrote, carrying it on his chest, in an unfinished letter with the following phrase: "Everyday I am in danger of giving my life for my country, for my duty… to prevent in time, with the independence of Cuba, that the United States extends itself into the Antilles and falls, with this added strength, upon the lands of our America."

Ambassador, everything began much more than 26 years ago, much more than 55 years ago. Along with the military aggression, the fabrication of pretexts, plans for a direct invasion, measures taken to strangle our economy, state terrorism, destabilization, and subversion, they proposed - and I quote the infamous letter by Undersecretary of State Lester Mallory, signed April 6, 1960

- promoting "… disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship… all possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba … denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages…"

The blockade of Cuba was created "to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”

Nonetheless, when President Raúl Castro Ruz and President Barack Obama made those surprising, hopeful announcements, December 17, 2014, President Obama described the blockade as failed and obsolete, ineffective in achieving its objectives, causing harm to the Cuban people and the isolation of the U.S. government. Later he described it as useless in advancing U.S. interests, failed, senseless, not viable, and a burden for citizens.

But the blockade was never recognized as a flagrant, massive, and systematic violation of the human rights of Cubans, which the United States Ambassador cynically omitted a few hours ago, nor was it recognized as inconsistent with international law or as an act of genocide, as defined by the Geneva Convention, nor was its goal of subjugating our people renounced.

Nonetheless, the President of the United States at that time repeatedly stated his intention to use his executive powers, and work with Congress, to lift the blockade.

A concrete reflection of this intention was the U.S abstention, in 2016, during the vote on this resolution, which the United States Ambassador has just mocked.

During this period, substantive progress was made in terms of diplomatic relations, dialogue, and cooperation in areas of mutual interest and benefit; but during these last two years, the blockade was maintained, in all fundamental aspects, although some executive decisions were made to modify its implementation in a very limited fashion, but moving in a positive direction. The way in which the use of travel licenses was expanded was significant, given the legislative prohibition on travel to Cuba, that constitutes a violation of the rights and civil liberties of U.S. citizens, which she also failed to mention. Tangible results were also achieved in bilateral cooperation, to our mutual benefit, in such important arenas as confronting terrorism, drug trafficking, and digital crime.

Mr. President:

This past June16, President Donald Trump proclaimed the blockade the fundamental axis of his anti-Cuban policy, and announced a series of measures meant to reinforce it.

In an antiquated, hostile anti-Cuban speech, reminiscent of the Cold War, and before an auditorium composed, among others, of rancid Batista henchmen, annexationists, and terrorists, the U.S. government returned to worn-out allegations of supposed human rights violations in Cuba to justify the tightening of the blockade. From this podium, heard this morning was his echo, his echo chamber.

President Trump does not have the slightest moral authority to question Cuba.

He leads a government of millionaires who intend to implement brutal measures against the poor and low income families of this country, minorities and immigrants. He follows a program which encourages hate and division, and promotes a dangerous idea of exceptionalism and supremacy disguised as patriotism, and which will lead to more violence. He ignores the will of voters: two thirds of U.S. citizens and Cuban residents in the United States, as well, support an end to the blockade.

Current U.S. policies harm citizens; corruption reigns in politics which have been hijacked by so-called special interests, that is, by the interests and the money of corporations: no support for education, health, or social security; restrictions on union organizing; and terrible gender-based discrimination.

Deserving of condemnation are the use of torture; police murders of African-Americans; civilian deaths caused by its troops; the indiscriminate, racially motivated death penalty; the murders, repression, and police surveillance of immigrants; the separation of families; the detention and deportation of minors; and the brutal measures threatening the children of undocumented immigrants who grew up and were educated in the United States.

This is the government that lost the popular vote.

The United States Ambassador has expressed her dream. I prefer to repeat that of Martin Luther King, when he said, "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal." Let freedom ring. (Applause)

She has come to tell us that she recognizes that the future of the island rests in the hands of the Cuban people. She is telling an absolute lie. It was never this way, throughout history. It has been a history of domination and hegemony over Cuba.

The announced policy proposes turning back relations to a past of confrontation, to satisfy the spurious interests of extremist circles within the U.S. right and a frustrated, aging, minority of Cuban origin in Florida.The Presidential Memorandum establishing the policy toward Cuba includes, among other measures, new prohibitions on economic, commercial, and financial relations between U.S. companies and Cuban enterprises.

It additionally restricts the freedom to travel of U.S. citizens with the elimination of individual trips under the so-called category of “people-to-people” exchanges, and increased surveillance for the rest of visitors from that country.

In recent weeks, President Donald Trump has reiterated on four separate occasions, (including before this Assembly this past September), that his government will not lift the blockade on Cuba unless it makes changes to its internal order.

Today I reiterate that Cuba will never accept preconditions or impositions and we remind the President and his Ambassador that this approach, applied by a dozen of his predecessors, has never and will never work. It will be just one more example of a policy anchored in the past.

More recently, under the pretext of the health conditions of some diplomats in Havana, without the slightest evidence of their cause and origin - because they lie when they speak of attacks or incidents - or the results of ongoing investigations, the government of the United States adopted new measures of a political nature against Cuba, which intensify the blockade and affect bilateral relations in their entirety.

Among them, it suspended the issue of visas for Cuban travelers and emigrants at its consulate in Havana, which undermines the right of citizens to travel freely and visit that country for short periods, as more than 163,000 Cubans have done this year, and seriously hinders the family reunification of others, under the bilateral agreement to grant no less than 20,000 immigrant visas per year. The requirement of an in-person interview with Cuban travelers in U.S. consulates in third countries, and with emigrants in the U.S. consular section in Bogotá, will greatly increase the cost of the procedure and make them unfeasible for a large number of them. Where are their rights in the United States’ discourse?

There is no way to justify harming people and families to try to achieve political objectives against the constitutional order in Cuba.

The U.S. government, with the political purpose of limiting travel and damaging international tourism to Cuba, also issued an unfounded and utterly dishonest warning to U.S. citizens to avoid visiting our country.

Through the unjustified expulsion of personnel at our Consulate General in Washington, the only one in the United States, the capacity to provide services to U.S. travelers and especially to Cuban residents here, who have the absolute right to visit and interact normally with their nation, has been severely limited.

Equally, the U.S. arbitrarily and groundlessly reduced the personnel of our Embassy, which has caused, among other consequences, the dismantling of its Economic-Commercial Office, with the malicious political aim of eliminating dialogue with the U.S. business sector, genuinely interested in exploring existing business opportunities, even within the restrictive framework of blockade regulations.

Nor is it surprising, considering what the Ambassador has said here, or her leaders previously, that the President of the United States ignores the unanimous international support for the progress that he is now reversing, or the similar demand for an immediate, total, and unconditional end to the blockade.

Mr. President:

As President Raúl Castro Ruz expressed, on July 14, “We reaffirm that any attempt to destroy the Revolution, whether through coercion and pressure, or the use of more subtle methods, will fail… Cuba is willing to continue discussing pending bilateral issues with the United States, on the basis of equality and respect for the sovereignty and independence of our country, and to continue respectful dialogue and cooperation in issues of common interest with the U.S. government.

“Cuba and the United States can cooperate and coexist, respecting our differences and promoting everything that benefits both countries and peoples, but it should not be expected that, in order to do so, Cuba will make concessions essential to its sovereignty and independence… nor will it negotiate its principles or accept conditions of any kind, just as we have never done throughout the history of the Revolution.” End of quote. (Applause).

Mr. President:

Cuba presents today, for the 26th consecutive time before the United Nations General Assembly, the draft resolution (entitled) “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

In the current situation, this text acquires special relevance in the face of the setback that the actions of the new government of the United States against Cuba signal.

The blockade constitutes the greatest obstacle to the country’s economic and social development and the implementation of the National Plan, in line with the United Nations 2030 Agenda. It is the main obstacle to the development of economic, commercial. and financial relations between Cuba and the United States and the rest of the world.

According to calculations rigorously conducted by Cuban institutions, the blockade caused, in the year from April 2016 to April 2017, losses to the Cuban economy on the order of 4.305 billion dollars.

This figure is about double what would be needed as annual direct foreign investment for the Cuban economy to advance substantially toward development.

The accumulated damages reached the enormous figure of 822.280 billion dollars, calculated considering the devaluation of the U.S. dollar vis-à-vis the price of gold. At current prices, this is the equivalent of 130.178 billion dollars.

Dozens of banks in third countries have been affected in the last period by the extreme and tenacious persecution of Cuban financial transactions.

The blockade is contrary to International Law and its aggressively extraterritorial application damages the sovereignty of all states. It also harms economic and business interests in all latitudes.

Mr. President:

The Ambassador of the United States failed to mention that the blockade is a flagrant, massive, and systematic violation of the human rights of Cubans, and constitutes an act of genocide under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It is also an obstacle to the international cooperation that Cuba provides in humanitarian areas to 81 countries of the South.

The human damages caused by the application of this policy are incalculable. There is not a Cuban family or social service in Cuba that does not suffer the deprivations and consequences of the blockade. Cuban émigrés also suffer discrimination and prejudices.

Over the last year, the Cuban importer and exporter of medical products,

Medicuba S.A., made requests to purchase supplies from 18 U.S. companies that refused or never responded.

Others, such as the U.S. corporation Promega, recognized for the production of diagnostic kits to determine viral load in patients with HIV-AIDS, hepatitis C, or kidney diseases, refused in June 2017 to sell its products to Medicuba S.A., alleging that the Treasury Department maintains commercial sanctions that prohibit the sale of its products to the island.

On that same date, and with the same argument, the refusal to supply to Cuba was received from the company New England Biolabs Inc., which markets a wide range of enzymes, such as Proteinase K, which is a reagent that permits diagnosis of viral diseases such as dengue, zika, and chikungunya, as well as other enzymes with multiple uses for the diagnosis of congenital malformations of fetuses. and to determine compatibility between organ donors and patients who are to undergo kidney, bone marrow, or liver transplants, among others.

Using the same argument, this company refused to provide supplies of a totally humanitarian nature to Cuba.

In April 2017, the German supplier Eckert & Ziegler Radiopharma Gmbh, refused to supply to the same Cuban medical enterprise the Ge-68/Ga-68 Generator, or its components, which is a device used to diagnose prostate cancer. According to the company, it was not possible to directly supply the product to Cuba, or through a third country, because the blockade prevented it from doing so.

The cardiology service of the Hermanos Ameijeiras Clinical and Surgical Hospital urgently requires a circulatory assist device to treat cardiogenic shock, for interventional cardiology and electrophysiology, allowing for the recovery of patients suffering from heart failure and prolonging their lives.

The U.S. company Abiomed, global leader in this market, supplies the Impella system, ideal for treating these conditions. In September 2016 and February 2017, Medicuba S.A. contacted the company in order to study the possibility of incorporating the product into the Cuban health system, which to date has refused to respond.

Mr. President:

We are deeply grateful to all the governments and peoples, parliaments, political forces and social movements, civil society representatives, international and regional organizations that have contributed with their voice and their vote, year after year, to support the justice and urgency of the abolition of the blockade.

We also extend our gratitude to the vast majority of the American people for their support of this commendable goal.

It offends humanity’s conscience that the Ambassador of the United States has referred to the Bolivarian government of Venezuela in an unacceptable and interventionist way. She offends the heroic Venezuelan people, their civic-military union, and the Bolivarian Chavista government, led by President Nicolás Maduro Moros.

The government of the United States lies when it declares Venezuela a threat to its national security, which has, curiously, the largest certified hydrocarbon reserves on the planet.

As the Liberator Simón Bolívar wrote, “… the United States appear destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” I respond to the Ambassador with Bolívar’s words.

We are in the midst of a clean, constitutional electoral process in Cuba, where seats are not bought, nor do special interests prevail, where there are no deceptive campaigns where money rules; elections in which the will of voters is not manipulated; elections in which division and hatred are not incited.

Mr. President:

We especially commend all those who have expressed concern and their rejection of the coercive measures announced by the current U.S. government.

The Cuban people will never give up building a sovereign, independent, socialist, democratic, prosperous and sustainable nation. (Applause).

We will persevere, with the consensus of our people and especially the patriotic commitment of the youngest Cubans, in the anti-imperialist struggle and in defense of our independence, for which tens of thousands of Cubans have already fallen and we have run the greatest risks, as we demonstrated in Playa Girón and in the face of all threats.

We will maintain eternal loyalty to the legacy of José Martí and Fidel Castro Ruz. (Applause).

Mr. President:

Distinguished permanent representatives;
Esteemed delegates:

Our people are following this debate with hope. On their behalf, I request that you vote in favor of draft resolution A/72/L.30, “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

Many thanks. (Prolonged applause).

Exclamations of: "Viva Cuba!" "Cuba sí, bloqueo no!"

2635. U.S. Occupation of Guantánamo Naval Base Territory

By Ernesto Londoño, The New York Times, June 16, 2017

A postcard of the naval station at Guantánamo, Cuba, circa 1910.Credit Allan Seiden/Legacy Archive, via Getty Images

Guantánamo Bay, Cuba — The $4,085 check is delivered each year in April, addressed to the Treasurer General of the Republic of Cuba. That position ceased to exist decades ago. The Cuban government last cashed it in 1959.

Yet by submitting that paltry payment year after year, knowing it won’t be accepted, the United States continues to feel entitled to its oldest overseas naval base, a 45-square-mile sliver of prime coastline in southeast Cuba that is unlike any other military installation in the world.

On Friday, the Trump administration announced a partial rollback of the Obama administration’s opening with Cuba — limiting travel and business interactions. President Trump is once again recasting the relationship between the two neighbors as one of subjugation. Few issues exemplify this toxic dynamic as starkly as the convoluted history of how the United States came to open a naval base in this part of Cuba.

Guantánamo is best known today for the legal travesty it enabled in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, as the Bush administration deemed it the ideal locale to detain hundreds suspected of being terrorists in a territory that was under American control but ostensibly beyond the reach of constitutional protections. Since the prison was established in 2002, the legal status of the detainees has been at the heart of a contentious debate and a source of international condemnation.

What to do about the remaining Guantánamo prisoners remains a vexing, unresolved question. There are bigger ones, though, that American politicians have opted to ignore: Is it legally defensible to hold on to the territory in perpetuity? Have we become squatters in paradise?During the presidential campaign, Donald Trump vowed to keep Guantánamo open and “load it up with some bad dudes.” Since then, though, there has been no word from the White House or from Congress about the future of the prison, where only 41 detainees remain in a facility built to hold several hundred, or of the base, which is home to more than 5,000 service members and civilians. I visited Guantánamo for a few days this year hoping to get a sense of what the next phase for this bizarre base will entail.

To understand what should happen next, a bit of history is in order.

The United States formally acquired Guantánamo after it supported Cuba’s revolt against Spanish colonial rule. In 1901, the United States forced newly independent Cuba to agree to a set of conditions before withdrawing American troops from the island. The terms gave the United States the right to intervene in Cuba whenever it saw fit and to buy or lease lands “necessary for coaling or naval stations.” The initial lease for Guantánamo was set at $2,000 per year, paid in gold coins. The deal can be rescinded only by mutual consent.

Shortly after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, the Cuban government demanded the withdrawal of American forces from Guantánamo and over the years has inserted increasingly explicit language in its Constitution to make clear it considers the base unlawfully occupied territory.

Is the continued American presence at Guantánamo sound under international law? The short answer is no.

“It amounts to a belligerent occupation,” said Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, an international law scholar who believes the base runs afoul of principles laid out in the Vienna Convention. Yet, he added, there’s no expectation of resolving the clash over Guantánamo mainly because “Cuba is not in a position to throw the United States in the water.”

Even if the base’s legal standing were sound, do we need it? Senior military officials argue that we do. Beyond the prison, they say, the base serves as a transit point for Cuban refugees who are intercepted at sea and manage to articulate a credible fear that they would be in danger if they were to return home. It has also served as a logistics hub to respond to natural disasters.

Adm. Kurt Tidd, who heads the Southern Command, told me that Guantánamo could once again come in handy in the event of a mass migration crisis, a scenario his troops routinely plan for through weekslong simulated drills that cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Sticking around to triage a future refugee crisis might sound laudable. But as of early March, there were 28 Cuban migrants on base, waiting to be resettled to a country other than the United States. Between direct employees and contractors, the International Organization for Migration employs about 18 people to oversee the migrants’ care. Given the severity of refugee crises elsewhere, and reasonable alternatives for what has become a trickle of Cuban refugees, is this a fiscally responsible endeavor?

Before Sept. 11, Guantánamo had become a sleepy facility run by a skeleton crew. It now includes more than 1,400 buildings, according to the Navy. That makes Guantánamo larger than the naval base in Bahrain, home to the Fifth Fleet, and the naval base in Rota, Spain, which are among the Pentagon’s most strategically valuable overseas hubs.

While rent is certainly a bargain, running a base on territory deemed by the host to be illegally occupied is costly. The Cubans cut off the base from the power grid and water supply decades ago, so Guantánamo has to desalinate its water supply and generate its own power. Since hiring Cuban laborers is not an option, menial jobs are outsourced to Jamaican and Filipino contractors.

The detention task force in Guantánamo costs roughly $80 million per year, according to a spokesman. Separately, Congress appropriated $181 million for the current fiscal year for base operations. The latter figure is just slightly lower than the $195 million allocated for operations in Turkey, one of the primary hubs for the military campaign against the Islamic State. If one assumes the prison continues to be the primary reason to keep the base open, its current budget works out to $6.3 million per detainee. (The average yearly cost of a federal detainee in 2015 was just under $32,000.)

As the detainee population decreased during the final years of the Obama administration — which sought, and failed, to shut down the prison and transfer the remaining detainees to a facility in the United States — the Pentagon has embarked on a building spree at the base. Last July it issued a callout for construction contracts worth $240 million. The month before, the Pentagon awarded a $66 million contract to a firm owned by a Cuban-American family to build a new school on the base for the children of people posted there for long periods.

Congress has not seriously questioned the merits of this buildup. During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in March 2016, only one lawmaker argued that the United States should rethink its claim to the land. “This is in my mind something that could be well characterized as colonialism,” Representative Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida, who is no longer in Congress, said during the hearing.

Might the Cubans be willing to allow the United States military to remain on the base under a new agreement similar to those that regulate the presence of American service members on foreign soil across the world? David Kohner, the chairman of the Maritime History Center at the United States Naval War College, thinks this is the right time to be raising that question, considering President Raúl Castro of Cuba is expected to step down next year.

“This is a difficult history, but history is what it is,” he said, emphasizing the need to move on from the terms of a lease signed in 1903.

Since the Obama administration began normalizing relations with Cuba in late 2014, the two governments have begun cooperating more closely on maritime security, migration flows, counternarcotics and law enforcement matters. Mr. Trump’s shift on Cuba, ostensibly on human rights grounds, is an aberration for an administration that coddles brutal autocrats abroad and contradicts the foreign policy philosophy Secretary of State Rex Tillerson outlined during a recent Senate hearing. “We are motivated by the conviction that the more we engage with other nations on issues of security and prosperity, the more we will have opportunities to shape the human rights conditions in those nations,” Mr. Tillerson said.

The American presence in Guantánamo has long been a thorn in the Cuban psyche, a reminder of an era of American domination that is taught early and often in Cuban schools.

Carlos Alzugaray, a scholar who served as a Cuban diplomat from 1961 until the mid-1990s, told me there had been discussions during his time in government about what the Cuban government could do to challenge Washington’s claim on the territory. For instance, Havana could seek an opinion from the International Court of Justice on the legality of the American presence in Guantánamo or submit a detailed diplomatic note demanding the return of the territory.

“It could be presented constructively,” said Mr. Alzugaray, who lives in Havana. “It would be sensible if they asked us for 10 years to leave.”

Mr. Alzugaray said the prospect of negotiating a permanent American presence in Guantánamo is dim but not impossible.

“It would require finding a solution in which Cuban sovereignty is respected,” he said, noting that whatever happens, it shouldn’t continue as it is forever. “Here, it is something everyone feels hurt by.”

2253. Fidel Castro: "Brother Obama"

By Fidel Castro Ruz, Granma, March 28, 2016 

Fidel Castro meeting with Venezuela presidentNicolas Maduro on March 19, 2016. Photo: Juventud Rebelde/EPA.

The kings of Spain brought us the conquistadores and masters, whose footprints remained in the circular land grants assigned to those searching for gold in the sands of rivers, an abusive and shameful form of exploitation, traces of which can be noted from the air in many places around the country.

Tourism today, in large part, consists of viewing the delights of our landscapes and tasting exquisite delicacies from our seas, and is always shared with the private capital of large foreign corporations, whose earnings, if they don’t reach billions of dollars, are not worthy of any attention whatsoever.

Since I find myself obliged to mention the issue, I must add - principally for the youth - that few people are aware of the importance of such a condition, in this singular moment of human history. I would not say that time has been lost, but I do not hesitate to affirm that we are not adequately informed, not you, nor us, of the knowledge and conscience that we must have to confront the realities which challenge us. The first to be taken into consideration is that our lives are but a fraction of a historical second, which must also be devoted in part to the vital necessities of every human being. One of the characteristics of this condition is the tendency to overvalue its role, in contrast, on the other hand, with the extraordinary number of persons who embody the loftiest dreams.

Nevertheless, no one is good or bad entirely on their own. None of us is designed for the role we must assume in a revolutionary society, although Cubans had the privilege of José Martí’s example. I even ask myself if he needed to die or not in Dos Ríos, when he said, “For me, it’s time,” and charged the Spanish forces entrenched in a solid line of firepower. He did not want to return to the United States, and there was no one who could make him. Someone ripped some pages from his diary. Who bears this treacherous responsibility, undoubtedly the work of an unscrupulous conspirator? Differences between the leaders were well known, but never indiscipline. “Whoever attempts to appropriate Cuba will reap only the dust of its soil drenched in blood, if he does not perish in the struggle,” stated the glorious Black leader Antonio Maceo. Máximo Gómez is likewise recognized as the most disciplined and discreet military chief in our history.

Looking at it from another angle, how can we not admire the indignation of Bonifacio Byrne when, from a distant boat returning him to Cuba, he saw another flag alongside that of the single star and declared, “My flag is that which has never been mercenary...” immediately adding one of the most beautiful phrases I have ever heard, “If it is torn to shreds, it will be my flag one day… our dead raising their arms will still be able to defend it!” Nor will I forget the blistering words of Camilo Cienfuegos that night, when, just some tens of meters away, bazookas and machine guns of U.S. origin in the hands of counterrevolutionaries were pointed toward that terrace on which we stood.

Obama was born in August of 1961, as he himself explained. More than half a century has transpired since that time.

Let us see, however, how our illustrious guest thinks today:

“I have come here to bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas. I have come here to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people,” followed by a deluge of concepts entirely novel for the majority of us:

“We both live in a new world, colonized by Europeans,” the U.S. President continued, “Cuba, like the United States, was built in part by slaves brought here from Africa. Like the United States, the Cuban people can trace their heritage to both slaves and slave-owners.”

The native populations don’t exist at all in Obama’s mind. Nor does he say that the Revolution swept away racial discrimination, or that pensions and salaries for all Cubans were decreed by it before Mr. Barack Obama was 10 years old. The hateful, racist bourgeois custom of hiring strongmen to expel Black citizens from recreational centers was swept away by the Cuban Revolution - that which would go down in history for the battle against apartheid that liberated Angola, putting an end to the presence of nuclear weapons on a continent of more than a billion inhabitants. This was not the objective of our solidarity, but rather to help the peoples of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and others under the fascist colonial domination of Portugal.

In 1961, just one year and three months after the triumph of the Revolution, a mercenary force with armored artillery and infantry, backed by aircraft, trained and accompanied by U.S. warships and aircraft carriers, attacked our country by surprise. Nothing can justify that perfidious attack which cost our country hundreds of losses, including deaths and injuries

As for the pro-yankee assault brigade, no evidence exists anywhere that it was possible to evacuate a single mercenary. Yankee combat planes were presented before the United Nations as the equipment of a Cuban uprising.

The military experience and power of this country is very well known. In Africa, they likewise believed that revolutionary Cuba would be easily taken out of the fight. The invasion via southern Angola by racist South African motorized brigades got close to Luanda, the capital in the eastern part of the country. There a struggle began which went on for no less than 15 years. I wouldn’t even talk about this, if I didn’t have the elemental duty to respond to Obama’s speech in Havana’s Alicia Alonso Grand Theater.

Nor will I attempt to give details, only emphasize that an honorable chapter in the struggle for human liberation was written there. In a certain way, I hoped Obama’s behavior would be correct. His humble origin and natural intelligence were evident. Mandela was imprisoned for life and had become a giant in the struggle for human dignity. One day, a copy of a book narrating part of Mandela’s life reached my hands, and - surprise! - the prologue was by Barack Obama. I rapidly skimmed the pages. The miniscule size of Mandela’s handwriting noting facts was incredible. Knowing men such as him was worthwhile.

Regarding the episode in South Africa I must point out another experience. I was really interested in learning more about how the South Africans had acquired nuclear weapons. I only had very precise information that there were no more than 10 or 12 bombs. A reliable source was the professor and researcher Piero Gleijeses, who had written the text Conflicting Missions: Havana, Washington, and Africa, 1959-1976, an excellent piece. I knew he was the most reliable source on what had happened and I told him so; he responded that he had not spoken more about the matter as in the text he had responded to questions from compañero Jorge Risquet, who had been Cuban ambassador and collaborator in Angola, a very good friend of his. I located Risquet; already undertaking other important tasks he was finishing a course which would last several weeks longer. That task coincided with a fairly recent visit by Piero to our country; I had warned him that Risquet was getting on and his health was not great. A few days later what I had feared occurred. Risquet deteriorated and died. When Piero arrived there was nothing to do except make promises, but I had already received information related to the weapons and the assistance that racist South Africa had received from Reagan and Israel.

I do not know what Obama would have to say about this story now. I am unaware as to what he did or did not know, although it is very unlikely that he knew absolutely nothing. My modest suggestion is that he gives it thought and does not attempt now to elaborate theories on Cuban policy.

There is an important issue:

Obama made a speech in which he uses the most sweetened words to express: “It is time, now, to forget the past, leave the past behind, let us look to the future together, a future of hope. And it won’t be easy, there will be challenges and we must give it time; but my stay here gives me more hope in what we can do together as friends, as family, as neighbors, together.”

I suppose all of us were at risk of a heart attack upon hearing these words from the President of the United States. After a ruthless blockade that has lasted almost 60 years, and what about those who have died in the mercenary attacks on Cuban ships and ports, an airliner full of passengers blown up in midair, mercenary invasions, multiple acts of violence and coercion?

Nobody should be under the illusion that the people of this dignified and selfless country will renounce the glory, the rights, or the spiritual wealth they have gained with the development of education, science and culture.

I also warn that we are capable of producing the food and material riches we need with the efforts and intelligence of our people. We do not need the empire to give us anything. Our efforts will be legal and peaceful, as this is our commitment to peace and fraternity among all human beings who live on this planet.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 27, 2016

10:25 p.m.

2212. Obama to Visit Cuba in March, as Talks of Expanding Trade Begin

By Julie Herschfeld Davis, The New York Times, February 17, 2016

Rodrigo Malmierca, the Cuban minister of trade and foreign investment, during a U.S. Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Tuesday in Washington. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

WASHINGTON — President Obama will travel to Cuba within weeks, a senior administration official said on Wednesday, making a historic visit as part of an effort to end more than a half-century of estrangement and forge normalized relations with a Cold War adversary.

The administration will announce the trip — the first by a sitting president in 88 years, when Calvin Coolidge visited — on Thursday as top Commerce, Treasury and State Department officials are meeting privately with their Cuban counterparts in Washington for talks aimed at expanding business ties between the two nations.

Opening the discussions on Wednesday, Penny Pritzker, the commerce secretary, called on the government of Cuba to open its economy to American business and investment, saying the Cubans must do more to help facilitate commerce after the thaw between the two nations.

Ms. Pritzker said her department had acted aggressively since Mr. Obama’s December 2014 announcement to pave the way for American companies to do business in Cuba, granting 490 authorizations amounting to $4.3 billion last year alone — a roughly 30 percent increase over the previous year.

“But we need help from the Cuban side,” Ms. Pritzker said. “The U.S. companies that are attempting to do business in your country continue to face challenges.”

She added: “Without specific changes on your side that allow the private sector to engage, our changes will not unlock the opportunities for the Cuban people that both of us want to see.”

Tha talks, which began in a wood-paneled library at the Commerce Department within view of the White House, represent the latest effort by the Obama administration to push forward with the policy shift the president set in motion just over a year ago. But the process is vastly complicated by the American statutory trade and commercial embargo that has been in place for decades and that only Congress can lift.

While the Commerce and Treasury Departments have moved several times to loosen restrictions on travel and trade, Rodrigo Malmierca, the foreign trade and investment minister of Cuba, said the onus was on the United States to remove the embargo, and on Mr. Obama to essentially defang the laws that compose it in the meantime.

“These measures have been positive and are in the right direction, but still they are not sufficient in terms of the lifting of the main obstacle that we still confront that is the blockade,” Mr. Malmierca, who was seated opposite Ms. Pritzker as the talks began, said in Spanish through a translator. “We are aware of the fact that the blockade can only be fully lifted with the actions in Congress,” he added, but, “we know that the executive has prerogatives which can be used in terms of the dismantling, trying to void the blockade.”

The regulatory discussions began on Wednesday, a day after the signing in Havana of an arrangement allowing scheduled direct flights between the United States and Cuba for the first time in decades.

American carriers can begin applying to the Department of Transportation to offer the service — up to 20 scheduled flights a day to Havana and 10 to each of nine other international airports in Cuba. The pact aims to substantially increase travel between the two countries, which are currently served by only about a dozen charter flights a day.

But even as Mr. Obama makes progress in his drive to forge closer commercial ties with Cuba, the process is hamstrung by sanctions that have left American businesses wondering what they are permitted to do. Mr. Malmierca said on Tuesday that he had heard from many American companies that want to establish businesses in Cuba but are ensnared in regulatory limbo, awaiting special licenses from the United States government.

“The problem that we face today is that many companies want to do business, but we need to create the conditions for them to access the Cuban market,” Mr. Malmierca said at an event hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

He repeatedly said that Cuba welcomed American investment and would not “discriminate” against United States companies. “Lifting the blockade is essential to advancing this,” he said.

On Wednesday, Mr. Malmierca called on Mr. Obama to do more unilaterally, including allowing the dollar to be used in transactions with Cuba. On Tuesday, he said the president should lift the ban against imports of top Cuban products like rum and cigars and end the prohibition against direct investment in Cuba.

Critics argue that with each move to foster better relations and American investment, the president is rewarding a dictatorial government that infringes on human rights and squelches democratic discourse.

But Mr. Obama has argued that the best way to put pressure on the Cuban government is to expose its citizens to American values and ideals and through diplomatic channels re-established last year when embassies reopened in Havana and Washington.

This week’s technical talks are the second time since Mr. Obama announced the opening with Cuba in December 2014 that Ms. Pritzker and Mr. Malmierca have come together with officials from their governments to try to harmonize some aspects of their business regulations. Ms. Pritzker traveled to Havana in October to begin the discussions, which have been made even more labyrinthine on the American side by the statutory embargo.

The Obama administration announced last month that it was relaxing more restrictions on business with Cuba, including allowing United States banks to provide direct financing for the export of any product other than agricultural commodities, which are still walled off under the embargo.

2211. Whither Cuba?

By Cliff DuRand, Truthout.org, February 14, 20

Cuban President Raul Castro with President Barack Obama in Panama City, Saturday, April 11, 2015. Photo: Stephen Crowley / The New York Times.

The US strategy for undoing the Cuban Revolution was laid down in the Eisenhower years in this April 1960 State Department guideline:

"[E]very possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.... a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of the government." [Office of the Historian, Bureau Of Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State; John P. Glennon, et al., eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba -Washington D.C.: GPO, 1991, 885.]

Now 55 years later, the Obama administration has accepted that this hard line has not worked in Cuba. In any case, regime change would not produce a stable society - witness Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya etc.

Nevertheless, the basic objective of US policy remains the same, namely to bring Cuba back into the capitalist orbit. What is new in President Obama's strategy is to change Cuba, not through regime change, but by promoting capitalism within the country through support of a petty bourgeoisie. What is new in Obama's approach is an emphasis on economic rather than political subversion. What is new in Obama's policy is a turn away from regime change to systemic change. Recognizing the Cuban government does not mean accepting its socialist economic system. Our political elite still thinks it is entitled to remake Cuban society to its desires.

This strategy takes advantage of an opening to small private enterprise provided by the reforms now underway in Cuba. While not abandoning a central role for the state, basically, the reforms involve moving away from the state socialist model toward one with a far more active civil society. The opening section of the Guidelines on the Economic Management Model brings into focus the changed relation between the state and society that is envisioned.

The management model recognises and promotes, as well as the socialist state enterprise which is the principal form of the national economy, the legally sanctioned modalities of foreign investment (mixed enterprises, international contractual arrangements, among others), cooperatives, peasant farmers, lessors of state-owned farmland, lessors of state-owned premises, self-employed workers and other forms all of which, together, must contribute to boosting efficiency. [Guidelines #2]

Cuba is looking toward a far more mixed economy. Eighty-four percent of the Cuban workforce had worked for the state. This led to overstaffing and low worker motivation. The Cuban state has been the employer of last resort. One might even say, of first resort. As a result, at least 1 million state workers are redundant and the state can no longer afford that. So large numbers are being laid off and are shifting into the non-state sector of the economy. This growing sector encompasses the self-employed or cuentapropistas and the cooperatives. The small private businesses that had been expropriated in 1968 are now being recreated to absorb redundant state workers. There is a recognition that there is a place for a petty bourgeoisie in socialism. The state does not need to, nor is it able to do everything. Many economic activities can be left to individual entrepreneurs so long as they are regulated and taxed so the petty bourgeoisie does not become a big bourgeoisie. As the Guidelines state, "In the forms of non-state management the concentration of property [ownership] by juridical or natural persons shall not be permitted."

The renovation of socialism now under way in Cuba is an effort to reinvigorate civil society, opening up spaces for initiative outside of the state. In the next few years, the non-state sector of the economy, consisting of private businesses and cooperatives, is projected to provide 35 percent of employment and, along with foreign and joint enterprises, 45 percent of the gross domestic product. Addressing the problem of the lack of worker incentives under state socialism, these reforms are unleashing new productive energies that will lift the economy. But beyond that, they stand to replace the passive participation of state socialism with the proactive participation better suited to a democratic socialism. This implies a new relation between the state and civil society.

Obama's relaxation of relations with Cuba presents a new challenge for the revolution. While the belated decision to recognize that Cuba has its own government is to be commended, there is another, little noted aspect to the new US policy toward Cuba. This lies in numerous measures to assist in the development of a nascent capitalist class from the private business sector. A careful reading of the new US regulations reveals a concerted effort to direct resources to entrepreneurs within Cuba by means of remittances, material aid, training and trade.

For example, the level of remittances allowed is being increased so as to provide increased funding for private businesses. The December 17, 2014, White House press release says: "Remittance levels will be raised from $500 to $2,000 per quarter for general donative remittances to Cuban nationals (except to certain officials of the government or the Communist party.)" Similarly, the US Commerce Department announced in March that exports of equipment and supplies to Cuba are allowed as well as imports from Cuba - as long as the Cuban entity is independent of the government. The United States seeks to expand "opportunities for self-employment and private property ownership ... strengthening independent civil society." The White House explicitly states, "Our efforts aim at promoting the independence of the Cuban people, so they do not need to rely on the Cuban state."

Many observers expect a flood of US businesses into Cuba. But they forget that the embargo is still in place. Obama has relaxed aspects of it, but ending it would require congressional action - not a likely prospect in the near future. In any case, Cuba has been very open to foreign investment for 20 years. Cuba recently enacted a new law on foreign investment designed to make it more attractive to investors from abroad. US corporations are eager to get a piece of the action that the embargo has long denied them. But when they are able to get in, Cuba will no doubt apply the same kind of limits as it does on other foreign investment. That means the corporations will be in partnership with the Cuban state and for a specified number of years. Cuba is not about to give up its sovereignty.

What is more likely to transform Cuban society is the increased flow of money to individual private entrepreneurs in hopes of building the germ of a new capitalist class. This method takes advantage of Cuba's opening of a non-state sector of its economy.

But this non-state sector also includes cooperatives, which are a socialist form of property. While Cuba has had cooperatives since the early years of the revolution, they were limited to agriculture. As part of the reforms, in December 2012, the National Assembly passed an urban co-op law that establishes the legal basis for new urban co-ops. Here are some of its main provisions:

• A co-op must have at least three members, but can have as many as 60 or more. One vote per socio. As self-governing enterprises, co-ops are to set up their own internal democratic decision-making structures.
• Co-ops are independent of the state. They are to respond to the market. This is to overcome the limits that hampered some agricultural co-ops in the past.
• Co-ops can do business with state and private enterprises. They will set their own prices in most cases, except where there are prices established by the state.
• Some co-ops will be conversions of state enterprises, e.g. restaurants. They can have 10-year renewable leases for use of the premises, paying no rent in the first year if improvements are made.
• Others will be start-up co-ops.
• There will be second-degree co-ops, which are associations of other co-ops.
• Capitalization will come from bank loans, a new Finance Ministry fund for co-ops and member contributions. Member contributions are treated as loans (not equity) and do not give additional votes. Loans are to be repaid from profits.
• Co-ops are to pay taxes on profits and social security for socios.
• Distribution of profits is to be decided by socios after setting aside a reserve fund.
• Co-ops may hire wage labor on a temporary basis (up to 90 days). After 90 days a temporary worker must be offered membership or let go. Total temporary worker time cannot exceed 10 percent of the total workdays for the year. This gives co-ops flexibility to hire extra workers seasonally or in response to increased market demands, but prevents significant collective exploitation of wage labor.

As of July 2014, 498 urban co-ops had been authorized. There are additional co-ops that are functioning but not yet recognized as legal entities. This is a big step forward for Cuba. Cooperative members have an incentive to make the business a success. The co-op is on its own to either prosper or go under. Each member's income and security depends on the collective. And each has the same voting right in the General Assembly where co-op policy is made. Co-ops combine material and moral incentives, linking individual interest with a collective interest. Each member prospers only if all prosper. In a study of 29 new cooperatives, Camila Pineiro Harnecker [Camila Pineiro Harnecker, "Un acercamiento a las cooperativas en Cuba" (in publication).] found that incomes have increased an average of threefold and as much as sevenfold.

One of the new cooperatives I visited in June 2014 was a small bar and restaurant in a poor section of central Havana. A former state enterprise, the Okinawa bar cooperative has five members. It had been a cooperative for only eight months and the president told me that being able to make their own decisions is one of the greatest benefits they find. He was elected by his fellow workers. Interestingly, the former state manager, who is also a member, was not selected to lead the new cooperative.

The motivation engendered by this empowerment was dramatically demonstrated by a self-organized construction cooperative we met at the Institute of Philosophy. They were repairing the Institute building that had been badly damaged two years ago when the ceiling of the main first floor room collapsed, rendering most of the building unusable. A state construction company had made little progress on the repairs for the previous two years. But now the Institute has been able to engage this newly formed cooperative and in a short time, they have made major progress. Our group was scheduled to have a meeting at the Institute on a Monday morning. And between the previous Thursday and that morning, the ceiling had been rewired and plastered. And by the following week, the Institute staff was moving back into their offices on the second floor. The 20 co-op members are motivated by the fact that for the first time, they control their work. They make the decisions. This is a powerful demonstration of the strength of cooperatives.

What we are seeing with the promotion of new cooperatives in Cuba is the constituted power of the state nurturing constituent power in civil society.Cooperatives are a socialist form of property under democratic management. As such, cooperatives have the virtue of nurturing socialist values, responsibility, democratic decision-making, cooperation and social solidarity. They are little schools of socialism. They embed socialism into the daily life of working people, engendering a socialist civil society.

In this respect, they contrast with the new petty bourgeois, small- and medium-sized private businesses now also being opened by the self-employed. A petty bourgeoisie is seen as compatible with socialism - compatible as long as it is regulated and taxed so it doesn't become a big bourgeoisie. Great inequalities of income and accumulation of wealth are to be avoided - a cautionary note made in the Guidelines. But it is clear a petty bourgeoisie is not socialist; it does not nurture a socialist consciousness, but the narrow mentality of the petty shopkeeper. It does not nurture socialist social relations, but individualism. A petty bourgeoisie is compatible with socialism when kept within limits. But it is not socialist.

But cooperatives are socialist. They represent associated producers coming together on a small scale to govern their work life in a democratic way. It is this relation that the socialist transition needs to point toward. With the current opening to cooperatives, Cuba's state socialism is finding a new road forward. Socialism cannot be built top-down by state power alone. It has to be rooted at the base of society among ordinary people. Its values, its practices and its social relations have to be built into daily life where people live and work. This is the virtue of cooperatives. Cooperatives thus can help make socialism irreversible.

If a social order is to be sustainable over the long run, it needs to be rooted in the character of the people. Their values, their sensibilities, their taken-for-granted understandings, their very subjectivity needs to be consonant with its institutions. The socialist transition is a process that needs a people with a socialist character if it is to continue. The social relations of cooperatives help build such a character among the people.

That's why it is of the utmost importance that cooperatives be widely promoted. The benefits of cooperatives need to be publicized and training in cooperative practices needs to be available. There needs to be a network of promotoras who go out into society like the literacy workers in the early 1960s and teach the co-op way. The Cuban Institute of Philosophy is doing just that in central Havana. And our Center for Global Justice, which has been offering cooperative workshops for several years, here in Mexico, is collaborating with the Institute.

To state the current juncture in Cuba's efforts to construct socialism in bold terms, there is a race for the soul of Cuba between the cooperative movement and expanding private businesses. Which will make up the larger part of that one-third of non-state employment? Will it be socialist enterprises or proto-capitalist ones? The Cuban government is favoring the development of cooperatives. Obama is promoting private businesses. This is a smarter policy on his part. But, as a Cuban friend pointed out to me, "Ours is a smart revolution, too. We are a smart people."

Clearly, there are new challenges for the Cuban Revolution. How can the petty bourgeoisie be limited while still taking advantage of its dynamism? Here are some measures presently available:

• Promotion of an ideology of social responsibility for private businesses, perhaps enforced by the local community.
• A steeply graduated tax on private business profits.
• Steep import duties on imported supplies for private businesses.
• Requirement of a generous minimum salary.
• Unionization of employees and vigorous enforcement of workers' rights.
• A limit on the number of wage employees allowed in private businesses.
• Requirement that when a private business grows to a certain size, it be converted to a cooperative so all employees can share in the profits and decision-making.

A regulatory regime needs to be developed for the private sector. The state seems to be slow in developing this and some complain it is a wide-open free-for-all. Others see that as a virtue, pointing to small- and medium-sized private businesses as well as foreign investment as the key to needed economic growth. There are conflicting tendencies stirring in Cuba today among policy makers and their advisers. [Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, "Visiones sobre el socialismo que guían los cambios actuales en Cuba" TEMAS 2012]

But there are also strong advocates for cooperatives as the key to Cuba's future. Camila Piñeiro of the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy at the University of Havana is prominent among them. She argues that "these socioeconomic organizations are better prepared than private enterprises for economic management that satisfies social needs and promotes socialist social relations.... they facilitate the fulfillment of their members' material and spiritual needs, their full human development, ... they allow for socialist social relations based in equality, solidarity, democracy and justice." It is for such reasons that the state gives preferential treatment to cooperatives over other non-state businesses. [Camila Piñeiro Harnecker "Cuba's Cooperatives: Their Contribution to Cuba's New Socialism" in Moving Beyond Capitalism, Cliff DuRand, ed. (forthcoming).]

And that is also why Obama's aim is to help private businesses occupy as much of the non-state economic space as possible. Nevertheless, his new regulations apply to any Cuban entity that is "independent of the government." That includes cooperatives. So it is now legal for organizations in the United States to send donations to Cuban cooperatives, to send material assistance, to provide training and education, and even import goods from Cuban cooperatives, providing a wider market for their products. Progressives need to think seriously about how we can support the growth of cooperatives - genuine democratic worker-run cooperatives. Cuba is now open to that and Obama has cleared the way for us to accept this unique opportunity.

Obama's strategy is to change Cuba, not through regime change, but by promoting capitalism within the country through support of a petty bourgeoisie. After all, the fundamental objective of US policy has always been to bring Cuba back into the capitalist orbit. We have a unique situation in Cuba today. A socialist state is actively promoting cooperatives, thereby devolving economic power to people at the grassroots level. There is a rejuvenation of civil society underway - a socialist civil society. Solidarity calls on us to help it move forward along the road to a socialism for the 21st century.

Short Bibliography - Changes in Cuba

Beatriz Diaz, "Cooperatives Within Cuba's Current Economic Model" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/cooperatives_in_cuba_s_economic_model
Cliff DuRand, "Cuban National Identity and Socialism" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/cuban_national_identity

____ "Humanitarianism and Solidarity Cuban-Style" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/humanitarianism

____ "Cuba Today: A Nation Becoming a University" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/nation_becoming_a_university

____ "The Uniqueness of Cuba" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/uniqueness_of_cuba

____ "Cooperative Cuba" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/cooperative_cuba

____ "US Cuba policy: from Regime Change to Systemic Change" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/obama_s_new_cuba_policy

Marta Harnecker, A World to Build: New Paths Toward 21st Century Socialism (Monthly Review Press, 2015)

Michael A. Lebowitz, The Socialist Alternative: Real Human Development (Monthly Review Press, 2010)

Miguel Limia David, "The Training of Activists in Local Development" [2005] http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/training_in_local_development

Steve Martinot, "The Nation-state and Cuba's Alternative State" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/cuba_s_alternative_state

Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, "Visions of Socialism Guiding the Current Changes in Cuba" http://www.globaljusticecenter.org/visions_of_socialism

____ ed. Cooperatives and Socialism: A View from Cuba (Palgrave Macmillan 2013)

Henry Veltmeyer, Human Development: Lessons from the Cuban Revolution (Fernwood 2014)