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Cuba highlights futility of US embargo policies
Published: 21 October, 2010, 02:25
Edited: 21 October, 2010, 15:34
TAGS: Conflict, Politics, Cuba, USA, Economy
Put in place to topple Castro’s communist government and return the island to capitalism, the all-encompassing embargo has done neither. But, It has certainly impacted the lives of average Cubans.
October 19th marked a half-century of US sanctions against the Cuban government.
"The sanctions that were imposed on Cuba so many years ago were really designed to impoverish people," said Phyllis Bennis, the director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.
"The idea was if you make people poor, if you make people oppressed, they will turn on their government. The reality is it never works that way. They turn on the ones who are imposing the sanctions," Bennis said. "Sanctions are based on the idea that people are stupid. But they’re not. They know their own government isn’t responsible for the sanctions."
Cuba is one of 13 countries that currently face US sanctions. But rather than force dictators into submission, economic sanctions have principally affected the poor and the children.
When asked about the 567,000 Iraqi children who died as a direct result of US sanctions against Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq in the 1990s, then US Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright famously said, "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price – we think the price is worth it.”
“It has had a counterproductive affect almost since the day it was imposed,” he said.
Allowing US trade and interaction with Cuba allows for the flow of goods, ideas and more, which would have a greater impact on ending communism than the embargo.
US President Barack Obama once said he wanted to end the embargo, but as president he has not. He has slightly increased telecommunications services to Cuba and allowed divided family members to travel to Cuba in order to visit family.
The pro-embargo advocates are a powerful group and are made up of many Cubans living in the US in exile. The embargo has remained because of this domestic political movement. Keeping the embargo has more to do with domestic politics than Cuba itself, explained Eland.
He further argued that other US sanctions also exist for internal domestic political reasons.
“It’s too lame or timid to put on diplomatic slap of the wrist or diplomatic protest and it’s too much to go to war or to do covert operations. So, the politicians pick the middle ground,” said Eland.
He explained the embargo has had some impact, for example it has impeded access to technology and high end medial drugs.
“We’re really hurting the Cuban people by doing that,” said Wilkerson.
Speaking critically of Obama, Wilkerson said the US president has yet to even achieve the level of change that Bill Clinton sought during his administration.
“This tyranny of the small minority, south Florida mostly, but some from New Jersey and some even Nevada. The Senate majority leader Henry Reid is very indebted to a Cuban American who is a multimillionaire in the gambling industry in Nevada,” said Wilkerson. “This tyranny of the minority has forced American foreign policy into this really bad situation.”
Sanctions and embargos across simply do not work, but that does not seem to matter to US policy makers. Congress utilizes sanctions to say they made an effort. It gives elected officials an opportunity to feel good and allows them to tell their constituents that they have done something, explained Wilkerson.
Recently China has toyed with the idea of placing sanctions against the US, turning the tables.
“I think that would be absolutely marvelous and I would pray for them to be somewhat effective so we would get a dose of our own medicine,” said Wilkerson.
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Great report, but I challenge RT to interview some of cuban regular citizens, so people can really understand what is their point of view.
A few points: 1. Just let more Americans travel to Cuba!! That is better than financially strangling the Cuban people and their economy. 2. European and latin American nations have business with Cuba, and the information age has few boundaries. 3. Let Cuba choose it's leaders and government, not people who have never been to Cuba ( the latest generation of Cuban-Americans). People living in Cuba today have survived without Yankee help for over 50 years. 4. Last, Fidel and Raul Castro are slowly changing things. CUBA is for CUBANS, not meddling neighbours.
The communist dictator government of Cuba chosed back then, the communist dictator government of the Soviet Union, to be Cuba's ally instead of the USA. The USA is an enemy of any communist dictator government. The communist dictator government of Cuba supports terrorists groups that were responsible for attacking the USA on 9/11/2001. The communist dictator government of Cuba has allowed terrorists groups to train on the lands of Cuba. We, the people of the USA cannot support or fund any communist dictator government who supports terrorists no matter what the people of that country is suffering. We did not choose that government for them. We just cannot afford this. If we were to support or fund the communist dictator government of Cuba, then one day, we would be fighting these communists and terrorists in our own back yards! I will not let them, not on my watch! We will stay on the course, bringing terrorists to justice. I am proud to be an American for all the rights and freedom that we have. They cannot take that away from me, never!