CUBA, victim of A blockade, not an embargo

I referred to this linguistic issue in the post below on the recent U.N. vote, but a little elaboration is necessary, as well as a response to the assertion by the U.S. envoy that "if the people of Cuba are jobless, hungry or lack medical care, as Castro admits, it is because of his economic mismanagement, not the embargo." Fidel Castro may or may not have admitted any such thing; if he did, it's because if there is a single person out of work, or hungry, or lacking medical care in Cuba, Castro feels it personally, unlike George Bush, who thinks that whatever levels of joblessness, hunger, or lack of medical care that exist in the U.S. are not only fine, but could even be increased without worrying too much, because we wouldn't want to put those tax cuts in jeopardy; better to cut food stamps instead.

But back on the question of alleged "economic mismanagement," here are just a few (out of many) statistics taken from the U.N. presentation by Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque:

"By virtue of the blockade, Cuban cannot export one single product to the United States. Given its proximity, Cuba could be exporting more than 30,000 tons of nickel or one million tons of sugar to the United States every year at a price three times higher than that which Cuba currently receives. It could also sell $180 million a year in Ateromixol by attaining just 1% of U.S. sales in cholesterol-reducing medications. According to the editors of the magazine Harvard International Review, it is the best anti-cholesterol drug available. In addition, Cuba would have exported almost $30 million in Havana Club rum to the United States last year and more than $100 million in tobacco.

"Cuba cannot receive tourism from the United States. If it had received just 15% of the 11 million American tourists who visited the Caribbean in 2004, Cuba would have had income of more than $1 billion."

Back to the linguistic point, the issues above are entirely bilateral, and could indeed fall under the term "embargo." But the blockade goes far, far beyond bilateral issues. If you have any question about that, you need to read Perez Roque's speech, because he lays out all the details of that issue, summarized with a single sentence of his: "The blockade is an economic war applied with unparalleled zeal at global level." If you read this speech, never again will you think "oh, it's just a word" when the U.S. media persists in using the word "embargo" to describe the policy of the U.S. government.

Another word you will never use is the word humane. Here's just one example from the speech, highly pertinent as flu season descends upon us:

"The Chiron Corporation has not made any sales to Cuba after being fined $168,500 last year because one of its European subsidiaries exported two children's vaccines to Cuba. Not nuclear weapons, not strategic rockets, two children's vaccines!"

That's our (if you're an American) government.