US Frustration in Its Desire to Dominate Cuba
By Roberto Perez Betancourt - AIN Special Service -
"It's one thing is to want and another is to be able," says an old proverb that Grandmother Nana recalled when mentioning US threats ever since that first day of January 1959, when the Revolution planted a new reality on the island.
She was one more of the hundreds of thousands of humble, illiterate people who recorded in their minds the injustices of the Spanish colonizers and the so-called "representative democracy" of that time.
I think of her when I look at Bush Plan, in effect since May 1, 2005, and which will be expanded next month with the objective of speeding the colonialist transition of a so-called "free Cuba". The interventionist policy envisions the sponsoring and financing of counter-revolutionary elements aiming to revert Cuban society to the days of a barbaric neo-colony; where exploitation by the US consortium, poverty, illiteracy, gambling, prostitution and drug-trafficking are rampant.
Washington does not hide its intentions and walks around with millions of dollars and influence which it will use to achieve its purpose. We can see the anxiety of the Bush administration, and also the inefficiency of its strategies - incapable of cutting down the resistance that the Cuban people have offered for so many years. Their struggle has been waged despite Washington's strengthening of its economic blockade against the island, restrictions against Cubans from traveling and the re-writing of the concept of family according to a neo-fascist interpretation in order to minimize monetary aid going to residents on the island. But after the plan went into effect, at the UN General Assembly in 2004 the international community overwhelmingly voted 179 to 3 in support of a Cuba resolution condemning Washington's blockade.
The following year, for the fourteenth consecutive time, the world reiterated its rejection of Washington's anti-Cuba policy. This time 182 nations supported Cuba, while only four voted against the resolution: the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau.
The response of the Cuban people during that period included a progressive increase in its annual GDP, the extension of health services to the neighborhood level, the implementation of an Energy Revolution on the basis of capital investments and a new savings plan, and the expansion of university education to 169 municipalities, just to mention a few social benefits for the public. Among the events which have contributed to the failure of the Bush Plan's objectives is Cuba's strengthening of commercial and financial ties with Venezuela, China and other countries and humanitarian aid offered by other nations. But we should not underestimate the damages caused by W. Bush's evil program, particularly the escalating of the economic war that has exacted damages estimated at some $82 billion.
Daily, the US administration dedicates its time to persecuting and fining those who travel to the island, imposing sanctions on banks and firms that trade with Cuba, and protecting terrorist in their criminal adventures, on which the government spends millions of taxpayers' dollars.
US actions add an increasing number of obstacles to the purchase of food and medicine and obstructs scientific, cultural, sports and academic exchanges as US authorities deny Americans and Cubans permission to travel between the two countries.
In this context, the arbitrary laws continue to do harm, just as the so called "Cuban Adjustment Act" encourages illegal migration. This motivates individuals to risk the currents of the Florida Straights with the promise of awarding anyone who reaches US soil residency --after having dared to overcome sharks, the coast guard and storms-- to become "political refugees."
After the Bush administration's unsuccessful realization of the plan's objectives, they have announced that new measures will be issued next month in an attempt to destabilize the island and destroy the Cuban people. But remembering Grandmother Nana, we must reiterate her proverb: "It's one thing is to want and another is to be able."
