Forty years of confrontation:
The United States vs Cuba

US attempts to annex Cuba span two centuries and Lilliam Riera, staff 
writer for Granma International says the history of the Cuban 
Revolution since January 1, 1959, has been one of confrontation with the 
United States, during which successive US administrations have acted as if 
they were still living in the last century.

The historical dispute between the US and Cuba goes back to the very 
beginnings of the USA, when President Jefferson announced his intention to 
add Cuba to the initial 13 colonies that gained their independence.

That annexationist trend was apparent throughout the whole of the 19th 
century, and as Jose Marti explained, Cuba remained under Spanish 
domination until the United States was ready to take possession of it.

That was in 1898, when the US intervened in the war being waged by Cuban 
patriots against the Spanish, denying the Cuban Liberation Army entry into 
Santiago de Cuba.

Having occupied the country by force, the US Government subsequently 
imposed the Platt Amendment, through which it appropriated the territory of 
the Guantanamo naval base and gave itself the right to dispatch troops at 
any time to any part of the island. The island became a neocolony.

Three stages in US hostility

Since the Cuban Revolution, US-Cuban relations can be divided into three 
stages.

The first period, immediately after the triumph of the Revolution, when 
Cuba was still economically dependent on the US, covered initial moves 
toward economic warfare and the island's isolation.

The second followed the establishment of relations with the Soviet Union 
and the socialist bloc, making Cuba less vulnerable to economic sanctions.

The US then accused Cuba of being a Soviet satellite, of exporting 
revolution to Central America and of constituting a military threat to the 
nearby superpower.

In the third stage, subsequent to the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and 
the European socialist bloc and in the context of a unipolar political 
situation, the blockade was intensified with the introduction of the 
Torricelli (1992) and Helms-Burton (1996) Acts.

Among other measures, the Torricelli Act prohibited US companies' 
subsidiaries in third countries from trading with Cuba, barred ships 
transporting merchandise to or from the island from entering US ports for a 
180-day period, and imposed sanctions on countries granting aid to Cuba.

Helms-Burton made non-compliance with blockade measures an obstacle to any 
country's relations with the United States.

The aim was to extend sanctions to a multilateral level and give them a 
global connotation and restrict foreign investment in the island — Cuba 
had opened its economy to foreign capital as a strategy for overcoming the 
crisis.

Figures from Cuba's Institute of Economic Research estimate that up until 
1995, additional costs resulting from the blockade totalled over US$60 
billion.

According to a United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report, the Cuban 
population has been directly affected given that the blockade includes 
medicines, foodstuffs and other essential goods.

Right from the start, in 1959, the quota of sugar that Cuba sold to the 
United States was initially reduced and then totally suspended; oil 
refining in US installations was prohibited and legislative steps were 
taken to establish the blockade.

Political and diplomatic pressure from Washington directed at the island's 
isolation provoked Cuba's exclusion from the Organisation of American 
States (OAS), and many nations in the region — with the exception of 
Mexico — broke off relations with Havana.

Even before any revolutionary measures were taken on the island, the US 
made its intentions explicit, welcoming criminals fleeing from Cuban 
justice and ignoring the extradition treaty in force at that time.

Moreover, Richard Nixon admitted to having convinced President Eisenhower 
in March 1959 to give the order to crush the Cuban Revolution. And that 
order was given.

Economic aggression

However, with the passage of the Agrarian Reform Act in May 1959, US 
hostility entered a more overt and complex phase.

Direct aggression against Cuban economic targets by the US Government, or 
with its complicity commenced, in the final months of that year, during 
which the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Cuban counter-
revolutionaries executed seven pirate attacks, including one on a central 
area of the capital.

"Civilian" aircraft flying out of US territory dropped weapons, subversive 
propaganda and bombs. Washington was opposed to the nationalisation of the 
large estates (latifundios) owned by US citizens and Cubans.

The socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution was proclaimed in April 1961, 
during an impressive demonstration of popular mourning for those who died 
during the bombings of the military base in Ciudad Libertad in the capital, 
San Antonio de los Baos west of Havana and the Santiago de Cuba civilian 
airport.

The Bay of Pigs invasion occurred the following day. John Kennedy's special 
advisor, Arthur Schlesinger, describes the conspiracy in his book A 
Thousand Days. He refers to a meeting on November 29, 1960, during 
which the US President received a detailed study for a new military 
initiative against the island through CIA chief Allen Dulles.

Moreover, in February of 1998, a report written by Lyman Kirkpatrick, a CIA 
Inspector General at the time, was declassified. It provides evidence of 
the agency's direct participation in the organisation and financing of the 
Bay of Pigs attack.

The invasion was defeated in less than 72 hours and has gone on record as 
the first US military defeat in Latin America.

Missile Crisis

Thanks to the swift response of firefighters and the inhabitants of 
Marianao, in the capital, and the People's Militia, 570 children were 
rescued from inside the Le Van Tan day-care centre alongside anti-aircraft 
tanks in the heart of the capital when terrorists on the CIA payroll set it 
on fire during the 1962 Missile Crisis in May 1980.

In the wake of the Bay of Pigs defeat, the aggression increased with 
subversive activities, sabotage, attempts on Fidel's life and direct 
military aggression. War games in the vicinity of the island confirmed 
preparations for a fresh invasion.

In those circumstances, Cuba accepted the installation of Soviet nuclear 
missiles on its territory as a means of dissuading the US from such plans.

On October 22, 1962, shortly after a US spy plane detected the presence of 
the missiles, that country's administration decreed a naval blockade of the 
Cuban archipelago.

During those days, which Ernesto Che Guevara later described as "sad and 
luminous", the entire country went into a defensive posture.

Discussions aimed at resolving the Missile Crisis failed to take Cuba's 
motivations into account.

The revolutionary government presented an independent program which could 
be summarised as a demand for respect for its sovereignty, an end to 
aggression and the return of the territory occupied by the Guantnamo base. 
This demand has still not been met.

The US budget for 1999 includes no less than US$2 million to support the 
activities of illegal groups on Cuba and over US$22 million to strengthen 
radio and television broadcasts attacking the island, among other projects.

Biological warfare

In the early '60s, the US began to draw up plans for bacteriological 
warfare — agricultural blights and animal diseases, sugarcane defoliants, 
bacteria affecting sugar and human viruses.

During the Nixon administration, for example, a 1972 hog epidemic led to 
the slaughter of half a million pigs.

Between 1979 and 1981, four destructive epidemics seriously affected humans 
and crops vital to the Cuban economy: hemorrhagic conjunctivitis, dengue 
fever, sugarcane rust and tobacco blue mould.

The Washington-based magazine Covert Action Quarterly stated that 
the CIA and the Pentagon were jointly responsible for introducing 
hemorrhagic dengue into Cuba.

Hundreds of people were infected and there were 158 deaths, among them 101 
children. 

In 1984, Eduardo Arocena, leader of the Omega 7 terrorist group, in court 
on a homicide charge, admitted to having participated in a 1980 operation 
to introduce viruses as part of the war against Cuba.

The string of terrorist acts against Cuban economic targets extends to 
recent times.

On September 4, 1997, Salvadoran Ral Ernesto Cruz Len was arrested in 
Havana after placing explosive devices in various hotels and a restaurant. 
One Italian youth was killed and seven people injured.

Cuban investigations and articles in the US press confirm that Cruz Len was 
part of a mercenary network organised and funded by the Cuban American 
National Foundation (CANF).

Known terrorist and CIA-FBI protege Luis Posada Carriles, who masterminded 
the sabotage of a Cubana Airlines plane that exploded in midair in October 
1976 with 73 persons on board, also appears to be involved in this case.

It is known that Posada, under White House orders, was part of a drug and 
arms trafficking operation in Central America and, just this year, he was 
in charge of a plan to assassinate Fidel Castro during a visit to the 
Dominican Republic.

For the last seven years,the US has presented a resolution condemning Cuba 
at the UN Human Rights Commission, exerting pressure and threatening other 
countries. However, it suffered a sharp setback in April 1998, when 19 
countries rejected the motion, 18 abstained and only 16 voted in favour.

Cubans had already given the US a sharp rebuff by their massive turnout at 
the polls in January 1998, demonstrating their unity in the elections for 
National Assembly deputies and members of the provincial assemblies of 
People's Power.

The Pope, during his visit to Cuba, described "the restrictive economic 
measures imposed from outside the country" as "unjust and morally 
unacceptable".

Also in 1998, the US suffered its seventh consecutive defeat at the UN 
General Assembly, which approved a resolution against the US blockade by a 
massive majority of 157 votes and only two against.

Cuba was included in the Latin American Integration Association and at the 
Porto Summit, Ibero-American leaders defied the US and demanded an end to 
the Helms-Burton Act.

Foreign investment in Cuba has increased and the island received over 1.25 
million tourists last year, in spite of the 1997 hotel bombings.

Even the US military has acknowledged that Cuba doesn't represent any 
military threat whatsoever to that country.

The Cuban economy still faces serious shortages and limitations, but has 
managed to halt its deterioration and begin a slow recovery.

Various US legislators have recently asked President Clinton to appoint a 
bipartisan commission to review Washington's Cuba policy, and influential 
media such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA 
Today and the Chicago Tribune have urged him to accept the 
proposal.

Cuba has reiterated that it will continue to defend the right to determine 
its own future. As in 1959, the ball is now in the US court.