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Brutal
economic and political measures against our country
and against Cubans resident in the United States
YESTERDAY, May 6, the U.S. government announced new
measures for intensifying even further its
aggressive and hostile policy towards Cuba.
In the
morning, President Bush, setting forth the measures
during brief comments to some representatives of the
media, reiterated his hatred of and aggressiveness
toward our people, repeating his habitual and
cynical attacks and outlining his escalation of
interference.
He went
as far as to shamelessly affirm that the objective
of the measures was to speed up the day that Cuba
will be a free country.
Later,
during the afternoon, Mr. Roger Noriega,
undersecretary of state for Western Hemisphere
affairs, one of the authors of the Helms-Burton Act
and a U.S. government representative for the
terrorist mafia of Miami, gave a presentation in
Washington where he provided details of the contents
of a report given to the U.S. president by the
so-called “Commission for Assistance to a Free
Cuba,” emphasizing, above all, the new economic and
political measures that the Bush administration is
planning to apply against Cuba.
In six
chapters and more than 450 pages, the so-called
Report from the Commission for Assistance to a Free
Cuba could not contain more lies, malice,
frustration and interference in the internal affairs
of any country.
The
document incorporates the following as strategic
tasks to achieve the overthrow of the Cuban
government: increased support to international
campaigns against Cuba; the intensification of
subversive actions and disinformation against our
country; the adoption of new measures that will
affect the Cuban economy, and what they are given to
call “undermining the regime’s succession plans.”
In the
first chapter, dedicated wholly to new measures
aimed at destroying the Revolution, the following
stand out:
1.
To make
available $59 million in the next 2 years for
financing actions directed at destroying the
Revolution. This money would be used, among other
purposes:
a)
To
create an international fund for the development of
the “civil society” in Cuba, which would attract
“voluntary” personnel from third countries to travel
to our country and offer aid to the mercenaries in
its service in Cuba. In practice, it is the
organization of a messenger corps to supply
financial and logistical help to the
counterrevolution.
b)
To
establish, together with the OAS, a “scholarship
plan” to enable counterrevolutionary elements
selected by them to study in U.S. and Latin American
universities. It is, in essence, their plan to form
cadres for the counterrevolution in Cuba.
c)
To
finance programs to support what they call
“pro-democracy efforts among Cuban youth, women and
men of African origin.” An unusual objective, coming
from the country of all kinds of discrimination and
the Ku Klux Klan.
d)
To
dedicate $18 million to transmissions from the
ill-named TV and Radio Martí via a C-130 airplane
devoted exclusively to that purpose.
e)
To
maintain and increase public campaigns against Cuba
in other countries in the context of the alleged
violation of human rights in Cuba, “espionage
committed against other countries,” the “subversion
of democratically elected governments in Latin
America,” and other acts defined as a threat to U.S.
interests; likewise, the promotion of national or
international conferences in third countries to
“disseminate information” on U.S. policies for
promoting a “transition” in Cuba. It is the
announcement of further $5 million for financing the
international campaign of discredit and lies against
Cuba.
2.
To
limit those who receive remittances of money and
packages to immediate family members of Cuban
resident in the United States, defined exclusively
as grandparents, grandchildren, parents, siblings,
spouses and children. This means that from now on,
Cubans residing in the United States are the only
immigrants to be prohibited from sending economic
aid to an elderly aunt or another close family
member.
3.
To
prohibit Cubans resident in the United States from
sending remittances of money and packages to family
members if the latter are “government officials or
members of the Communist Party.” A 70-year-old
mother, for example, would have to renounce her
political rights in order to receive a remittance.
4.
To
reduce visits to our country by Cubans resident in
the United States from the current one per year to
one every three years. The additional restriction is
established by the obligation, from now on, to seek
specific permission for each trip, instead of the
general license that currently exists. It limits the
granting of permission to travel to Cuba only for
visiting immediate family members. To this effect,
the U.S. government has decreed that from this
moment on, the definition of family is:
“grandparents, grandchildren, parents, siblings,
spouses and children.” That is, from now on, a
cousin, aunt or other close family member is not –
according to President Bush – a family member. It
also establishes, as well, that Cubans who have
recently arrived in the United States will only be
able to travel to Cuba three years after having
emigrated. While the Cuban government is continually
making visits to the country by emigrants more
flexible, the U.S. government is increasing the
obstacles. What is it afraid of?
While the Cuban government is constantly making
émigré visits to the country more flexible, the U.S.
government is increasing the obstacles. What is it
afraid of?
5.
Reducing the quantity of money that Cubans resident
in the United States can spend to cover their
costs during visits to Cuba from $164 to $50 per
day. A new and arbitrary discrimination against the
Cuban community in the United States.
6.
Ordering the U.S. authorities to mount “covert
operations” on any person bringing money from Cubans
resident in the United States to relatives on the
island, including recompensing individuals who
inform on illegal transfers of family remittances.
7. To
continue restricting the granting of licenses for
educational visits and academic exchanges to U.S.
citizens and institutions by means of tighter
regulations than those currently existing. It should
be recalled that licenses for so-called people to
people exchange have already been eliminated by the
Bush administration.
8. To
undertake a rigorous study to evaluate whether the
application of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act is
contrary to U.S. interests or whether its
application could accelerate the fall of the Cuban
Revolution. In practice, this evokes the possibility
of authorizing trials in U.S. courts against
businesspersons from third countries engaged in
business with Cuba, which has not been applied to
date.
9. To
firmly apply the sanctions contained in Title IV of
the same act, which prohibits the granting of entry
visas to the United States of foreign investors in
Cuba, and to supply more resources and personnel to
apply the Helms-Burton Act.
10. To
“neutralize” Cuban companies dedicated to economic
activity linked to the external sector, and to
create an Assets Evaluation Group to investigate
Cuban companies and those of other nations trading
with Cuba.
11. To
increase efforts to involve the governments of third
countries in campaigns against the Cuban Revolution.
12. To
support actions in third countries to discourage
tourism to Cuba.
13. To
continue refusing visas to Cuban officials who have
to travel to the United States.
14. To
create the post of a Coordinator for the Transition
in Cuba at State Department level, who will be
responsible for checking the application of all
these measures.
The
other five chapters brazenly cover the measures that
the U.S. government would bring into effect in our
country once it has achieved its dream of
overthrowing the Cuban Revolution. For now, we will
not analyze it in detail, but merely quote one
example. One of the measures proposed is “to
immediately immunize all children under five years
who have not as yet been vaccinated against the
principal childhood ailments.” Our people can draw
their own conclusions. This is the plan for Cuba’s
annexation and the return to the fake republic of
the Platt Amendment.
The
cruelty and hatred that inspire this new aggression
against our country is really incredible. It
attempts to increase the difficult conditions
already imposed on us by the criminal U.S. blockade
by all means possible. It constitutes a flagrant
violation of the human rights of 11 million Cubans,
whom it is trying to force to their knees through
hunger and disease for the sole “crime” of wishing
to be free, independent and not subjected to
imperial rule.
The
measures announced yesterday likewise constitute a
violation of the rights of citizens of Cuban origin
resident in the United States who now face new and
draconian restrictions in relation to travel to the
island and sending economic aid to their families in
Cuba.
All
these measures and the U.S. policy as a whole openly
flout the real interests of the U.S. people, the
vast majority of Cubans resident in the United
States, a large part of the U.S. Congress and broad
sectors in that country who want normal relations
with the island.
Assigning tens of millions of dollars to provoking
mercenary acts in Cuba, violating international law
in order to transmit subversive broadcasts from
aircraft, compounded by the scandalous and
internationally criticized installation of a
concentration camp in territory occupied by its army
in our country, constitute unheard of provocations
in total breach of the regulations and principles of
international law, which will have to be debated in
diverse international forums, including the Human
Rights Commission in Geneva.
The
cunning, cynical and cruel nature of the present
administration is fully demonstrated in the face of
adopting these measures against our people at a time
when the price of foodstuffs and their
transportation have virtually doubled on the world
market, that of sugar is hardly exceeding its cost
of production, and that of fuel is steadily rising,
having reached the astronomical price of almost $40
per barrel. And now, there is to be an additional
attempt to hit tourism, which was beginning to show
a strong upturn, as hard as possible.
Listening to promises to vaccinate children in a
country where preventative medicine and immunization
have attained the highest levels in the world is
derisive coming from a country where tens of
millions of men, women and children have no access
to medical attention, and whose infant mortality
rate per thousand live births is above Cuba’s. The
real fact is that the Führer is maddened by the vast
human capital created by our nation; its capacity to
send tens of millions of doctors to the most remote
areas of the Third World, a total that exceeds the
possibilities of all the developed countries
together; and the advances in education, public
health and culture that will soon rank Cuba in first
place among all the nations of the earth. The solid
support for the Revolution of almost its total
population makes it invulnerable to the rotten
ideology of Mr. Bush. The example of Cuba has to be
made to disappear from the map. That is the aim of
the insults of the manic and crazed program of
transition in Cuba devised by a fraudulently elected
president.
In that
way the aim is to destroy everything than a heroic
people is constructing with immense love. Cuba might
be erased from the map, but no threat, no senseless
madness from Mr. Bush can make it lose heart.
Without any doubt his cruel and cowardly measures
will impose a certain sacrifice on our people, but
those measures will not succeed in detaining for
even one second the people’s advance towards the
human and social objectives that have been drawn up,
and nobody will left unprotected. Cuba will never
return to the horrible, merciless and inhumane
condition of a U.S. colony.
As our
president stated on May 1 before more than one
million Cubans: “Without violating the standards
that it has always applied in its struggles, this
country will defend itself with laws and will defend
itself with arms when necessary, until the last drop
of blood has been shed.”
The Central Committee of the Communist Party and the
Revolutionary Government of Cuba.
May 7,
2004.
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