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| Sunday, 26 December 2004 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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We have made old dreams come true - Castro by M.P. Muttiah
The aim of the successive US administrations was to subjugate Cuba and nothing else. Struggle for Independence The first pro-independence struggle began in 1808. The independence struggles of 1843, 1850, 1868 and 1895 were crushed mercilessly. In 1895, Jose Marti and Antonio Maceo, two of the best leaders and protagonists of Cubans were killed, but that did not stop the war against 30,000 well-equipped Spanish colonialist soldiers. The US intervened in the war, and under the 1898 Peace Treaty of Paris, from which the Cubans were excluded, seized Cuba, the Philippines and Puerto Rico. US troops occupied Cuba until 1902, when the puppet Republic of Cuba was established under which foreign capital controlled all of its national resources. American interests The dispute between the United States and Cuba dates back to the latter part of 18th century. The US ambition to annex Cuba was expressed in letters written by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, which initiated the seizure of the territory of Cuba. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809, expressed his country's intention of seizing Cuba for strategic purposes and political advantages. In January 1, 1899, the Spanish flag was lowered and replaced with that of the US, initiating the US military occupation of Cuba. The US imposed the Platt Amendment, under which the Cuban authorities granted the United States the right to intervene and establish coaling stations in Cuba. Ever since, US troops have held the Guantanamo Naval base as part of that agreement. This base in Cuban territory continued to be a threat to peace and Cuba's national unity. American companies held controlling interests in all Cuban industries, including sugar, tobacco, iron, nickel, copper, manganese, paper and rum, owned half the land, about three-fifths of the railways, all electricity production and the entire telephone system. The US was the main market for Cuba's exports of which sugar was by far the most important. American Ambassador in Havana was usually referred to as the second most important man in Cuba. Batista overthrown In 1952, Fulgencio Batista, who had been in the forefront of politics since 1933, seized power illegally and began to rule as a dictator. Fidel Castro, a young lawyer, wanted to rid Cuba of Batista and corruption, unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow him in 1953, which sent him to jail for two years. In September 1958, Che Guera, an Argentinean supporter of Castro, gained control of the main road across the Island and prepared to move to Santa Clara. On January 1, 1959, Batista fled from Cuba and government was formed with Castro its head. Che's contribution Although Che Guera was killed later in Bolivia, Cubans remember him as Fidel's courageous comrade in Mexico, on the Granma, in the Sierra Maestra Mountains, and in the difficult days after the triumph of the Revolution. They remembered him for his honesty, his constant battle to overcome asthma to defend the cause of freedom, his systematic dedication to study, his defence of revolutionary honour when he represented Cuba in international gatherings, his passion for sports and his love for children. He was convinced that a new thinking power was required, but for which even Communism was a dream. Seeds of hostilities After the nationalisation of American owned estates and factories, US President Dwight D Eisenhover threatened to stop imports of Cuban sugar and Castro signed a trade agreement with the Soviet Union. In July, 1960, Castro nationalised all remaining American property and, in 1961, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba. US President John F. Kennedy approved a plan by a group of Batista supporters to invade Cuba from American bases in Guatemala. The CIA was deeply involved in this invasion. The invading force landed at the Bay of Pigs in April 1961, Cubans and forces with only two jet planes crushed the invasion. Revolutionizing Cuba According to Historian David Harkness, "during the first ten years of the Revolution, Castro took the poor and backward country by the scruff of the neck and shook it into new and radically different patterns of life". However, successive US administrations fomented and armed anti-Cubans in the United States and elsewhere, who were involved in acts of sabotage and attempts were made on the lives of Cuban leaders. More recently, the US had resorted to various attempts to isolate Cuba from other countries. It introduced the Torricelli, Helms-Burton and other laws with a view to strangling the Cubans' successes. New attempts of the US In May 2004, the US Federal Reserve imposed a fine on a Swiss Bank for an alleged violation of US sanctions against Cuba. It accused the Swiss Bank of accepting dollar bills from or of sending them to Cuba that was subject to US sanctions. In October 9, 2004, Daniel W. Fisk, Under-Secretary to Western Hemispheric Affairs at the US State Department, said at the Cuban-American Veteran's Association: "Yet another pillar in our strategy is to identify long-ignored revenue streams for the Castro regime and then move to degrade them. For example, tourism, which has replaced sugar exports as Cuba's main foreign exchange earner....We have tightened our policy on remittances, gift parcels and family travel to the island. These avenues had generated an estimated 1.5 billion dollars in funds and goods sent to Cuba from those living outside the island. We have deprived the Castro regime of over 100 million dollar in hard currency. Moreover, by projecting these numbers over a full calendar year, we estimate a net loss to the regime of some 375 million dollars, and that is just from restricted travel." Therefore, Havana had to introduce on November 8, 2004, the convertible peso which had begun to circulate instead of the US dollar throughout Cuba. Referring on the new situation that has arisen, Fidel Castro said at the 8th Congress of the Young Communists League: "...I say ideas, because the struggle we are speaking about will not, in essence, be a war, but rather a battle of ideas. The world's problems shall not be solved through the use of nuclear weapons-this is impossible-nor through wars. The world is rapidly being globalised; an unsustainable and intolerable world economic order is rapidly established. Ideas are the raw material from which consciousness is forged; they are the raw material of ideology par excellence, Not weapons but ideas will decide this universal battle, and not because of some intrinsic value, but because of how closely they relate to the objectivity of today's world. These ideas stem from the conviction, that, the world has no other way out that imperialism is unsustainable, that the system that has been imposed on the world leads to disaster, to an unsurmountable crisis, and, I dare say, sooner rather than later. "Ideas are not simply an instrument to build consciousness and lead people to fight. Today, they have become the main weapon in the struggle, not a source of inspiration, not a guide, not a directive, but the main weapon of the struggle. Throughout the Battle of Ideas we have made old dreams come true," Castro said. "The empire will be furious and announce with incredible cynicism that Cuba must be liberated and democracy restored to this enslaved people and what is more, teach it to read and write, as they announce in their `program for the transition to capitalism'. The masses, still partially deceived by the hail of lies and invectives coming from the powerful imperialist media, will believe us more and more, as they begin to awaken to what is in store for them and to understand the huge difference between our system and the one advocated by the Empire." |
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| Produced by Lake House |
Cuba celebrates its 46th anniversary of the Revolution on January 1,
2005. Though the Revolution was successful and the People's power was
established, the United States continues to foil Cuba's onward march with
various blockades and embargoes.
