How the US is still punishing Cuba 6 decades on
5 Min Read
Jeremy Kuzmarov of Covert Action explains how, after lying about a slew of foreign policy issues, the US intelligence establishment is now pushing the myth that Cuba is home to a Chinese espionage facility to spy on the US.
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National Security Council spokesman John Kirby. (AP)
Jeremy Kuzmarov, Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine, believes that the United States, after lying about multiple global scandals like WMDs in Iraq and chemical weapons in Syria, is now pushing the myth that Cuba is home to a Chinese espionage facility.
The Wall Street Journal released a report that China and Cuba signed a deal on June 8 to establish an electronic eavesdropping station on the island, and China planned to pay cash-strapped Cuba billions of dollars as part of the discussions.
Read more: Cuba slams reports of China 'spy' facility: 'Often US fabrications'
However, the White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby stated in an MSNBC interview that the report was inaccurate and that the US was watching Chinese influence activities globally.
An anonymous source told US intel that a deal was struck but no movement has begun on building the spy facility.
Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cosso stated that speculation of a spy base is generating "harm and alarm without observing minimum patterns of communication and without providing data or evidence to support what they disseminate."
Kuzmarov stated that the fabrication is intended to rally public support for Biden's aspirations of regime change.
Many Cubans had hoped that Biden's election would usher in a return to the Obama era when the US attempted to bury the final remnant of the Cold War by establishing diplomatic ties with Havana and pushing for an end to the embargo. However, when protests erupted early in Biden's presidency, the Biden administration backed the dissidents while doubling down on Donald Trump's hardline anti-Cuba policy.
According to Yuri Gala López, the Ambassador of the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the UN, sanctions costs Cubans $455 million per month.
Obama claimed that making it easier for Americans to visit Cuba and participate in its fledgling private sector had a greater chance of fostering economic and political improvements on the island than Washington's more combative regime-change approach since the 1960s. However, as a US Senator in 1996, Biden backed strengthening the already damaging U.S. embargo on Cuba with the Helms-Burton Act, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
Helms-Burton was described by Fidel Castro as a "shameful" measure that laid the path for "economic genocide." Hence, it essentially made it official US policy to advocate regime change in Cuba, in addition to increasing economic restrictions.
Maximum pressure policy and US imperialism
During an International People's Tribunal on US Imperialism, centered around Cuba on June 10 and 11, speaker Yuri Gala Lopez stated that the Biden administration inherited a "maximum pressure policy" from Trump to cripple Cuba's economy and eventually overthrow its government.
The hearings, held by a coalition of peace and social justice organizations, intended to highlight the negative impact of US sanctions as a "key tool of US imperialism."
The maximum pressure policy, according to Kuzmarov, has been adopted since 1960 after the Cuban revolution led by Fidel Castro toppled US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. Others also argued that the US intended to "punish" Cuba for defying the US
López cited a memorandum by Lester D. Mallory, the Deputy Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs at the time that called for creating economic difficulty by denying money and supplies and sanctioning trade to starve the Cubans and eventually overthrow Castro.
Six decades later, Kuzmarov says this policy remains unchanged. Devastating shortages have resulted and the blockade has sewed the seeds for dissatisfaction with the administration in Cuba. The financial damage totals $154 billion and thousands have perished in terrorist acts caused by the US.
The agriculture industry as well as the medical field cannot obtain needed technologies due to the blockade of Cuba. During the COVID pandemic, the US did not allow respirators.
The author argues that even with all the difficulties at hand, Cuba still manages to maintain a lower infant mortality rate than the US and mirror its life expectancy. He attributes this to the investment of resources in social and human needs instead of the military like the US.
Kuzmarov concludes by asserting that although Cuba has been labeled a terrorist state by the US and accused of providing China with a platform for spycraft, in reality, it has been the victim of US terror for over 6 decades with the "vain hope" to turn the clock back to the 1950s.
