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The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 13 April 4, 2016
(front page)
As Obama visits, Cuban people defend revolution
BY BRIAN WILLIAMS
“No one should think that the Cuban people will renounce their freedom
and sovereignty that have been gained through great sacrifices,” Cuban
President Raúl Castro said at a joint news conference following a
meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Havana March 21.
Obama’s March 20-22 trip to Cuba, the first by a sitting U.S. president
in 88 years, was the first “to a Cuba in full possession of its
sovereignty and with a revolution in power,” an editorial in Granma, the
newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party, noted before his arrival. It
registered the increasing consensus in the U.S. ruling class that their
attempt to overturn Cuba’s socialist revolution through economic warfare
has failed. And it reflected the determination of the historic
leadership and millions of working people in Cuba to defend their
revolution.
Castro reiterated the Cuban government’s demand for Washington to end
its 55-year-long economic embargo, which is “the most important obstacle
to our economic development and well-being of the Cuban people.”
Normalizing relations must also involve “the return of the territory
illegally occupied by the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo,” he added.
While recognizing Obama’s position “against the blockade, and his
repeated appeals to Congress to have it removed,” Castro said, “the most
recent measures adopted by his administration are positive but
insufficient.”
A March 15 executive order — the fourth since December 2014 when plans
by the two presidents to re-establish diplomatic relations were
announced — made slight modifications in U.S. trade and travel
restrictions to Cuba.
The ban on U.S. citizens freely traveling to Cuba remains in place. But
now individuals can go “provided that the traveler engages in a
full-time schedule of educational exchange activities intended to
enhance contact with the Cuban people, support civil society in Cuba, or
promote the Cuban people’s independence from Cuban authorities.” The new
U.S. Treasury Department regulations state, “The predominant portion of
the activities engaged in by the traveler must not be with certain
Government of Cuba or Cuban Communist Party officials.”
“The truth is that the blockade is still in force,” said Cuban Foreign
Minister Bruno Rodríguez at a March 17 news conference. “The U.S. ban on
Cuban imports is still in force” and “current restrictions on U.S.
exports to Cuba, which are limited and exclude key sectors of the Cuban
economy, have not been modified. Ships carrying goods to Cuba are still
not allowed to touch U.S. ports for a period of 180 days.”
“Authorizing Cuba to use U.S. dollars does not mean that banking
relations between Cuba and the United States have normalized,” he added.
“Cuban banks are still not allowed to open correspondent accounts in
U.S. banks.”
Accompanying Obama on his 48-hour visit are nearly 40 members of
Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, and representatives from
Xerox, AT&T, hotel chains and other businesses seeking investment
opportunities on the Caribbean island.
At the joint news conference Obama acknowledged that “Cuba is
sovereign,” but urged the Cuban government “to show that it is ready to
do more business, which includes allowing more joint ventures and
allowing foreign companies to hire Cubans directly.”
This is the central point of the trip — increasing pressure on the Cuban
leadership to accept greater U.S. capitalist investment and widen the
operation of market relations. In doing so, the U.S. propertied rulers
seek to undermine the working-class confidence and social relations of
solidarity that dominate in Cuba as a result of the revolution.
The “labor reality” workers have gained in Cuba is “characterized by the
right to employment without discrimination of any kind, equal pay for
women and men performing the same job, social security which includes
among other benefits the protection of working mothers and pensioners,”
the Central Organization of Cuban Workers said in a statement issued
March 18 leading up to Obama’s visit.
Following the meeting with Castro, Obama attended a gathering between
U.S. business representatives and Cuban “entrepreneurs” at a state-owned
microbrewery along the waterfront of Havana Bay. The place is not far
from the former Texaco oil refinery, taken over by the workers and
nationalized by the revolutionary government in 1960, when its managers
refused to process a shipment of Soviet crude.
Obama in his remarks there pointed to U.S. companies “moving ahead with
new commercial deals,” including GE, Starwood Hotels, and CleBer, which
will build a factory in Cuba to produce tractors. And another delegation
of U.S. “business leaders” will be coming “to promote more
entrepreneurship in Cuba,” he said.
While it wasn’t the central point of his remarks, Obama repeated at the
news conference the standard U.S. government claims of a supposed lack
of “democracy and human rights” in Cuba.
“The human rights issue should not be politicized,” said Castro in
response to a question from a U.S. reporter. “Do you think there’s any
more sacred right than the right to health, so that billions of children
don’t die just for the lack of a vaccine or a drug or a medication? Do
you agree with the right to free education for all those born anywhere
in the world or in any country?”
“In Cuba, all children are born in a hospital. … It doesn’t matter if
they live in faraway places or in mountains or hills. We have many other
rights — the right to health, the right to education,” Castro said.
Related articles:
US out of Guantánamo! End Cuba embargo now!
Socialist Workers Party campaign statement
Cuban women’s leaders speak on gains of revolution
‘For us socialism means freedom, sovereignty, dignity’
End embargo, says Cuban official in Bay Area tour
Letter: Cuba mobilizes against Zika virus
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