YEPE: "The Elephant in the Room in Port of Spain" (EN and SP)

[magbana]

Picked up from the CubaNews List

Manuel E. Yepe: The Elephant in the Room in Port of Spain
Posted by: "Walter Lippmann" [email protected] walterlx
Tue Apr 7, 2009 8:08 am (PDT)

(Spanish original follows English translation.)
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The Elephant in the Room in Port of Spain
By Manuel E. Yepe

http://www.walterlippmann.com/docs2363.html
A CubaNews translation by Will Reissner.
Edited by Walter Lippmann.

In recent days the big corporate news media have resorted to flights of
fancy to explain the strangely inevitable presence of the Cuban question in
the discussions expected at the Summit that begins on April 17 in Trinidad
and Tobago, without pointing out who is responsible for the absurd
situation.

How can you explain the “Cuba problem,” and try to resolve it, without
delving into the real origin of the “isolation” of a member of the Latin
American community of nations, a country that has been establishing normal
diplomatic relations with all the members of the organization hosting the
Summit, as their governments have regained their respective nations’
sovereignty?

In the “big media” the news reports and op-ed pieces have jumped through
ingenious hoops in referring to the events that led to Cuba’s absence from
regional forums.

With hardly an exception the corporate media all state that “Cuba was
expelled from the organization in 1962 when the member states said that its
Communist system was contrary to Inter-American principles,” without
pointing out that with the honorable exception of Mexico, all of them
reluctantly obeyed an order from Washington.

As the years unfolded, the policy became ever more intolerable, especially
for the new governments that came to power in the hemisphere’s countries as
the military dictatorships supported by the United States were toppled. In
one country after another the exercise of sovereignty regarding their
foreign relations led to reestablishing ties with Cuba as the growing
tendency toward independence spread throughout Latin America and the
Caribbean.

Washington’s domineering abuses in Latin America led to a situation where
the new leaders in the region were increasingly politicians who had more
points of contact with Havana than with the White House, despite the
enormous influence that the economic, technological, and military power of
the United States bestows on its rulers.

Furthermore, the discredited argument about violations of human rights in
Cuba no longer serves to bolster the case for the attempt to internationally
isolate Cuba. The economic and commercial blockade that the United States
hoped would strangle the Cuban Revolution has been explicitly and
unanimously rejected by the world community of nations. In the United
Nations General Assembly it led to U. S. diplomacy’s most humiliating
defeats in the entire postwar period.

Amnesty International, in a definitive public document released by its
London-based International Secretariat, notes that the United States is now
the only country in the Americas without diplomatic relations with Cuba and
it dismisses the argument that the attempted isolation of Cuba might in any
way have served the cause of defending human rights in the world.

Cuba’s exclusion from the Fifth Summit of the Americas, which will take
place in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, highlights the irrationality of
a policy of Washington’s that has already lasted more than half a century
and that everyone knows will have to end sooner or later, without having
achieved even one of its real or supposed objectives.

When the American superpower finally acknowledges and respects the Caribbean
island’s national sovereignty and its right to pursue the social order and
political system that its people have chosen, the Cuban people will have
gained a victory of historic proportions.

Undoubtedly, when that moment arrives, it will need to come up with
diplomatic formulas and media spin to cover up or tone down the spectacular
defeat of this imperial policy, but the indisputable fact, which will serve
as an example for all peoples, is that when a nation, however small and poor
it might be, unites as strongly in defense of its rights and with such a
readiness to sacrifice as the Cuban people have done since 1959, there is no
empire or power capable of holding it back.

All indications are that the new U.S. President has the choice to accept or
postpone this culminating moment. Ten of his predecessors chose the second
alternative. Barack Obama is, undoubtedly, a leader who is different from
the previous ones, but it remains to be seen if the empire itself, its banks
and its military industry, have learned the lesson and accept the change.

It seems inevitable that there will be “an elephant in the room” in Port of
Spain.

EL CONVIDADO DE PIEDRA EN PUERTO ESPAÑA
Por Manuel E. Yepe

De portentosa imaginación han hecho gala en estos días los grandes medios
corporativos de prensa para explicar la inusitada presencia del tema cubano
como inevitable en los debates previos a la Cumbre que tendrá lugar a partir
del 17 de abril en Trinidad y Tobago, sin identificar al responsable de la
absurda situación.

¿Cómo explicar el “problema de Cuba”, y tratar de resolverlo, sin develar el
verdadero origen del “aislamiento” de un miembro de la comunidad
latinoamericana de naciones que ha ido estableciendo relaciones
diplomáticas normales con todos los integrantes de la organización que
convoca la Cumbre, en la medida en que sus gobiernos han recuperado la
soberanía de su naciones respectivas?

Son imaginativos los giros de las noticias y análisis informativos en los
“grandes medios” al referirse a los hechos que originaron la ausencia de
Cuba de los foros regionales.

“Cuba fue separada de la organización en 1962 cuando los estados miembros
dijeron que su sistema comunista era contrario a los principios
interamericanos”, se dice casi sin excepción en todos medios corporativos,
sin precisar que, con la honrosa excepción de México, todos cumplían a
regañadientes un mandato de Washington.

Con el decurso de los años la imposición se fue haciendo cada vez más
insoportable, especialmente para los nuevos gobiernos que surgían en los
países del hemisferio cuando eran abatidas las dictaduras militares
apoyadas por Estados Unidos. El ejercicio de la soberanía sobre sus
relaciones externas permitió que los vínculos con Cuba se fueran
restableciendo en un país tras otro en la medida en que la tendencia
creciente hacia la independencia se extendía por toda Latinoamérica y el
Caribe.

Los abusos hegemónicos de Washington en Latinoamérica provocaron que, cada
vez más, los nuevos dirigentes de América Latina fueran políticos con más
puntos de contacto con La Habana que con la Casa Blanca, no obstante la
enorme influencia que el poderío económico, tecnológico y militar permite a
los gobernantes de los Estados Unidos.

Ni siquiera el desprestigiado argumento de las violaciones de los derechos
civiles en Cuba sirve ya en algo para argumentar el pretendido aislamiento
internacional de Cuba. El bloqueo económico y comercial con que Estados
Unidos quiso estrangular a la revolución cubana llegó a ser explícita y
unánimemente repudiado por la comunidad mundial de naciones. Fue causante de
las más humillantes derrotas de la diplomacia estadounidense en la Asamblea
General de Naciones Unidas en toda la posguerra.

En un categórico documento público dado a la publicidad por su Secretariado
Internacional radicado en Londres, la organización Amnesty International
recuerda que Estados Unidos es ahora el único país de las Américas sin
relaciones diplomáticas con Cuba y descarta el argumento de que el
pretendido aislamiento de Cuba haya servido en algo a la causa de la defensa
de los derechos humanos en el mundo.

La exclusión de Cuba de la Quinta Cumbre de las Américas que tendrá lugar en
Puerto España, Trinidad y Tobago, pone en evidencia lo irracional de una
política de Washington que ya ha durado mas de medio siglo y que nadie
ignora que más temprano que tarde tendrá que cesar, sin que ni uno solo de
sus propósitos, ni los reales ni los pretendidos, haya sido logrado.

Cuando la soberanía nacional de la isla caribeña y su derecho a darse el
orden social y el sistema político que su pueblo ha elegido, sean
efectivamente reconocidos y respetados por la superpotencia americana, el
pueblo cubano habrá obtenido una victoria de alcance histórico.

Seguramente, cuando llegue ese momento, habrá que encontrar fórmulas
protocolares y mañas mediáticas para disimular o atenuar la estrepitosa
derrota de esa política imperial, pero el hecho indiscutible, que servirá de
experiencia a todos los pueblos, es que cuando una nación, por pequeña y
pobre que sea, se une tan estrechamente para la defensa de sus derechos y
con tanta disposición al sacrificio como lo ha hecho el pueblo cubano desde
1959, no hay imperio ni potencia capaz de impedírselo.

Todo parece indicar que el nuevo Presidente norteamericano tiene la opción
de aceptar o posponer ese momento cumbre. Diez antecesores suyos optaron por
esto último. Barack Obama es, a todas luces, un líder distinto a todos los
anteriores, pero habrá que ver si el imperio mismo, sus bancos y su
industria militar, han aprendido la lección y aceptan el cambio.

En Puerto España, parece que inevitablemente, estará presente un “convidado
de piedra”.


Abril de 2009.
Apr 5, 2009 12:17 AM

[Peace Patriot]

1. Oil is the big issue now; communism not so much (although I suppose it could

make a comeback, now that the capitalists have proven to be as rotten to the core as the communists ever accused them of being). But our corpo/fascists have more greed for oil than they do fear of communism, at the moment, so the new demons are the democratically elected leftist presidents of the countries with really big oil reserves: Venezuela and Ecuador, in particular, but also one of their closest allies Bolivia (gas and oil), and, indeed, any country with oil (including Brazil--as its president, Lula da Silva, knows) can be targeted.

Cuba has become a side issue to our monster oil hungerers, thus I expect the Obama administration to make further progress toward de-demonizing Cuba. They are, at the same time, running a wildly erratic (thus far) foreign policy about the oil states in Latin America. One moment, I think they are into Rumsfeld's war plan against Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia; the next moment, I think they've abandoned it, and really intend peace, fairness and respect toward the peoples of the south; and then the next moment, I'm back to worrying about an oil war in this hemisphere. I don't think this is a strategy on Obama's part (that is, deliberately trying to keep these countries and their leaders off kilter); I think it's partly an artifact of the transition from Bushwhackism to Obama (with some Bushwhacks still in place in the State Dept., CIA, etc.), and partly due to Obama being preoccupied with the Bushwhack regime's Financial 9/11 and its wars. South America is a largely peaceful place, due to its leftist governments and leaders. With the exception of the few countries where the Bushwhacks were able to get their talons in (Colombia, Peru, Mexico), Latin America presents no threat to the general peace or to the U.S. Thus, it could be temporarily neglected.

It's interesting that, wherever the corrupt, failed, murderous U.S. "war on drugs" has been driven out by leftist leaders, not only does peace prevail, but also the country starts making progress on REAL interdiction of dangerous drugs like cocaine. Colombia and Mexico have been particularly damaged by the "war on drugs," and in both cases the real issue is oil. In Mexico, the Bush Junta wanted Mexico's constitutionally protected oil resource and industry to be privatized, and helped the rightwing steal the last presidential election, for that task. But the rightwing president has so far failed to fulfill his side of the bargain. (Privatization of the oil is a very unpopular idea in Mexico.) And the Bushwhacks then--just this last summer--larded Mexico with billions in "war on drugs" money, to help create a fascist, militarized society in which the oil could be more easily stolen. In Colombia, the issue is Colombia's oil, and Occidental Petroleum and other operations, AND, Colombia as a "lily pad" launching pad for the planned Rumsfeld war on Venezuela and Ecuador, which flank Colombia's borders to the north and south, respectively (and whose oil is concentrated in the areas adjacent to Colombia).

My concern has been that Rumsfeld's war could be instigated as a private corporate resource war--using billions of dollars stolen from us, private armies created at our expense, the Colombian military and rightwing paramilitary death squads, and various bought-and-paid-for operatives in various countries--and that the Obama administration could be sucked in, or tricked in, or perhaps get willingly involved, or merely wink at it, and let it happen. So far, Obama's policy toward South America has been so extremely ambivalent (or confused?), that it is hard to guess what they might do. More than hard; it is impossible. I don't know or have a clue. All I know is that the powers-that-be who are really running this country want oil, and want it very badly; will kill a hundred thousand people to get it, without a glimmer of conscience. Oil is the driver of U.S. policy, Bushwhack or not.

They could be setting Obama up for a fall (all the unemployment and new "Bushville" homeless camps, etc., to be blamed on him), thence to Diebold the next "war president" into office in 2012. That's a possibility--that this hemisphere's oil war has been delayed until there are riper conditions for it. The Bushwhacks failed spectacularly in their last-minute coup attempt in Bolivia, due to the solidarity of the new leftist leadership of the continent. Bolivia may have been a test run, and if it was, what it demonstrated was that much more "divide and conquer" work needs to be done. Obama may have been serving that agenda--knowingly, or inadvertently, I just can't say--by his preliminary demonizing of Chavez (echoing Bushwhack lines), but, as I said, that could have been a transition problem. His intentions may be good, but we have to be aware that if he charms some countries back into cooperating with the U.S., those advances for the U.S. could be used by a future administration for ill purposes. For instance, say he talks Evo Morales or Hugo Chavez into letting the DEA or the USAID back into their countries. What would a John McCain or a Sarah Plain do with those operatives?

There is precedent for this in "Plan Colombia" which was started by Bill Clinton, and was then used by the Bush Junta for very ill purposes, indeed. I don't know that Clinton was entirely clean on it, but the Bushwhacks were mindbogglingly filthy. I think they are major drug lords. But their chief purpose--beyond just stealing trillions of dollars, and making trillions in illicit transactions--is gaining U.S. global corporate predator control of as much of the world's remaining oil reserves as they can. When they get frustrated in that goal--as with Iran--they just steal, hand over fist, anything and everything in sight. That's what they did here when it became clear that they couldn't nuke Iran. They then collapsed the banking system, stealing money. And what are they going to use those trillions of dollars for?

Opening the door to Cuba may be a means of charming Latin America out of its wise caution with regard to the U.S. and its war machine and its fascist, monster corporations. I'm afraid that we cannot trust our own government even when we seem to have elected a good guy.