
Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fernandez. Photo: Black Agenda Report.
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Cuban journalist Liz Oliva Fernandez. Photo: Black Agenda Report.
By Ann Garrison – Nov 15, 2023
When oppressed people get organized, the US gets angry. It’s been punishing the people of Cuba since 1962.Â
On November 2, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for a resolution calling on the US to lift the trade embargo against Cuba that President John Kennedy imposed in 1962. The US and Israel were the only two nations to vote no, with Ukraine abstaining. Total dependence creates total compliance.
The US Treasuryâs Office of Foreign Assets Control records complex specifics of sanctions on Cuba. There are so many that they amount to a virtual blockade.
âYou talk about sanctions,â says Cuban journalist Liz Oliva FernĂĄndez, âyou think âOK, maybe the United States has one, two, or three sanctions on Cuba,â but Iâm talking about a blockadeâa system of sanctions. There are so many sanctions together on Cuba that itâs unique. This is the only country that has been suffering under so many sanctions for so long.
âThe goal is to overthrow the government, to suffocate the people so hard that they want to overthrow their own government.â
Sanctions, she said, also isolate Cuba from the rest of the world, because US trade, banking, and business relations are so far- flung that doing business with other parts of the world also involves business with the US. In her six-part documentary series âThe War on Cuba,â she gives the example of Ernesto, a farmer who needs two prosthetic legs. Ernesto has prosthetics but canât get the flexible type he needs because theyâre made by a German company that uses a US-manufactured material for more than 10% of their content.
âThe 10% of the raw material that they use for these prosthetic legs is made in the United States, or by a United States company,â she says. âSo that means itâs illegal for Cuba to buy the prosthetic legs that Ernesto needs.â
âIâd walk more. Iâd even be able to work a lot more,â Ernesto says. âBut we donât have access to them because of the blockade.â
âAnd this is with everything,â says FernĂĄndez. âImagine that you want to buy tractors. Maybe the seats of the tractors are made in Mexico but they have parts that are made in the US, or a US company owns part of the company that makes the tractors, so itâs a violation of US law for anyone to sell Cuba the whole tractor.â
Her docuseries includes Cuban farmers using horse-drawn plows.
âThis is the United States. Itâs an empire. So they have businesses around the world. They have stocks around the ` world in different companies. So we canât even purchase what we most need to purchase in Cuba, including medicines and materials needed to manufacture medicines.
âUS law makes it illegal for companies to do business with Cuba. If you do business with Cuba, you could lose your business with the United States. You have to choose between doing business with the United States and doing business with Cuba, and of course, if theyâre forced to make that choice, most every company will choose to do business with the United States.â
Trump added Cuba to the State Sponsors of Terrorism list, which made foreign companies even more afraid of doing business there.
Uphill on the Hill
FernĂĄndez has been touring the US showing âUphill on the Hill,â a film in which she narrates the story of her quest to ask members of the US Congress why they and the Biden Administration are so determined to sustain the brutal sanctions. In particular she seeks to speak to the Cuban American legislators who have most aggressively insisted that the sanctions be sustained.
Not surprisingly, they all give her the brush-off, and she wryly checks them off her list one by one. Ultimately she does manage to join a delegation meeting with Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, a longtime opponent of the sanctions on Cuba. Pierre LaBossiere of Haiti Action Committee has a cameo in that scene in which he asks why the US punishes Cuba and lends so much support to Haiti, where the corrupt government kills its own people.
After the Cuban American legislators refuse to meet with her, FernĂĄndez meets Medea Benjamin and other members of Code Pink. FernĂĄndez then says sheâs realized that Washington, DC is a Black city, so, being Afro Cuban, sheâs going out to talk to people who look like her. One after another, they tell her that thereâs no reason for the sanctions and they oppose them. In a choice comic moment, one says heâd like to see the sanctions lifted because heâs a cigar smoker.
Obama, Trump, and Biden
During his second term, when he no longer had to worry about the Miami Cuban vote in the swing state of Florida, President Obama loosened the trade restrictions, saying it did not serve US interests to make the Cuban state collapse. He even traveled to Cuba to announce his policy. This, FernĂĄndez said, brought a sudden, short-lived burst of optimism, trade and prosperity to Cuba, which she describes in Episode One of âThe War on Cuba.â The Rolling Stones even appeared to perform in Havana after the embargo was lifted.
Trump reversed Obamaâs policy, even though he himself had actually applied for licenses to do business in Cuba before becoming president. After becoming president, he tightened and even instituted new sanctions in order to placate the reactionary Miami Cubans.
âAll the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them,â he said, speaking at a campaign rally in Miami. âAnd that I will do.â And he did.
FernĂĄndez said that Biden has not returned to Obamaâs policies, most likely because he has unrealistic hopes of winning Florida in 2024.
FernĂĄndez on tour
The dates, times, and locations of Liz FernĂĄndezâs upcoming appearances in Seattle, Albuquerque, and Tampa are on the website bellyofthebeastcuba.com, where you can also find âThe War on Cuba.â
During the Q&A at her appearance at Oaklandâs La Pena Cultural Center, someone asked her how the Cuban economy works, to which she teared up and answered, âIt doesnât, because of the blockade.â
Ann Garrison is an independent journalist who also contributes to the San Francisco Bay View, Global Research, the Black Agenda Report and the Black Star News, and produces radio for KPFA-Berkeley and WBAI-New York City. In 2014, she was awarded the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize by the Womens International Network for Democracy and Peace.
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