Wednesday, 30 August 2000
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Over the past year, the Cuban Government has engaged in ceaseless rhetoric about migration issues, including the importance of family re-unification. Now would be a good time to back that rhetoric with responsible action. -- Madeleine Albright, Secretary of State
A common complaint of citizens of the world's old cultures is that America has no abiding sense of history. Beyond the transient charm of a giddy belatedness, our lack of historical imagination and knowledge has serious political implications, not only for us but for the rest of the world. One such implication is our inability to judge properly the significance and meaning of official statements from Washington.
On August 28 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright issued a statement in which she condemns the Cuban government for "violation of bilateral commitments, international norms and fundamental human decency." Decency and fairness dictate that we evaluate Albright's claims in some kind of context, that is, in light of the history between Cuba and the US.
[Cuba is] an object of transcendent importance to the commercial and political interests of our union. -- John Quncy Adams, Secretary of State
From early on the US had colonial designs on Cuba. Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams both spoke of colonializing it but were thwarted by England and Spain. Adams believed that eventually Cuba would fall into our hands like a "ripe fruit." Near the end of the 19th century, the US finally colonialized Cuba, and US business interests treated it as a fiefdom until the Castro-led Cuban revolution in 1959.
As a result, late in the Eisenhower Administration, the US decided to overthrow the Cuban government, and that goal was pursued by the Kennedy Administration, by means of propaganda, terrorism, and invasion. When the (illegal and unjustifiable) invasion of Cuba failed, the US imposed a program of economic and cultural strangulation that continues to this day. Cuba would not have survived our unrelenting assault without support from Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. When that support faltered, the US intensified its efforts to destroy the Cuban government and to replace it with one more amenable to US business interests.
The history of US and Cuban relations, then, has been one of ever-more radical imbalances of power, in which the US has regularly violated international law and norms of conduct in order to punish and reassert control over Cuba.
In their proper historical context, Albright's comments can be seen, and condemned, for the sickening, faux-diplomatic propaganda that they are. She went on to say that
The Government of Cuba is increasingly obstructing the safe, legal, and orderly migration of individuals from Cuba. The result is to cruelly deny long-separated families a chance to re-unite, and to heighten the chance that Cubans will risk their lives trying to reach the United States through illegal means.
Even historically ignorant Americans, given the fetishized media coverage of the Elian Gonzalez affair, must see that for the US to condemn Cuba for "cruelly deny[ing] long-separated families a chance to re-unite" is utter fantasy. It was the Clinton Administration that cruelly denied Elian and Juan Gonzalez the chance to re-unite as father and son, after the death of Elian's mother.
While Albright's words betray a tenuous grasp of reality, as do her oft-quoted words about the value of the death of Iraqi children, they are in keeping with nearly 300 years of American colonial ambitions and plans for Cuba.
Havana has an obligation to work in a professional way to enable agreed numbers of Cubans to emigrate to the United States legally and safely. This is in the interests of both nations. It reflects the past commitments we each have made. It is the right thing to do for our families. And it is consistent with global standards of human rights and law.
Apparently Washington has no such concomitant obligation, at least not one which it's prepared to satisfy in the real world. Albright is right when she says that US policies and public pronouncements "reflect the past commitments we each have made," particularly the historically-undeniable 40 year US commitment to subvert the Cuban government and destroy the Cuban people. The US could do the "right thing...for [US and Cuban] families" by actually acting in accordance with "global standards of human rights and law." Our 40 year economic embargo against Cuba violates international law, as does US-backed Miami terrorism, as have our many assassination and coup attempts.
In short, the hands of every US President since at least Dwight Eisenhower are steeped in the blood of countless Cubans. That Washington can continue to use Cuban children and families to justify an unjustifiable policy toward Cuba reconfirms the perilously devolved state of American democracy. That Washington can do so without massive outcries of dissent from the American people reconfirms the danger of our meager grasp of our own history.
This is Secretaries of Imperialism: From Adams to Albright <http://monkeyfist.com/articles/637>