Bush Increases hostility towards Cuba - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#166733
Granma May 7, 2004

Brutal political and economic measures against our country
and against Cubans resident in the United States

(Message from the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of Cuba and the Cuban Revolutionary Government.)

Yesterday, 6th May, the United States government announced
new measures to make its policy against Cuba even more
aggressive and hostile.

In the morning, President Bush restated his hatred of and
his aggressive attitude towards our people, repeating his
usual cynical attacks and describing this escalation of
interventionist measures, when he gave advance notice of
them in a brief commentary to a few members of the media.
He went as far as to announce brazenly that the aim of
these measures was to "hasten the day that Cuba is a free
country."

Later, in the afternoon, Assistant Secretary of State for
Western Hemispheric Affairs Mr. Roger Noriega, one of the
authors of the Helms-Burton Act and the Miami terrorist
mob's representative in the United States government, made
an announcement in Washington in which he gave details of
a report given to the U.S. president by the "Commission
for
Assistance to a Free Cuba," placing particular emphasis on
the new economic and political measures the Bush
Administration is preparing to impose on Cuba.

No report could contain more lies, bitterness, frustration
and interference in the internal affairs of another
country than are contained in the six chapters and more
than 450 pages of the so-called Report of the Commission
for Assistance to a Free Cuba.

Among the strategic measures for achieving the overthrow
of the Cuban government the document lists: increasing
support to internal counterrevolutionary elements,
stepping up international campaigns against Cuba,
intensifying subversive and misinformation activities
against our country, adopting new measures to affect the
Cuban economy and as they put it, "to undermine the
regime's succession strategy."

The most significant measures in the first chapter, which
is entirely devoted to the new methods to be employed in
their attempt to destroy the Revolution, include the
following:

1. To make $59 million available over the next two years
to pay for actions aimed at destroying the Revolution.
Among other things, this money will be used for:

a) creating an international fund to develop "civil
society" in Cuba, which will engage "volunteers" from
third countries to travel to our country andprovide
assistance to the mercenaries working for the United
States in Cuba. In practice, this means organizing a
messenger corps to supply financial and logistic support
to the counterrevolution.

b) working with the OAS, to establish, "a scholarship
program" to allow counterrevolutionaries chosen by them to
study in universities in the United States and in Latin
America. This, in essence, is a plan for training cadres
for the counterrevolution in Cuba.

c) financing programs to support what they call
"democracy-building efforts by youth, women and
Afro-Cubans." This is a strange aim, coming from the
country of the Ku Klux Klan and discrimination of all
types.

d) allocating $18 million for the misnamed TV and Radio
Marti broadcastings from a C-130 COMMANDO SOLO airborne
platform to be used exclusively for that purpose.

e) maintaining and increasing public campaigns against
Cuba in third countries on the subject of alleged human
rights violations in Cuba, the "espionage committed
against other countries," the "subversion of
democratically elected governments" in Latin America and
other acts defined as a threat to U.S. interests; promote
international or third-country national conferences to
"disseminate information" about US policies on
"transition" planning efforts related to Cuba. This is
another $5 million to finance the mendacious international
campaigns that attempt to damage Cuba's prestige.

2. Limiting those who receive remittances of money and
packages to the immediate family of Cubans resident in the
United States. Immediate family is defined exclusively as
grandparents, grandchildren, parents, siblings, spouses
and children. This means that, from now on, Cubans living
in the
United States will be the only immigrants prevented from
sending economic aid to an aged aunt or other close family
member.

3. Forbidding Cubans living in the United States from
sending remittances and packages to their families if
these are "government officials or members of the
Communist party." For example, a 70 year old mother will
have to give
up her political right to receive a remittance.

4. Reducing the number of visits to Cuba by Cubans living
in the United States from the one visit per year they are
allowed today to one visit every three years;
establishing, henceforth, the additional restriction of
having to apply for a specific licence for each trip
instead of the general licence needed today; giving
permission to travel to Cuba only to immediate family
members. To this end, the United States government has
decreed that from now on the definition of family will be
"grandparents, grandchildren, parents, siblings, spouses
and children." This means that, henceforth, a cousin, an
aunt or any other close relative will not, according to
President Bush, be a member of the family. This also means
that Cubans who have recently arrived in the United States
will only be able to travel to Cuba three years after
having emigrated. Whereas the Cuban government is making
it easier and easier for émigrés to visit this country,
the United States government is placing more and more
obstacles in their way. Who are they afraid of?

5. Reducing from $164 to $50 per day the amount of money
that Cubans living in the United States can spend to cover
expenses when visiting Cuba; a new, arbitrary
discriminatory measure imposed on the Cuban community in
the United States.

6. Directing the U.S. law enforcement authorities to
conduct "sting operations" against anyone who carries
money to the relatives of Cubans living in the United
States. They even offer rewards to those who inform on
illegal family remittances.

7. Stepping up the restrictions on licences for
educational trips and academic exchanges by US citizens
and institutions with regulations that are more stringent
than those currently in effect. Remember that the licences
for the so-called "people to people exchanges" have
already been eliminated by the Bush administration.

8. Making a rigorous analysis to assess whether
implementing Title III of the Helms-Burton Act would run
contrary to U.S. interests or if implementing it would
expedite the fall of the Cuban Revolution. In practice, it
holds out the possibility of bringing third-country
businesspeople before U.S. courts if they invest in Cuba,
a provision that has not been applied to date.

9. Aggressively pursuing the same Act's Title IV
sanctions. These forbid giving foreign nationals who
invest in Cuba visas for travel to the United States;
additional personnel and resources will be devoted to
enforcing this provision of the Helms-Burton Act.

10. Neutralizing Cuban companies working in the export
sector. To do this, they will establish a Cuban Asset
Targeting Group devoted to investigating Cuban companies
and foreign companies which trade with Cuba.

11. Stepping up efforts to involve third-country
governments in campaigns against the Cuban Revolution.

12. Supporting action in third countries to discourage
tourist travel to Cuba.

13. Continuing to deny visas to Cuban officials who have
to travel to the United States.

14. Establishing a Transition Coordinator for Cuba at the
State Department which will be in charge of checking if
all these measures are being applied.


The other five chapters insolently set forth the measures
that the United States government will implement in our
country once they have made their dream of overthrowing
the Cuban Revolution come true. We shall not stop to
analyse them at this point. We shall just give one
example: one of the proposed measures is "for the
immediate immunization of all children under five who have
not been already immunized for the major childhood
diseases." Our people can draw their own conclusions. This
is a plan to annex Cuba and to return to the misconceived
republic of the Platt Amendment.

The cruelty and hatred which inspire this new aggression
against our country are beyond belief. What they are doing
is using every possible means to exacerbate the difficult
conditions which the criminal U.S. blockade already
imposes on us. It is a flagrant violation of the human
rights of 11 million Cubans whom they are trying to bring
to their knees through hunger and disease, simply for the
crime of wanting to be free and independent and because we
will not submit to imperial orders.

The measures announced yesterday are also a violation of
the rights of Cuban-born citizens living in the United
States. From now on, new, draconian restrictions are to be
imposed on their rights to travel and to send economic aid
to their relatives in Cuba.

All of these measures, and U.S. policy as a whole, openly
ignore the real interests of the American people, of the
overwhelming majority of Cubans living in the United
States, of a majority of the members of the U.S. Congress
and of broad sectors in that country who want normal
relations with Cuba.

The assignment of tens of millions of dollars to promote
mercenary activity in Cuba, the violation of international
law to carry subversive broadcasts against another country
from an airplane, plus the scandalous and internationally
criticized installation of a loathsome concentration camp
in
the territory occupied by force in Cuba all constitute
unprecedented acts of provocation which destroy the norms
and principles of international law, and which will have
to be discussed in the broadest range of international
fora,
including the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

The devious, cynical, cruel nature of the current
administration is revealed clearly by the fact that it
adopted these measures against our people at a juncture
when the price of food and its transportation cost have
almost doubled on the world market -- the price of sugar
barely covers its production cost and the price of fuel
has gone up steadily to reach the outrageous price of
almost $40 per barrel. They are also trying to deliver the
heaviest blow possible to tourism which has once again
entered a period of strong growth.

It makes one laugh to hear promises for the future
vaccination of children in a country where preventative
medicine and vaccination have attained one of the highest
levels in the world, as it does to hear this announcement
from a country where tens of millions of men, women and
children have no medical care and where more children die
for every 1000 live births than in Cuba. The Führer is
driven mad by the reality of the enormous human capital
created by our people, by its ability to send tens of
thousands of doctors to the most remote places in the
Third World -- which is greater than the ability of all of
the advanced countries put together -- by its progress in
the education, health and culture systems which will
shortly put Cuba in the first place among all the
countries on earth.

The solid support given to the Revolution by almost the
whole population makes it invulnerable to Mr. Bush's
putrid ideology. They want to wipe off Cuba's example. The
fraudulently elected President's insane and repugnant
programs for transition in Cuba are directed to that end.
This is the way they want to destroy all that a heroic
people has built with incredible love. Cuba may be wiped
off the map but no threat or insane action by Mr. Bush can
discourage it. His cruel and cowardly measures will
doubtlessly impose some degree of sacrifice on our people
but they will not for one second slow down the march
towards the humane and social goals it has set itself and
no one will be helpless. Cuba will never return to the
horrible, wretched, inhuman condition of a U.S. colony.

As our Commander in Chief said to more than one million
Cubans on May 1st, "If Cuba defends itself, if it arrests
and punishes mercenaries in order that no one should think
they are invulnerable to punishment, then they launch
massive campaigns against our country. They want to
prevent her from defending herself, and this country,
without violating the standards it has always observed in
its struggles, will defend itself with the law, and it
will defend itself with weapons, whenever this is
necessary, down to the last drop of blood."


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