A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #19-26 - The Black Pearl of the Caribbean. Cuba: A power struggle at the expense of the oppressed. (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

The hypocritical indictment by the United States Department of Justice 
issued on May 20 against Raúl Castro Ruz, army general and one of the 
most representative figures of the Cuban Revolution, not only reflects 
the unpunished arrogance of one who feels strong and above the law, but 
perhaps also seeks to lend a touch of legitimacy to the criminal embargo 
that has lasted for decades and to the even more shameful coercive 
measures that have affected the defenseless population in recent months 
(240 since January). The population has been suffocated by a ferocious 
energy blockade imposed by the hegemonic power, the only result of which 
appears to have been to reduce almost all of the working masses to a 
near-subsistence level, pressed by the pressing need to obtain basic 
necessities and the constant threat of armed aggression.

A one-sided reading, far from the context in which the events unfolded, 
an indictment devoid of any legal standing (even assuming it to be true) 
and without a jurisdiction in which it could be applied, seeks to bring 
justice to an episode that in 1996 led to the downing of two aircraft 
belonging to Brothers to the Rescue, a violent organization based in 
Miami. The downing occurred after repeated incursions and violations of 
Cuban airspace, violations repeatedly reported by Cuban authorities to 
US government agencies but repeatedly ignored by them. This is a 
symptom, at the very least, of a certain complicity, if not outright 
planning and subsidization. Moreover, this conduct is part of a long 
trajectory of attacks, sabotage, and attempted aggression that the US 
government has implemented since state socialism was imposed as the 
official religion in January 1959. One final act-for now-in the 
never-ending, controversial, and unresolved issue that has preoccupied 
the two countries for nearly seventy years. Even viewed from the purely 
legal perspective of international law, the United Nations Charter, and 
the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, this would be 
part of a legitimate defense of their airspace against what could be 
interpreted as acts of "terrorism," which the aforementioned 
organization allegedly carried out between 1994 and 1996, in defiance of 
US law. Moreover, this accusation comes after US forces for months 
dominated the Caribbean and Pacific, killing nearly two hundred people 
and kidnapping the president of Venezuela. This is a corollary to a 
doctrine that, supported by a massive military apparatus, seeks to apply 
political and economic pressure through the unilateral imposition of 
sanctions, aimed at redefining the region's geopolitical structure. 
Justified by the Attorney General's words, "If you kill Americans, we 
will prosecute you. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter 
what office you hold," phrases that echo from historical times we 
thought were long gone, but which unfortunately are now resurfacing with 
ruthless logic even in other latitudes (see the Middle East). This 
extrajudicial, politically motivated set-up is intended to justify 
recent coercive measures that, operating at the economic level, produce 
their devastating effects directly on people's bodies. Evidently, this 
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which expands 
existing sanctions (in violation, among other things, of Articles 1, 2, 
and 55 of the United Nations Charter and the 1992 resolution on the 
lifting of the blockade),It is part of a new phase of regional 
realignment that Washington appears to be redefining through a 
determined protagonism and a cynical use of what appear to be the 
sophisticated techniques of a new hybrid war: sanctions, tariffs, 
financial strangulation, international incrimination, media propaganda, 
and the extrajudicial use of its own justice. Meanwhile, however, old 
methods are also being resorted to, with the aircraft carrier Nimitz 
cruising undisturbed in the waters of the Antilles, awaiting developments.

Upon returning from his trip to the Vatican, whose unstated motivations 
likely included seeking an understanding with the deeply rooted Catholic 
world on the island, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, of Cuban origin, 
just hours before the sanctions were announced, released a video 
directed at the now exhausted population: "Cuba is not governed by any 
revolution, but by GAESA, a state within a state, whose benefits are the 
prerogative of a small elite." This Business Administration Group in 
question, branded a carcinogenic organism parasitizing the national 
economy and blamed for the constant blackouts and shortages of fuel, 
food, and medicine , is a business consortium created in the 1990s with 
the aim of capturing foreign currency, which was beginning to flow in at 
that time following Fidel Castro's opening up to tourism and the 
introduction of dual currency ( pesos and dollars). Conceived by 
then-Defense Minister Raúl Castro, this holding company eventually 
encompassed a wide range of commercial and financial businesses, from 
hotels to diving centers, marinas to travel agencies. Since 2010, it has 
absorbed Cimex, a state-owned supermarket company, and hundreds of gas 
stations. It eventually became the owner of the International Financial 
Bank, one of the largest in the country, controlling 40-70% of the 
national economy through an empire estimated at $18 billion by 2025. On 
May 7, the Trump administration further tightened sanctions against 
GAESA and its official director, Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, citing 
national security concerns. On the 22nd, ICE arrested her sister in 
Miami under the same circumstances, thus attempting to target the Cuban 
military's finances. The actual impact of these measures on the 
stability of this business conglomerate remains a mystery, given the 
extreme opacity that has always surrounded it.

The energy blockade has reduced tourism, already in freefall, to almost 
zero, while remittances from abroad, estimated at $3.7 billion in 
2019-the highest amount ever recorded-were expected to hover around $1.1 
million in 2024, a 43% drop from the previous year. Meanwhile, 
Washington says it's ready to offer $100 million in humanitarian aid, 
while Rubio urges the population to decide on regime change: "A new 
Cuba, where any Cuban, not just GAESA, can open a bank or a construction 
company." Same recipe, this time cooked up with a Caribbean twist.

Cuba is experiencing a period of decadence which, although it can be 
traced back to the perìodo especialThe crisis, which began in the 1990s, 
is now experiencing an unprecedented resurgence affecting much of the 
population, resulting in a terrifying food crisis and an equally 
deplorable energy crisis. These are two aspects of a scenario where the 
procurement of basic necessities and recurring blackouts shape the 
patterns and rhythms of daily life. What is said of capitalism-that it 
is the planned management of scarcity-can rightly be applied on a local 
scale to Cuba and its regime, which has capitalized on highly refined 
governing techniques over the decades, but which today sees its 
authority progressively weakened thanks to a reawakening, albeit timid, 
of consciences, which translates into certain forms of communitarianism 
or popular solidarity that punctuate daily life. Meanwhile, the image of 
a benevolent father that Castroism has dispensed throughout its 
existence is fading. On the other hand, however, we should also consider 
the other side of the coin: the competition for survival and the various 
manifestations of selfishness that accompany it have also increased. At 
the same time, there has been an increase in state repression and an 
expansion of the political police's operational reach, which has led to 
an exponential increase in incarceration and the emergence of a genuine 
prison problem, with thousands of political prisoners to manage and the 
complex social consequences this entails. This has also raised awareness 
among entire sectors of society against the authoritarian management of 
public affairs that prohibits even the slightest possibility of reform, 
however mild. The state has responded with a series of social measures 
to address the needs of the most disadvantaged segments of the 
population, along with a large-scale propaganda campaign in an attempt 
to regain the aura of benevolence that has always characterized it. But 
in fact, what most defines the management of sovereignty continues to 
be, albeit in more disguised forms, the centralized administration of 
fear, which can count not only on one of the most efficient repressive 
apparatuses, but also on widespread disaffection and an almost total 
ignorance or disavowal of basic forms of organization and reaction to 
the prevailing despotic apparatus. A apparatus that can rely not only on 
the hoarding of economic and financial resources, but also on a 
progressive depopulation affecting the youngest age groups, who find in 
emigration the possibility of escaping from a condition that has become 
unsustainable but which has led to a demographic decline and a parallel 
consolidation of political conservatism. The feeble protests that 
occasionally surface are limited to a few cacerolazos.shouted out loud 
but lacking an organizational structure, an expression of a now endemic 
desperation shrouded in fatalism and resignation, in any case a far cry 
from the large mass demonstrations that took place four years ago, when 
it seemed that something was really moving. The anti-government protests 
of July 11, 2022, which began in San Antonio de Los Baños, just outside 
Havana, and Palma Soriano, in the eastern province of Santiago, and then 
spread to the main cities within twenty-four hours. Thousands of 
citizens from the most precarious sectors of Cuban society took to the 
streets, an event without precedent (except perhaps the so-called 
Maleconazo , in 1994), and which led to the arrest of 1,848 people, were 
also an expression of resistance to state domination and the various 
forms of prevailing authoritarianism that entire classes, groups, and 
individuals have sought to oppose, in all their complexity and despite 
attempts at co-optation by external or foreign forces, with the aim of 
demanding fragments of freedom and better living conditions. It was a 
push that came from the most marginalized segments of the working 
class-precarious workers, day laborers, the unemployed, and the 
multitudes of peasants living on the outskirts of large cities. They 
arrived in the wake of massive internal migration, but lacked the 
awareness of being a class. However, they cannot be characterized as a 
labor movement in the strict sense, lacking organization, traditional 
union or corporate forms, or even territorial organizations tied to 
work. Rather, they reflect the desperation of less well-off groups, 
influenced by the effects of government policies of recent decades that 
have led to an extreme atomization of the social fabric, and by the 
influence of a consumerist model originating from emigration, especially 
from the United States. Strictly speaking, therefore, we cannot speak of 
political forces; at most, unorganized social forces clashing with 
police forces, which are indeed extremely organized. Their meticulous 
work has succeeded in dismantling every form of dissent and political 
opposition in the country, leaving an even worse situation and ignoring 
the issue and the reasons that led to its explosion. The void felt 
today, the perceived impossibility of effecting political change from 
within, are most likely at the root of the great popularity Marco Rubio 
and Ambassador Mike Hammer currently enjoy, obviously in some sectors, 
and partly explain the sense of social impotence that pervades the 
island. According to a recent poll conducted by El Toque, an independent 
local body, it would appear that most Cubans (56% of those living on the 
island and 67% of those in the diaspora) view U.S. armed intervention 
favorably, or at least as the lesser evil in the face of advancing 
hunger. The Trump administration has held several discussions in recent 
months with President Díaz-Canel and his cabinet, and direct contact 
with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the former executive's nephew and 
the most zealous of his bodyguards. He is the son of the former director 
of GAESA, who was awarded the rank of general by Raúl Castro for his 
services to managing the company. The "crab," nicknamed "The Crab" due 
to a deformity in his hand, is said to have met several times in Mexico 
with the U.S. Secretary of State. If this were confirmed, it could be 
deduced that the US has chosen to negotiate with the military, at least 
with the more business-oriented sectors, rather than with the political 
ones, which, after decades of criminalizing dissent, now finds itself 
having to negotiate with the only available interlocutor: Yankee 
corporate power. Despite the rift within the armed forces, divided 
between a faction of senior generals with ties to the political 
leadership and the lower ranks most exposed to the effects of the crisis 
(disparagingly called "beans and rice," in reference to their diet), the 
White House seems willing to compromise, granting Castro the privilege 
of ensuring a smooth transition while granting the military leadership 
the right to dismantle the old political system and act as guarantors of 
the new order; a solution highly desired by the superpower, which 
certainly doesn't want trouble 144 kilometers from its shores. CIA 
Director John Ratcliffe's visit in mid-May is also worth considering. It 
fueled speculation about Raúl's possible protection, which would remain 
untouched by any retaliation, and a possible regime change through a 
proxy, as happened in Venezuela. This solution would satisfy Trump and 
his more pragmatic entourage, who, with a cosmetic touch, would 
facilitate the covert entry of US capital. Much less so would the more 
hardline wing, led by Rubio, which has aspired to a radical 
transformation of society. The words of Marcell Felipe, director of the 
Museum of the Cuban Diaspora in Miami, "we didn't fight for 67 years, 
with prisoners and deaths, to earn the right to invest under the rules 
of a communist regime," are shared by at least three Cuban-American 
members of Congress. The anxiety and fear of many, in Cuba and in exile, 
is that the time has come, due to a series of factors: the mid-term 
elections, the imminent presence of the football World Cup, Trump in the 
guise of the one who brought democracy,The new geopolitical 
configuration in the Western Hemisphere; but above all, because the 
Cuban people can no longer cope: children are no longer going to school, 
many have nothing to eat, several hospitals are unable to operate, 
others will soon close; medicines are in short supply while diseases are 
beginning to claim their first victims, men and women despair at a 
situation they perceive as surreal. On the stage of the history of this 
new millennium, the eternal comedy of the clash of powers plays out 
against the backdrop of the tragedy that starves and enslaves multitudes 
of proletarians, oppressed and subjugated, but not yet subjugated, to 
alien logics, whose devastating effects they feel firsthand.

Massimiliano Bonvissuto

https://umanitanova.org/la-perla-nera-dei-caraibi-cuba-scontro-di-poteri-sulla-pelle-degli-oppressi/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en