By Robert Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Britain

Comrades, honoured guests, delegates to this 52nd congress of the Communist Party of Britain,

The current military conflict in Gaza, grossly unequal as it is, must not be allowed to conceal the fundamental cause of the conflict in this region, namely the continuing denial of the right of self-determination to the Palestinian people.

In 1948, Israel seized two-thirds of the territory allocated to the Palestinians by the United Nations partition plan, including a substantial strip of land to the north of Gaza where most of the rockets have fallen in recent days. Israel now occupies about 90 per cent of the land set aside for the Palestinian people including, of course, the West Bank.

For as long as this oppression – the greatest unresolved injustice of the 20th century – persists, there will be resistance. The only basis for a just and lasting peace remains the establishment of an independent, sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel in accordance with the pre-1967 borders, with Palestine’s capital in East Jerusalem and international guarantees of peace and security.

It says much about the genocidal aims and motives of Israeli ruling circles that they are doing everything possible to destroy the potential viability of such a Palestinian state, including the continued incarceration of Palestinian leaders such as Marwan Barghouti.

Our party, along with the international communist movement, must redouble its efforts to demand the release of all Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli gaols and to win ever-wider support for recognition of Palestinian statehood.

This is all the more important as we see imperialism’s intrigues plunging the Middle East into a fresh pit of conflict and bloodshed.

It is not necessary to endorse any aspect of al-Assad and Ba’ath Party rule in Syria to see the bloody hands of US, French and British imperialism at work in this conflict, in league with some of the reactionary oil states of the Middle East. The mountains of arms supplies to the anti-government forces have not materialised out of thin air. Their passage through NATO member Turkey into Syria is not unknown to the Ankara regime.

Recent Western-sponsored negotiations to unify the opposition are intended to pave the way not for a peaceful settlement of the Syrian crisis, but for diplomatic recognition as the first step towards open financial and military support for the rebellion. This itself could involve direct NATO military intervention, perhaps under cover of a ‘No Fly Zone’ as we saw in Libya.

Again, alongside the rest of the international communist movement, Britain’s communists oppose these dangerous manoeuvres designed to install a more compliant regime in Damascus. They prolong the suffering of the Syrian people, they weaken the forces of secularism in Syria, they risk strengthening the forces of sectarianism and religious fundamentalism and they further undermine the prospects for launching a genuine peace process.

US imperialism and its allies are lining up their options. A military attack on Iran, especially by proxy through Israel, remains a real possibility. Of course, it will be prefaced by the same kind of lies that prepared public opinion for the invasions of Iraq and Libya.

With our comrades of the Tudeh Party of Iran, we understand how Western threats are utilised by the reactionary Amhadinejad regime to rally domestic support and provide the pretext for repressing democratic and progressive opposition to theocratic dictatorship.

Let us make our position as communists absolutely clear. We opposed Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan when Britain, the US and other imperialist powers were funding and arming Bin Laden and the so-called Mujahedeen ‘freedom fighters’ who were murdering school teachers and planting bombs in Afghan cinemas and aeroplanes.

In retrospect, it is now clearer than ever that the defeat of the progressive, Soviet-backed Najibullah government in Afghanistan was a disaster for the Afghan people. It is all too late in the day for the British government now to pose as champions of women’s rights and girls’ education in that country.

British and US pledges to evacuate military forces from Afghanistan by 2014 are not worth the paper they are not written upon. The establishment there of US and NATO military facilities are part of a grander strategy to exert imperialist control over the resource-rich Asian sub-continent.

They also represent links in the military necklace being drawn around People’s China. As communists, we congratulate the Chinese Communist Party on the success of its 18th congress. We salute the progress made to lift more than 600 million people out of absolute poverty in the past three decades – a feat ‘on a scale and at a pace unequalled in history’, as the World Bank put it.

But while we see China as a force for economic growth, peace and social progress, imperialism sees it primarily as a market to be conquered and a military power to be subdued.

Comrades,

As Marxists, we understand that capitalism’s relentless drive for profit leads to monopoly, domination, conflict, militarism and war. The great imperialist slaughter of 1914-18, which Prime Minister David Cameron wants us to celebrate and the failure of social democracy to fight against it, led to the formation of communist parties in Russia and other countries.

Because imperialism still means domination, militarism and war, communists in Britain have a duty to maintain and strengthen the peace and anti-war movement. Doing this most effectively, alongside our allies, will have to be a top priority for the Communist Party of Britain over the next two years.

At the same time, we will continue our work in solidarity with socialist Cuba – still a beacon of social justice for oppressed peoples around the world – and with the revolutionary movement of Venezuela, including its militant communist party.

The class character of the European Union is being revealed for all to see, and who wish to see it, as the European Commission and the European Central Bank join with the IMF to spearhead austerity, privatisation and labour market deregulation across the continent. Just because some forces on the far right oppose the EU on nationalistic and xenophobic grounds, we will not flinch from putting the working class, democratic and anti-imperialist case against it, for popular sovereignty, against big business dictatorship.

But we also recognise that, ultimately, international agencies like the IMF, the World Trade Organisation, G8, G10 and those of the European Union rest on the state power of their members. The strongest states struggle for domination, so that – for example – the EU is dominated by the interests of German and French monopoly capital.

The struggle for state power at national level therefore remains the central task for the working class and its allies, including here in Britain.

International solidarity strengthens this fight, but it cannot replace it. We salute the millions of workers in Greece, Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and elsewhere who have taken strike action against the policies of their own governments and the troika. We salute the mass protest movements in those countries – and we are proud of the leading role played by our communist sisters and brothers.

The greatest contribution that we can make to international solidarity – whether with the peoples of Europe or those of the Middle East – is to put an end to the unelected, illegitimate government that we have here in Britain. Nobody voted for this Tory-LibDem coalition, cobbled together at the behest of City of London banks and financial institutions.

We should not be surprised, therefore, that the wealth, arrogance, duplicity and corruption that characterise the British ruling class also find their reflection in this ruling coalition government.

Our party, together with the Morning Star, has played a significant part in unmasking the chief purpose of this government’s austerity programme, namely, the wholesale privatisation of public services. This itself, like the growing attack on trade union and employment rights, is linked to the broader, perpetual objective of reducing the cost of labour and driving up profits.

The great question now is: will the labour movement respond in time, and on the scale necessary?

Will it act to save the National Health Service from Virgin Healthcare and the other privatisation vultures? Will it fight against the super-exploitation of young people? Will it defend the main victims of heartless benefit cuts – women, carers, single parents, migrant workers, low paid workers and the unemployed on housing benefits and our sisters and brothers with disabilities?

They cannot afford to wait for the next General Election and hope that a Labour government will not be quite so vicious.

The fight to bring down this government at the earliest opportunity and force a General Election must begin in earnest now. The fight to change Labour’s policies must be redoubled.

That means building a popular, democratic, anti-monopoly alliance in action, in our workplaces and local communities, through our trades unions and our trades councils. Four-fifths of the austerity cuts are still to come. That means, perversely, that there is still time to build broad-based local campaigns against them.

Generalised and coordinated strike action by millions of workers can play an invaluable role in the great movement that has to be built. But we must win the argument for such action, drawing inspiration from our comrades in Portugal, Greece, France and elsewhere. We must explain how mass action can shock this government, divide its supporters and bring pressure on it from employers. We must win the argument for a general strike in private as well as public sector workplaces, and in our local communities.

The prospects for winning that case will be hugely enhanced if we can also show that there is an alternative. And there is one. The Trades Union Congress has already adopted the People’s Charter, endorsed by the Scottish, Welsh and Women’s TUCs.

Its policies for progressive taxation, public investment, public ownership, for a massive housebuilding programme, for sustainable energy and against militarism and war, can unite millions of people around a real alternative to austerity and privatisation.

The Charter for Women was launched at a previous congress of this Communist Party and now has the support of almost all major trade unions and a reinvigorated National Assembly of Women. It, too, projects the kind of policies that are needed in the workplace, in the labour movement and in society more widely.

The new executive committee elected at this congress must take on the responsibility of projecting the People’s Charter and the Charter for Women on an even bigger scale in the year to come, linking them to the economic, social and political battles that lie ahead.

Comrades,

We should not under-estimate the dangers that the current crisis poses to black and ethnic minority people and community relations.

Unscrupulous forces in political parties and the monopoly mass media, and on the far and fascist right, are already using the austerity agenda to attack immigration and immigrants.

As with benefit claimants and the unemployed, the labour movement must resist these attempts to divide working class people against each other. The Communist Party will have to use what influence it can to help overcome divisions in the anti-racist and anti-fascist movement.

We support all broad-based initiatives against the racists and fascists, including militant action where it reflects the mass mobilisation of local people.

Comrades,

We as a party have much to do over the coming period. We have the commitment. We have confidence in working people. We know that our labour movement can be enthused, roused and activated.

We have our programme, Britain’s Road to Socialism.

We know that the Morning Star needs to reach many more people, every day, as the voice of peace and socialism.

We know that the working class and peoples of Britain, including their labour movement, would benefit from the growth of our Communist Party.

Long live the working class movement!

Long live the Communist Party of Britain!

Long live socialism and communism!

By Zoltan Zigedy

Via: http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/

Amnesty International has a bee under its bonnet.

A human rights advocate, educator, and labor attorney, Dan Kovalik, mustered the audacity to challenge the world’s most prominent and highly regarded rights-based advocacy group. Claiming over three million members since its birth in 1961, AI is the poster child for modern “non-governmental organizations” or NGOs, the hundreds of thousands of hazy entities that play an ever-growing, influential role in international affairs.

Despite AI’s sterling reputation among middle class liberals in the English-speaking world, Kovalik was troubled by AI’s stance on the war in Libya and its role in cheer leading US and NATO involvement. After his October 23 Counterpunch article “Libya and the West’s Human Rights Hypocrisy” appeared, AI launched a counter attack authored by AI official, Sunjeev Bery. Bery’s response circulated widely among the AI-friendly internet community as an example of “getting it wrong” on AI’s principles and goals.

Kovalik demonstrates that he is more than capable of answering Bery in a November 8 Counterpunch response. He shows with even greater clarity how AI helped crack open the door for outside intervention in Libya and, knowingly or unknowingly (it’s hard to imagine how anyone could not know), offered dubious but influential justification for that intervention.

AI and other advocates for a similarly narrow and myopic interpretation of human rights have a long and discreditable history of service to those on the wrong side of the struggle for justice. By ignoring material inequities, power imbalances, and class and ethnic oppressions, they dilute the question of justice to matters of individual conscience and a conservative set of negative rights. That is not to say that these concerns are wrong, but that they touch on only a corner of the concerns of the vast majority of the world’s people. In fact, they loom largest for those least touched by the ravages of predatory capitalism and its military enforcers—those in the most developed countries and those most privileged within its middle and upper strata.

When AI was founded in 1961, much of the world was engaged in an intense struggle for independence from imperialism and neo-colonialism. From Algeria to Vietnam, from the Republic of the Congo to Cuba, from the segregated deep south of the US to South Africa and the Portuguese African colonies, millions of people were committed to resolute battles for self-determination. Under the yoke of the rich and powerful, the peoples of Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the ghettos and barrios of the First World were rising against their oppressors. The UN recognized this powerful movement, certified its authenticity, and attested to its legitimacy with the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples that declared the following:

1. The subjection of peoples to alien subjugation, domination and exploitation constitutes a denial of fundamental human rights, is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and is an impediment to the promotion of world peace and co-operation.

2. All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

3. Inadequacy of political, economic, social or educational preparedness should never serve as a pretext for delaying independence.

4. All armed action or repressive measures of all kinds directed against dependent peoples shall cease in order to enable them to exercise peacefully and freely their right to complete independence, and the integrity of their national territory shall be respected.

Perhaps it was a coincidence, but just as these struggles took center stage, AI chose to take human rights questions in a different direction, away from the rights of subjugated people to the rights of individuals, vetted and dubbed “prisoners of conscience” by the AI establishment. By the mid-sixties, internationally recognized leaders of anti-colonial independence movements like imprisoned Nelson Mandela were ruled out as “prisoners of conscience” because they advocated armed resistance against their oppressors. At the same time, artists, writers, and other dissident intellectuals in the socialist and less developed countries seemed to be the most common candidates for AI’s attention, especially by its US and Western European affiliates.

Whether by collaboration or happenstance, the wrongs targeted by the AI leadership were readily embraced by the major capitalist media and fully congruent with the foreign policy positions of the US and its European Cold War allies. The few reports on alleged Western human rights violations gained no traction, while claims against governments in the East or South played a greater and greater role in Western diplomacy and intervention. Even AI’s founder, Peter Benenson, expressed concerns in the mid-sixties that the organization was unduly influenced by British intelligence.

In the Cold War battle of ideas, AI proved to be a great asset to the US and its allies, crafting issues that became pillars of policy and levers of negotiation. The narrow interpretation of the Final Act of the Helsinki Conference of 1975—an interpretation that elevated Article Seven over the other nine Articles and all other provisions—marked the most important collaborative victory of Western human rights organizations and Western governments in the Cold War. Most rights and social justice activists in Amnesty International’s areas of influence would be hard pressed to identify any other provision beyond the endorsement of an indistinct freedom of conscience.

Especially Article Six, the principle of non-intervention in the affairs of other governments, was neither acknowledged nor respected by Western rights groups or governments. Constructing their efforts around Article Seven, capitalist governments mounted a massive human rights offensive against socialist and anti-imperialist countries, overshadowing the national liberation, anti-nuclear, and anti-war movements of gravest concern to most of the less affluent world at that moment. Much of the credit for shaping this agenda can be laid at the doorstep of the human rights organizations. Their narrow, facile approach to social justice baited them into a calculated campaign against the tide of socialism so apparent in the mid-seventies.

Of course the positive rights of equality, education, leisure, shelter, peace, etc. were swept aside as well before the celebration of individuality and self-expression—what Marx called “…the rights of egoistic man, of man separated from other men and from the community.”

After the Cold War

With the demise of the European socialist community and the establishment of a new balance of power favorable to Western capitalist powers, imperialism further co-opted the human rights cause, contorting it into a justification for wars of aggression. With no one to advocate or enforce the rights of nations to self-determination, the US and its NATO allies cynically crafted a predatory foreign policy around protecting or promoting human rights and democracy, a policy used to justify overt armed intervention in the Balkans and the Middle East and covertly in dozens of other countries. And the Western human rights community said nothing.

Emboldened by the efficacy of the human rights cover, the US and its allies sponsored hundreds of “human rights” and “democracy” NGOs claiming to promote higher values while subverting governments hostile to US and NATO goals. Funded by USAID and other government agencies and carrying innocuous names like “Republican” and “Democratic” Institutes, they meddle in elections, foment coups, and manipulate oppositions in countries like Ukraine, Lebanon, Venezuela, and many others. Slipping into the human rights tent, these organizations exploited the Western regard for individual human rights against the rights guaranteed by the 1960 UN Declaration and other Declarations affirming the right of self-determination. And the Western human rights community said nothing.

If the leading lights in human rights circles—organizations like AI and Human Rights Watch— are to claim any moral legitimacy, they must resolutely dissociate their campaigns from those seeking to use them for predation and aggression. But they have not.

Kovalik and other critics of “humanitarian intervention” and the duplicity of human rights organizations are correct in perceiving an odor of hypocrisy. As Kovalik points out, the “even handedness” espoused by AI in regard to belligerent forces completely obscures ever-present power inequities.

Within the insular bubble of rights-based moral calculation, asymmetries of power, wealth, or development count for nothing. The rural guerrilla in sandals and armed with a rifle must respect the same etiquette of war as the foreign interloper astride a 70-ton tank. In the strange universe of the human rights industry, it doesn’t matter whether a regime’s opponents are paid by the CIA or patriotically motivated; their rights to dissent have equal legitimacy.

And the same respect for human rights is expected of a popular regime (for example, Cuba or Venezuela) under overt and covert threat from powerful foes as is expected of a country (like the US) devoid of any serious external or internal peril. One would think that a serious “human rights” organization would hail the direction of civil rights in countries like Cuba and Venezuela that have improved the health and well being of the disadvantaged in order to fully enjoy rights while condemning a country like the US that has moved dramatically toward a police state. But that is not the case.

Nor does history extenuate the force of human rights standards as held by Western human rights organizations. Countries emerging from the civil distortions of colonial occupation, suffering the legacy of feudal social and economic relations, or holding to non-Western traditions are held to the same human rights standards by AI as the Euro-American countries that forged those standards over two centuries ago. This lack of understanding and tolerance too often reveals gross cultural and ethnic chauvinism.

With the US and its NATO allies hijacking its principles, human rights organizations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have to answer for a lot. While millions of their members honestly want to help those deserving solace, they can no longer ignore the harm that comes from the coalescence of the institutional human rights agenda and the malignant foreign policy of the US and its allies. And the naïve notion that the sins of the victim are no less grave than the sins of the bully is untenable and morally cynical.

Zoltan Zigedy
zoltanzigedy@gmail.com

By Manuel E. Yepe

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippman The US has sworn to ¨make
those responsible pay” for the death of their Ambassador in Libya.

But the truth is that those responsible for Christopher Stevens’ death had
been armed, funded, trained, and controlled by NATO Special Forces. And the
US is the leader of NATO.

In March 2011, before his posting as Ambassador to Libya, Stevens had been
appointed “Special Representative to the Libyan Transitional National
Council, (LTNC)” and sent to Benghazi to coordinate US military, diplomatic,
and financial support in the struggle to overthrow the legitimate government
of Libya. There he played a leading role in coordinating the violent
subversion with the support of local terrorist organizations. Benghazi,
located over 400 miles west of the capital Tripoli, is considered the 30
year epicenter of terrorist extremism and Al Qaeda in Libya.

Although the US Embassy, as are all other embassies in Libya, is in Tripoli,
Ambassador Stevens lost his life while he was in the US Consulate in
Benghazi

According to journalist Tony Cartalucci in an article published by the
digital journal Activist Post, behind the protests at the US diplomatic
representations is the goal of rescuing the street credibility of the
sectarian extremist organizations such as Al Qaeda which are increasingly
internationally seen as mercenaries serving Saudi-US-Israeli policy.

Thus, the violence is always limited in scope, designed simply to reduce the
legitimacy of the accusations of complicity with the US which discredits
these organizations.

Ambassador Stevens apparently was caught in smoke while escaping from the US
consulate in Benghazi, and died of asphyxiation – a victim of unforeseen
circumstances, not the victim of a targeted assassination.

However, the death of a high-ranking US diplomat in Libya, in Benghazi, the
very den in Libyan territory of Al Qaeda, leaves the United States and its
foreign policy, especially in regards to Syria, in tatters.

The concentration of international terrorism that presently has powerful
allies in the superpower and its European allies has a long history in
Libyan territory.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), along with its affiliates and
predecessors, were armed, trained, its leaders coddled and supported by the
West for over 30 years. One of these predecessors, the US-CIA backed Front
for the Salvation of Libya (NFSL) made multiple attempts to assassinate
Qaddafi and initiate armed rebellion throughout Libya during the 1980’s.

Many of these fighters would also line up with the US-Saudi created front,
Al Qaeda, when first it was conceived in the mountains of Afghanistan in the
1980s. Most of these fighters lived and operated from Libya’s eastern region
of Cyrenaica, and in particular, the cities of Benghazi and Darnah.

These same fighters, would then move on to fighting US troops in both
Afghanistan starting in 2001, and Iraq beginning in 2003,

The large number of Libyan Islamic recruits who travelled to Iraq kept a
close cooperative relationship with Al Qaeda, along whose forces they
fought. Their links were consolidated, and after the liberation of prisoners
of war, both organizations merged in 2007.

It would seem unthinkable then that the US would pick as an ally for its
wars in Libya and the Middle East that which had been the epicentre of
terrorism in Libyan territory for three decades and had even fought directly
with US troops across multiple theatres of war – especially after these
terrorists officially announced their merger with Al Qaeda –the organization
the US considers responsible for the monstrous terrorist attack of 9/11
against the Twin Towers in New York.

But that is exactly what the United States did.

“So who exactly will the US make “pay” for the death of Ambassador Stevens?”
Cartalucci asks, “Will they pull the funds and weapons they are using
currently to wage terror upon the people of Syria? Will they liquidate the
terror organizations and bases in Libya recruiting and training militants to
fight America’s proxy war in Syria?”

“Unlikely”, he answers.

September 2012.

16 November 2012

The WFTU Secretariat released the following statement on November 16th, 2012 following the developments in the Gaza Strip:

“Within less than 48hours the Israeli army through sea and land has attacked more than 156 targets in the Gaza Strip. A new horrifying circle of bloodshed has started causing deadly casualties to the Palestinian people, the longtime victim of the imperialist policy of Israel and its allies the USA and NATO.

The Israeli Minister of Defence, Ehud Barak has activated more than 30.000 military troops ready to move to Gaza. According to latest information more than 10 trucks carrying tanks and armored vehicles are moving towards the area.

From their side the governments of USA, Germany, Britain, France, Canada have provided alibi to the Israeli aggressiveness either openly or by blaming equally the perpetrator and the victims.

The WFTU denounces in the strongest possible way the murderous attacks of Israel against the Gaza Strip. Once against the World Federation of Trade Unions does not stay neutral in a blatant ongoing massacre against the Palestinian people who deserve the right to a Palestinian state as they demand in the boarders of 1967 with East Jerusalem as its capital.

This aggressive plot against the Palestinian people, part of the general escalating imperialist aggressiveness in the Middle East against Syria and Iran, must end now.

We call upon the trade union organizations of the world to actively express their solidarity to the struggle of the Palestinian people and demand the immediate ending of this massacre against them.”

http://www.wftucentral.org/?p=5714&language=en

The World Peace Council denounces to the peace loving people of the world the recent and
ongoing aggression of the Israeli regime and its military against the Palestinian Gaza strip
and its population.

Within short time hundreds of targets, mainly civilians, have been hit by the Israeli military,
causing death and destruction to the Palestinian people.

The records of Israel regarding crimes against humanity are full of similar deadly attacks.
Nobody really believed that Israel has withdrawn from this part of Palestine, especially now
when the heavy military machine of Israel is preparing for a ground invasion again. We
remind that the Israeli regime is continuing the occupation of big parts of the West Bank and
East Jerusalem, installing settlements and constructing the separation Wall.

The WPC expresses its deep concern and anger since this escalation of Israeli
aggressiveness takes place during a period of growing aggressiveness of the NATO and the
USA in the region, which are key allies and protectors of the Israeli occupation forces. We
condemn also the criminal silence of the European Union in its role of accomplice to the
Israeli crimes.

We demand the immediate end of the Israeli attacks on the Palestinian Gaza!

We reject the political and military interference in the domestic affairs of Syria!

We fully support the establishment and recognition of an independent State of Palestine,
within the borders of 1967 and with East Jerusalem as its capital!

Athens, 16th November 2012 The Secretariat of WPC

WORLD PEACE COUNCIL
CONSEJO MUNDIAL DE LA PAZ
CONSEIL MONDIAL DE LA PAIX
10 OTHONOS ST. 10557 ATHENS GREECE
TEL: +30-210- 3316326 FAX: +30-210-3224302
www.wpc-in.org , e-mail: wpc@otenet.gr

Please sign and circulate this petition widely. It has just been created in the wake of the annual UN vote against the embargo and the devastation left by Hurricane Sandy. Millions of people agree with us. Thousands of signatures should be possible.

Here is the link to the petition: http://www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-end-the-united-states-embargo-of-cuba

Here is the text of the petition in English and Spanish:

The United States embargo against Cuba has been in place for over 50 years. On November 13, 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted against it for the 21st time. Again, the vote was nearly unanimous. Here in the United States, polls show that the majority of the people want to normalize relations with Cuba.
Furthermore, the embargo adds to the suffering of the Cuban people, making it very difficult to get basics like asthma medicine and mammograms. Hurricane Sandy, which devastated large regions of the country, is just the latest example of how the embargo prevents vital aid and materials for reconstruction from arriving where they are desperately needed.

It’s time, Mr. President. The embargo is pointless and cruel. End it now.

_____________________________

Presidente Obama: Termine el embargo estadounidense de Cuba

El embargo de los Estados Unidos contra Cuba ha estado en lugar durante más de 50 años. El 13 de noviembre de 2012, la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas votó contra el embargo para la veintiuna vez. Y otra vez, el voto era casi unánime. Aquí en los Estados Unidos, las encuestas muestran que la mayoría de la gente quiere normalizar relaciones con Cuba.

Además, el embargo añade al sufrimiento de la gente cubana, haciéndolo muy difícil de conseguir fundamentos como la medicina de asma, y la mamografía. El huracán Sandy, que devastó regiones grandes de Cuba, es sólo el último ejemplo de como el embargo previene ayuda vital y materiales para la reconstrucción de llegar donde ellos son desesperadamente necesarios.

Es el tiempo, Sr. presidente. El embargo es inútil y cruel. Termínelo ahora.

Es el tiempo, Sr. presidente. El embargo es inútil y cruel. Termínelo ahora.

By Glen Ford (about the author) Permalink
OpEdNews Op Eds 11/15/2012 at 05:02:42

Reprinted from the Black Agenda Report

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The United States stands virtually alone in its crusade against Cuba, at the United Nations General Assembly and in western hemispheric forums. “Rather than isolating Cuba, the 52 year-long embargo has resulted in the isolation of the United States.”

” On Cuba, as with foreign policy in general, Barack Obama represents the continuity of U.S. imperial policy.”

For the 21 st year in a row, the United Nationals General Assembly has nearly unanimously condemned the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, now in its 52 nd year. The vote was 188 to 3, with only Israel and the tiny Pacific island of Palau siding with the United States. Two other mini-states in the Pacific, the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, abstained from the vote. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez noted that President Obama came into office talking about a new beginning in relations Havana, but “the reality of the last four years has been characterized by a persistent tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade.” On Cuba, as with foreign policy in general, Barack Obama represents the continuity of U.S. imperial policy, from Eisenhower through George W. Bush. The First Black President is no different than his predecessors when it comes to Cuba, the island nation that refuses to buckle under to Washington.

The Castro brothers, Fidel and Raul, have not only born witness to U.S. decline in the hemisphere and the world, they have contributed mightily to the humbling of the Yankees. Not content simply to survive America’s unremitting hostility over the course of two and a half generations, Cuba has been an icon of resistance to U.S. imperialism around the world. The people’s of southern Africa owe Cuba a huge debt for helping defeat Washington’s allies, the racist South African military, in Angola, in 1988 — a watershed event that hastened the demise of the white regime.

” Washington earned the hatred of vast sectors of Latin American society, while Cuba’s prestige continued to grow.”

The Cuban revolution’s impact on Latin America cannot be overstated. After the 1959 revolution, the United States pushed one country after another into military dictatorships, under which hundreds of thousands were massacred and disappeared. The U.S. and its fascist friends declared war, not just on the Left, but on Latin American civil society itself, in a crusade to prevent another Cuba from happening in the Americas. As a result, Washington earned the hatred of vast sectors of Latin American society, while Cuba’s prestige continued to grow. One by one, the U.S.-backed dictatorships collapsed, allowing Latin American politics to come alive, again. The people of South and Central America had shared the collective nightmare of rule by Washington’s fascist proxies. They also shared a determination to never again be dominated by the superpower to the North. Majorities in every Latin American country knew exactly what the Cubans meant when they spoke of the dangers of U.S. imperialism.

Earlier this year, at a summit meeting of hemispheric leaders, the United States found itself totally isolated on the question of Cuba. Even the president of Colombia, Washington’s closest ally in the region, declared there could not be another summit without Cuba’s presence . Rather than isolating Cuba, the 52 year-long embargo has resulted in the isolation of the United States, in the western hemisphere and at the United Nations General Assembly. Maybe that’s what the future will look like: the U.S., despite all its weapons, one day all alone except for pariah states like Israel, while the rest of the world gets on with the business of living.

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at mailto:Glen.Ford%40BlackAgendaReport.com.