By James Thompson
Hypocrisy or diplomacy
Certainly all rational people understand that the current negotiations between Cuba and the USA are complex and progress will not be smooth.
One way to smooth the negotiations would be to remove the element of hypocrisy constantly being hammered by the US negotiators.
One impediment to progress is the demand by the US for Cuba to improve their stance on “human rights.”
The US negotiators should consider this biblical passage before making demands on Cuba:
And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.â€
They also might want to consider this old saying “People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.”
The US negotiators have reached the apex of hypocrisy when they demand that Cuba improve its human rights record.
Cuba has never unleashed nuclear weapons on foreign or domestic metropolises such as the US did to Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Cuba has never firebombed a city such as was done to Dresden, Germany.
Cuba has never bombed foreign countries throughout the world such as the US has done in Latin America, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia.
Cuba has never committed genocide against foreign or domestic populations such as the US has done to Native Americans, African Americans and Latinos in the USA and to the peoples of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. Cuba has never supported the Israeli government’s oppression and slaughter of Palestinian people. Cuba did not support and fought against apartheid in South Africa while the US stood firmly behind the fascists in South Africa.
Cuba has never maintained foreign military bases such as Guantánamo in which people are unjustly detained, and tortured. The word “hypocrisy” is not sufficient to describe the travesty of the US demands for Cuba to improve its human rights record while the US is violating human rights on Cuban soil.
Cuba has never placed economic sanctions and/or embargoes on a foreign country which resulted in that country’s people’s economic deprivation and misery.
Cuba does not have a history of supporting Nazis and fascists such as the US has done in the Ukraine and many other places in the world.
Cuba does not have a history of barbaric foreign policies of “regime change” of democratically elected governments in foreign countries such as the US has done in Grenada, Panama, Cuba, Venezuela, Yugoslavia, all socialist countries and all anti-imperialist countries around the world.
Cuba has never allowed its police force to murder with impunity young people of African descent.
Cuba has never supported terrorist organizations within its own country who have bombed the airliners of foreign countries such as was done to the airliner carrying the Cuban fencing team in a flight from Venezuela to Cuba. Cuba has never supported perpetrators of terrorism such as Luis Posada Carriles. Mr. Carriles remains free in the USA today even though it is well documented that he has murdered many Cubans.
The US negotiators have not budged in their stubborn adherence to Cuba remaining on the US list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” If the US negotiators want to negotiate in good faith, they must insist that the USA be placed on the US list of “state sponsors of terrorism.”
