OMNI
DEFENDING CUBA Newsletter #9
October 24, 2021
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
Omnicenter.org/donate/
CONTENTS #9, US AGAINST CUBA
Vijay Prashad, Imperialism v. Humanity
Cuba in China’s “Belt and Road Energy” Alliance
Cuba v. Covid-19
UPJ, Stop US Regime Change Subversion of Cuba
Anniversary of Murder of Che Guevara, New Book by Ratner and Smith
Florida’s Gov. Awards Medal of Freedom to Che’s Assassin
John Ross, World Mobilizes v. US Mistreatment of Cuba
Aaron Maté, US v. Cuba’s Anti-Imperialism
Cuban Scientists Write Biden on Covid-19
Supporting Cuban Sovereignty
Max Blumenthal, Cultural Counter-Revolution in Cuba from US
Bill Hackworth, US State Dept. Criticism of Cuba on Human Rights
Vijay Prashad, US Behind Regime Change Drive
CIA Plans to Bomb Miami and Blame Cuba
Open Letter to Biden from Let Cuba Live
Global Protest: Hands Off Cuba, from ANSWER Coalition
Amishe Parikh-Friese, End the Embargo
Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores, End the Blockade
Alan MacLeod, Expose Western Media Propaganda v. Cuba
Cyber Attack on Cuban Foreign Ministry
US Behind Cuba Protest
MEDICC Calls for Humanitarian Policy Toward Cuba
Contents of #8
TEXTS July-October 2021
The great contest of our time is between humanity and imperialism: The Thirtieth Newsletter (2021)
Vijay Prashad mronline (7-31-21)
Cuba: hell, purgatory and paradise
Editor. Mronline.org (7-23-21)
The United States was never satisfied with having lost the Cuba subjected to its ambitions. Therefore, shortly after the victory of the guerrillas of the Sierra Maestra, they tried to invade the island with mercenary troops. They were defeated in April 1961. The following year, President Kennedy decreed the blockade of Cuba, which continues to this day.
On 23 July 2021, a full-page appeal appeared in the New York Times calling on United States President Joe Biden to withdraw the vindictive U.S. blockade against Cuba.
Cuba now part of China’s ‘Belt and Road Energy’ alliance
Editor. Mronline.org (10-24-21).
Cuba joined the Alliance for Energy of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a project to build an international mega-platform for cooperation and exchange under the principle of shared profit.
Eyewitness report: Cuba’s scientists, medical workers advance fight vs. COVID Editor. Mronline.org (10-22-21) After a serious rise in Cuba of illnesses and deaths from COVID-19 during the summer, there are encouraging developments with a steady recovery and downward curve in illnesses and deaths.
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Stop Funding Regime Change in Cuba!
United for Peace and Justice, 10-19-21
As corporate politicians try to nickel and dime us out of social services, the funds for war and regime change never seem to dry up. Every year the U.S. spends our tax money on finding new ways to try to undermine the Cuban government. Whether it’s fake HIV prevention workshops designed to radicalize and recruit youth, promoting anti-government hip-hop artists, flying a “propaganda plane” over Cuba that reaches almost no one, backing Spanish-language anti-government websites and other media based in Florida, or tightening the blockade during a pandemic to make people desperate, the U.S. has pumped hundreds of millions into regime change. Take action to STOP funding regime change in Cuba!
This weekend marked the anniversary of the death of Che Guevara.
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Florida’s Republican Governor awards Medal of Freedom to Che Guevara’s assassin. Editor. Mronline.org (10-9-21).
After Rodriguez ordered Che be shot, his hands were chopped off and shipped to Langley, but not before he stole the Rolex from Che’s corpse that was meant for the son of one of his compatriots in Bolivia. 
World mobilises against the U.S. on Cuba–including China
John Ross. Mronline.org (8-22-21).
Cuba is a small country. But because it became in 1959 the first country in the Western hemisphere to thoroughly break with U.S. domination, and embark on a path of national independence, events concerning Cuba have a geopolitical significance many times greater than its size. Present events show that this continues to be the case.
U..S suffocates Cuba for unwavering, victorious anti-imperialism at great costbyAaron Maté. Mronline.org (8-20-21).
Cuba’s anti-imperial foreign policy helped end apartheid in South Africa and sustain liberation movements worldwide. Historian Piero Gleijeses says that’s one of the main reasons why the US has terrorized the island nation through today.
Cuban scientists pen letter to Biden rejecting ‘failed state’ claim. Editor. Mronline.org (8-17-21)
A broad representation of Cuban scientists will address a letter to U.S. President Joe Biden evidencing Cuba’s scientific and political capacity to face Covid-19, in an altruistic manner, despite the limitations of the U.S. blockade.
In support of sovereignty.
Editor. Mronline.org (8-14-21).
The dog-whistle calls of “Freedom for Cuba” that reverberated round the world on 11 July, emanating from a mix of forces in Cuba, which were carefully manipulated and crafted by the CIA and U.S. anti-Cuban forces abroad, shed a great deal of light not only on U.S. foreign policy hypocrisy but on left-wing hypocrisy and impotence, both here in Ireland and elsewhere.
Max Blumenthal. Mronline.org (8-4-21).
Painting itself as a grassroots collective of artists fighting for freedom of expression, the San Isidro Movement has become a key weapon in the U.S. government’s assault on the Cuban revolution.
U.S. State Department lectures Cuba about human rights and living conditionsbyBill Hackwell. Mronline.org (8-1-21)
Today with the height of imperial arrogance and hubris, the U.S. State Department issued a joint statement to further its plans to destroy Cuba and all the gains it has made in health, education and welfare.
Washington beats the drum of regime change, but Cuba responds to its own revolutionary rhythm: The Twenty-Ninth Newsletter (2021)byVijay Prashad. Mronline.org (7-24-21).
Four days after Moïse’s assassination, Cuba experienced a set of protests from people expressing their frustration with shortages of goods and a recent spike of COVID-19 infections.
Watch "CIA Considered Bombing Miami To Blame Cuba!" on YouTube
| Tue, Jul 20, 10:35 PM (3 days ago) |
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FYI: This report is so tragically not funny but true.
From: David Druding <daviddruding@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Jul 17, 2021 at 6:58 PM
Subject: Watch "CIA Considered Bombing Miami To Blame Cuba!" on YouTube
hi,
Many consider Jimmy Dore a grandstander who at times states his opinions as facts BUT......
I find zero erroneous statements myself in this piece about Cuba.
Max Blumenthal and Medea Benjamin, both quoted or interviewed in the video, are well-established truth tellers exposing what United States is doing around the world.
Great expose video ~ https://youtu.be/djj84ooaJCs
Open Letter to President Biden
Dear President Joe Biden, 7-23-21
It is time to take a new path forward in U.S.-Cuban relations. We, the undersigned, are making this urgent, public appeal to you to reject the cruel policies put into place by the Trump White House that have created so much suffering among the Cuban people.
Cuba – a country of eleven million people – is living through a difficult crisis due to the growing scarcity of food and medicine. Recent protests have drawn the world’s attention to this. While the Covid-19 pandemic has proven challenging for all countries, it has been even more so for a small island under the heavy weight of an economic embargo.
We find it unconscionable, especially during a pandemic, to intentionally block remittances and Cuba’s use of global financial institutions, given that access to dollars is necessary for the importation of food and medicine.
As the pandemic struck the island, its people – and their government – lost billions in revenue from international tourism that would normally go to their public health care system, food distribution and economic relief.
During the pandemic, Donald Trump’s administration tightened the embargo, pushed aside the Obama opening, and put in place 243 “coercive measures” that have intentionally throttled life on the island and created more suffering.
The prohibition on remittances and the end of direct commercial flights between the U.S. and Cuba are impediments to the wellbeing of a majority of Cuban families.
“We stand with the Cuban people,” you wrote on July 12. If that is the case, we ask you to immediately sign an executive order and annul Trump’s 243 “coercive measures.”
There is no reason to maintain the Cold War politics that required the U.S. to treat Cuba as an existential enemy rather than a neighbor. Instead of maintaining the path set by Trump in his efforts to undo President Obama’s opening to Cuba, we call on you to move forward. Resume the opening and begin the process of ending the embargo. Ending the severe shortages in food and medicine must be the top priority.
On 23 June, most of the member states of the United Nations voted to ask the U.S. to end the embargo. For the past 30 years this has been the consistent position of a majority of member states. In addition, seven UN Special Rapporteurs wrote a letter to the U.S. government in April 2020 regarding the sanctions on Cuba. “In the pandemic emergency,” they wrote, “the lack of will of the U.S. government to suspend sanctions may lead to a higher risk of suffering in Cuba.”
We ask you to end the Trump “coercive measures” and return to the Obama opening or, even better, begin the process of ending the embargo and fully normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba.SIGN THTTER
THIS WEEKEND: Actions nationwide to demand U.S. hands off Cuba!
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END THE EMBARGO
2 clicks to change 60 years of failed U.S. foreign policy in Cuba by Amisha Parikh-Friese 7-22-21. 
People in Cuba took to the streets this month because they were “done with being hungry, unemployed, without water, without power.” Their government responded with violence, pepper spray, arrests, and internet blackouts. At least one person has died.
President Biden issued a statement of support for the Cuban people, but has so far stopped short of any meaningful action to address the U.S. foreign policy failures that help drive this crisis.
And this is key. Because right now, Cubans are suffering under a decades-old U.S. trade embargo, exacerbated by additional sanctions put in place under Trump: 240 measures that have cost Cuba $20 billion over just the last two years. It’s clear U.S. foreign policy in Cuba has become an impediment to people's well-being and safety.
Biden promised to roll back Trump’s sanctions on Cuba while on the campaign trail and now, there’s growing pressure for him to make good on his word, including from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Gregory Meeks. We’d go even further: The best thing the United States could do to help the Cuban people is lift its brutal embargo and end the sanctions — and you can help.
People in Cuba have survived in the face of U.S sanctions, in some form or another, for nearly 60 years. That’s because — from Iran to Venezuela to Cuba, and beyond — hawks have long, and wrongly, assumed that broad economic sanctions will inflict such pain on the population that the people will rise up and overthrow their government.
The truth is: engaging in collective punishment by starving people into protest is immoral and illegal, not to mention a complete erasure of all the work people in Cuba have done and could be doing to create change.
When we say Cubans, Iranians, Venezuelans should make decisions about who runs their countries, we mean it. And that includes not having the United States trying to force its will on people with military force — or by blocking food, medicine, and other basic necessities with economic sanctions.
Activists like you, Dick, may not be able to take to the streets, but you CAN demand the United States end its brutal treatment of Cubans today.
Changing decades of foreign policy failure won’t be easy. It’s going to take ALL of us taking action if we’re going to turn a world of sanctions, violence, and endless war into one filled with peace and justice.
Thank you for working for peace, Amisha, Faith, Shayna, and the Win Without War teamDonate |
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© Win Without War 2020
1 Thomas Circle NW, Suite 700, Washington, DC 20005
(202) 656-4999 | info@winwithoutwar.org
END THE BLOCKADE
•The Hidden Hand of the US Blockade Sparks Cuba Protests
https://www.laprogressive.com/us-blockade-sparks-cuba-protests/
Medea Benjamin and Leonardo Flores, LA Progressive
July 13, 2021 - Protests erupted in various Cuban cities the weekend of July 11 over dire economic conditions and a surge in Covid-19 cases. They are the biggest protests to hit Cuba in three decades.
Breaking through the western media propaganda coverage of Cuba protestsbyAlan MacLeod. Mronline.org (7-21-21)
While there are plenty of reasons for ordinary Cubans to currently feel disenchanted about life on the island, there are also strong suspicions that these protests were not quite the grassroots uprising they were made out to be in the U.S. press.
July 19, 2021 | Newswire
Arreaza calls cyberattack on Cuban Foreign Ministry imperial clumsiness. Editor. Mronline.org (7-20-21)
In his Twitter account @jaarreaza, Minister Arreaza wrote, “Another characteristic of the international incitement of aggression against #Cuba. Imperialism is clumsy enough to leave traces of its misdeeds.”
July 19, 2021 | Newswire
The bay of Tweets: documents point to U.S. hand in Cuba protestsbyAlan MacLeod. Mronline.org (7-20-21).
The U.S. government can cause economic misery for the Cuban people, but it cannot, it appears, convince them to overthrow their government.
July 19, 2021 | Newswire
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Links to Earlier Newsletters on Cuba
#8 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/07/omni-cuba-newsletter-8-july-15-2021.html
#7 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/07/omni-cuba-newsletter-7-july-3-2021.html
#6 https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/02/omni-cuba-newsletter-6.html
CONTENTS #8
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2021/07/omni-cuba-newsletter-8-july-15-2021.html
Cuban President Diaz-Canel Describes What’s Covered Up by US
Corporate Media
STOP THE US BLOCKADE/EMBARGO/SANCTIONS, NO
ARMED INTERVENTION:
ANSWER
UNAC
IFCO
CODEPINK
Jacobin Magazine
De Los Santos. US Leaders and Mainstream Media Blame Cuba’s
Economic System and Leaders, and Cover Up Its Medical
Achievements
Examining the Looting Story
CUBAN MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS
Vaccines
Phenomenal Health Care
RELATED
Canada’s Trade with Cuba Despite US Embargo.
US Accusation of Cuban Human Trafficking Called a Lie by Cuba.
LINKS TO PRECEDING 7 NEWSLETTERS
END CUBA NEWSLETTER #9