United States Foreign Policy : Cuba and Latin America.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara
This would have been a comment on klarawieck's hub,instead she inspired me to digress into a complex issue from a humanistic perspective.
The point which caught my attention about the hub I was reading by klarawieck,is the fact that just the day before I read it I was thinking how it seemed to me I had already lived several lives in one, starting with my earliest memories of the first house we liven in , which was a small house on the corner across where one of the greatest soccer teams in the history of the sport used to practice, and where I was able to see in person at a distance of no more than twenty to forty feet away , actual living legends in the world of soccer. As I continued reading the story about a real person who was born and grew up under the socialist regime of Fidel as he is known by the millions of socialist sympathizers around the globe , I realized that this person is not an ideologue or the defender of an imperialistic agenda pursued by a superpower but just an ordinary girl who had to go about her life , living in her country of birth and I'm sure which she loved as we all usually love the motherland,and going about her day to day life , surrounded by a loving family and experiencing first hand the contradictions and limitations that the cuban government imposed upon it's citizens.We can debate endlessly if these limitations ,contradictions,and authoritarian measures are justified or not,and if theoretically the sanctions imposed by the US on Cuba affect more the civilian population or the Castro government.but as entertaining as this debate may be to us as casual observers, our opinions are worthless compared to that of the cuban population both inside and outside of Cuba.And in my opinion what can not be debated is the right of the cuban people to work tirelessly and stubbornly if you will ,towards achieving the goal of having in cuba a government that the majority of the cuban population both inside and outside the island decide they should have. So in a way if we were able to forget for a moment the ideological debate, and power struggle between geopolitical adversaries we would be able to come to a more humanitarian solution to a complex situation that takes entire populations hostage to the discrepancies of forces that have numbers and petty politics as the motive for maintaining the status quo in a situation that satisfies nobody and advances the cause of no one.And this applies to the way the Us deals with the matter as well as the cuban government.
Ideologies are simply overrated, they should be a tool for construction not for dehumanization of those whom we do not agree with.
We should always keep in mind that ideologies,religions,political positions are worthless if instead of being a force for good , and for the advancement and development of us as a human race,as fellow men and women become a force for division , dehumanization of our ideological adversaries, and the viewing of members of different faiths and religions as less worthy of the love of whichever creator.
Present day automobiles in Cuba
Present day automobiles in Havana
A thousand shades of gray
Ever since I arrived in the US for the first time in 1972 or so, since we came to New Jersey, I have known people from Cuba,and as is to be expected all being staunch opponents of the cuban government.I can understand this position ,now let's see if the position of the people who defend Castro and the cuban government can be understood.there is a reason why the cuban revolution ,the cuban government,and Fidel are looked upon with admiration and respect by the people of the American continent with the exception of the US; and Canada to a lesser extent.I am not going to discuss here the righteousness or not of the policies employed by the United States with respect to the rest of the American continent,instead I will try to express the why of the perspective the ordinary person in any given latin american country has on the USA/Cuba situation.The peoples of latin america did not and do not hate or dislike the United States, or it's people.But the policies of the big stick employed by the US for decades in it's relationship with it's neighbors to the south didn't specially create an environment of trust and respect.Unfortunatelly, I guess because of the geopolitical realities of the times the US found itself on the wrong side of the history of Latin America as viewed by it's people.Mainly fomenting the overthrow of legitimate democratic governments or downright installing illegitimate governments and military dictatorships in many latin american countries.Going from north to south,In Haiti the brutal regime of Francois Duvalier, (Papa Doc)In the Dominican Republic Rafael Leonidas Trujillo is in power from 1930 until his murder in 1961, a couple of puppet regimes are put in place until 1962 when Juan Bosch is elected president, he began governing in february of 1963 but overthrown in september ,when a triumvirate is installed, a series of temporary governments ensue until the election in 1966 of Joaquin Balaguer.Guatemala throughout its history has been governed by military dictatorships almost permanently, all with the acquiescence and participation of the US.What can we say about the Somozas in Nicaragua , with Tacho and Tachito, this tag team of father and son strongmen ruled Nicaragua with iron fist for forty two years.El Salvador was ruled by military dictators from 1931 until 1979.So to make a long story short - er in Brasil the democratically elected government of Joao Goulart was overthrown in 1954 and military dictatorships ruled until 1985. In Chile the democratically lected Salvador Allende was murdered and replaced by the infamous Augusto Pinochet a really murderous rabid dog worthy of comparing with the greatest murderers in history.The military dictatorship in Argentina which perpetrated "La Guerra Sucia" The Dirty War where it is estimated thirty thousand people where kidnapped and murdered by the regime in one of the greatest tragedies in the history of latin america.And in my Uruguay, the country I was born in, and a country that prided itself of being one of the most democratic countries on the planet,A militari dictatorshipp was finally installed in 1973, it wasn't easy, they had to try several times before they were able to succeed, because democracy is so instilled in our being, and because our political class as a whole , almost across the board left, right, and center, believed and fought for democracy,and even a branch of the armed forces, the Marina de Guerra resisted the coup for a short period of time.But finally the forces of darkness prevailed and between 1973 and 1985 Uruguay was governed by a military dictatorship, that murdered ,incarcerated and disappeared hundreds of innocent Uruguayan people and work in coordination with the regimes of Argentina and Chile in many occasions ,spreading death, and torture throughout latin america.A cousin of mine was raped for so many soldiers she lost count, and lost a kidney due to torture.But History is not black and white there are a thousand shades of gray.
The U.S Embargo
The U.S embargo has been in place for decades and has not accomplished any of the objectives it was supposed to.Rather than opening a path to democratic elections in Cuba it has only succeeded in punishing the less fortunate and provided the Cuban Government with excuses for the economic failures that have existed through the years.