CUBA: The uniqueness that can't be bought
BY AUGUSTO ZAMORA R.

In 2002, 1060 people were executed in China. In the United States around 400
have been executed since 1990, an average of 35 a year or three a month.
Hundreds more executions have taken place in other countries, and that's
without counting the unofficial executions and state-sponsored massacres
which in Africa are just part of the landscape.
In general, the issue passes without comment. Apart from detailed reports
and the condemnations by human rights organisations like Amnesty
International, the execution of human beings rarely makes it onto the news
pages, saturated though they are in blood and death.
In contrast to this general trend of silence and indifference, the execution
of the three hijackers of a passenger boat in Cuba unleashed a political and
media storm — with its epicentre in the United States. In Spain it produced
a demonstration in front of the Cuban embassy in Madrid, in which,
unusually, government ministers and leaders of the two main parties took
part.
This is not the only area where Cuba gets treated with a special micro-scale
measuring rod of its own. The constant pleas for democratisation of the
island give the impression that Cuba is the only country in the world with a
one-party system, also that the European Union and the US apply the same
standard to all countries which don't fulfil the requirements of what they
understand by democracy.
Double standard
Nothing is further from the truth. Tunisia, so close to Europe, has a
president who in 2002 made himself president-for-life in a referendum
supported by 99.52% of the voters and with a record participation of 95.5%
of those eligible to vote. As far as we know, no European government
protested against this crude electoral fraud.
When there was a coup in Venezuela in April 2002 the Spanish ambassador
rushed to greet the ephemeral president, Pedro Carmona. Spain and the US
were the only countries that supported the coup attempt, which was condemned
by the Organisation of American States (OAS).
A similar path is followed when it comes to the theme of human rights,
invoked as often in the Cuban case as it is forgotten in other regions of
the world. The fixation with Cuba is almost hypnotic, as shown by the US
obsession about obtaining a yearly condemnation of the country by the UN
Human Rights Commission.
Nothing similar happens, for example, in relation to Colombia, where 35,000
die every year from political violence and where they kill the greatest
number of the world's trade unionists. Or with Guatemala, where they carry
on murdering human rights activists and the courts acquit confessed
criminals, without forgetting the cycles of peasant and indigenous
slaughters in Bolivia, Mexico and Peru.
It's almost compulsory to leave out Africa, given the indifference of the
rich countries to the atrocities suffered by her populations, but one case
comes to mind. In Guinea Bissau an army chief accused of rebellion was
executed and the vice-president of the Human Rights League thrown into jail.
Despite this the European Union granted Guinea Bissau an 80 million euro
cooperation loan, just maybe motivated by the major fishing interests that
it enjoys in that country.
The existence of political prisoners is another hobby horse. Of course, no
believer in freedom can accept that a person should be imprisoned simply
because of the ideas that he or she professes. Nonetheless, a hundred or so
countries suffer from this blight, and for less clear motives that those
invoked by Cuba.
In Tunisia there are hundreds of political prisoners. Equatorial Guinea is
an even more ominous case. Each year it receives millions of euros from the
Spanish budget, used by the tyrant Obiang to increase repression and prop up
his tyranny. The Spanish ex-colony not only gets no sort of sanction, not
even symbolic, but each year enjoys generous funding from the Spanish
government.
Turkey is the bloodiest case. Last December a young woman political prisoner
died after 512 days of hunger strike, taking to 58 the number who have lost
their life this way in Turkish jails. From 1990 to the present day, 4500
cases of torture have been revealed and in 2000 the bodies of 56 persons
murdered by paramilitary groups were found. At the same time the persecution
of the Kurdish minority, deprived of its rights, continues.
Socialism RIP?
Experts abound who make ferocious criticisms of the failure of socialism,
singing the requiem of its economic system. The criticisms would be valid if
Latin America presented an encouraging economic and social scene against
which Cuba could not stand comparison. The opposite is the case. Despite the
blockade imposed by the US, despite the denial of credit and the fact that
Cuba must pay in cash, despite the stinginess of so many, Cuba continues to
lead the continent, including the US, on the basic indicators of education,
health and equality.
Compared to the devastating regional spectacle of countries sunk in misery,
unemployment, hunger and desperation, Cuba presents First World-level
indicators for such basic human rights. The difference is even greater if
account is taken of the fact that Cuba, unlike Mexico (75% of the population
in poverty according to its own government), Colombia (no comment) or
Ecuador (a third of the country has emigrated), has no great oil deposits or
coveted natural resources.
If we take the UN Human Development Index as a guide, the Cuban system
doesn't come off badly. According to the latest HDI, above Cuba (ranked 55)
come only Argentina (a mysterious 34), Chile (38), Uruguay (40), Costa Rica
(43) and Mexico (a curious 54). The rest come beneath, most by a long way,
like Peru (82), Paraguay (90), Bolivia (114) or Guatemala (129).
No First World government or guru can admit that capitalism has failed
almightily in almost the entire region (and the world) in the basic task of
providing human beings with a decent life. They say nothing, not because the
failure isn't obvious, but because such a statement would threaten today's
main dogma, namely the inevitability of capitalism as a system.
Those real worries
What worries them about Cuba is not the democratic question (coups against
inconvenient governments to safeguard illegitimate interests are always
applauded). It's not the death penalty (China and the US lead the way), just
as it's not human rights or civil liberties (Western cynicism on these
issues is enough to make one weep).
If we really want to find an intelligible explanation for the singularity of
the treatment meted out to Cuba we have to search along different paths.
Above all, Cuba annoys because the US hasn't been able to break her for 45
years. Cuba is a thorn in the side of the empire, which has made Cuba a
question of imperial honour. She is also a beacon that reminds Latin America
and the world that you don't have to be a great power to resist an empire's
siege.
Courage and dignity are enough to achieve that goal. As Karl Deutsch used to
note, a small country with a government of unusual strength and a motivated
population can maintain its independence, even if it must be at the high
cost that its conquest entails.
Another reason is the Cuban commitment to persevere with the socialist
system that Fidel Castro proclaimed in 1961, a system that has survived,
against all forecasts and the Soviet collapse. From the point of view of
capitalist fundamentalism, Cuban socialism is a serious anomaly to be
corrected and Cuba put back on the right track, fully integrating her into
planetary globalisation.
In this way, Iberia would be able to buy Cubana de Aviaci˘n, tobacco would
go to Philip Morris, nickel to Anglo-American Corporation, the
pharmaceutical industry to Glaxo-SmithKline and petrol to Exxon, with
Macdonald's opening a branch in Jos‚ Martˇs birth place.
Next, ritual elections would be organised that would hand the country over
to an obscene minority, who would be delighted to take part in sacking the
country at the price of sinking the greater part of the population in
misery. And all this with the IMF sketching out the economic plans and the
imperial ambassador deciding on the political issues and forcing the payment
of millions in compensation to the companies and citizens of the empire.
In this way Cuba would, yes, be reintegrated into the democratic world and
enjoy all the advantages. The problem is that a great majority of Cubans,
aware of the fate met by the countries of the region, show little enthusiasm
for the model.
Nothing indicates that the Cuban system is on the way to falling apart in
the immediate term. The worst phase (the so-called Special Period) now
passed, the economic indicators have been improving.
On the HDI ladder Cuba has passed from 86th position in 1997 to 55th in
2002. The Economic Commission for Latin America is predicting 5% growth for
2003, while energy dependency is reaching historically low levels, just as
structural reforms to adapt the national economy to the new situation are
going ahead with the minimum possible impact on social spending.
Cuba's situation in continental politics has also improved. The US failure
to obtain a condemnation of Cuba in the OAS shows that most countries in the
region are not betting on the country's drowning to death.
By the same token, the sanctions recently adopted by the EU against Cuba are
negative, sterile and untimely. On the one hand they prop up the aggressive
and extreme positions of the US, on the other, instead of encouraging the
Cuban government to soften its restrictions, they intensify the feeling of
siege that quite rightly exists in Cuba, aggravating the problems that the
US blockade is causing the population.
They are, therefore, counterproductive measures, explicable only by the
desire of the EU to please the US after the row produced by its aggression
against Iraq. But we are getting used to this EU game of kicking the weak in
order to please the strong, even if it involves a blatant injustice. And,
let it be said in passing, it's the pattern for the 21st century.
[Augusto Zamora R. is professor of international public law and
international relations at the Madrid Autonomous University.
This article originally appeared in the Nicaraguan daily, El Nuevo Diario,
on June 17. Translation by ***** Nichols.] n
From Green Left Weekly, July 2, 2003