Archives

by W. I. R. D. Hemasiri

Ex-co member, Sri Lanka-Cuba Friendship Society

Subsequent to the September 11th 2001 terrorist attack on the USA, addressing the US Congress on 20th September, President George W. Bush asked the very pertinent question, "Americans are asking why do they hate us", and answering the question himself he said, "they hate what they see right here in this chamber: a democratically elected government".

But the fact remains that the President Bush himself was actually elected by the US Supreme Court and so was the government elected by him. But it is an entirely different matter that can be left to the Americans themselves to decide.

He is neither the first nor the last of Presidents in the US history who raised this very question. All of them tended to ponder over this question at one time or other, particularly at a crisis-ridden period of their tenures.

Once the crisis is overcome employing traditional devious methods of overtly and covertly practiced, well tested and perfected for decades in their so-called backyard - the happy hunting grounds of South America, they simply forget it and the issue get lost in local and global amnesia.

But when a similar misfortune struck on the Chileans on 11th September 1973 - the US-backed military coup that killed President Salvador Allende and his democratically elected Chilean government toppled - Henry Kissinger, the then US National Security adviser congratulated General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, and said "You did a great service to West by overthrowing Allende".

This notorious incident must have been haunting the successive US governments. Probably that may be the reason why the US Secretary of State Collin Powel was forced to acknowledge in February 2003 that the American role in Chile "is not a part of American history that we are proud of".

Do the people world over really hate Americans, as claimed by the President Bush? Yes, they do hate the US ruling class but not the Americans at large. This was vividly manifested during the attack of 9/11 where the friends and foes of the US alike expressed their unreserved indignation and promptly extended their solidarity with the people of the USA.

The people world over hail the American Revolution of 1775 as an epoch-making event that marked a split in the British Empire.

But the fact remains that it had never been an anti-colonial liberation struggle. This fact remains true even today repeatedly been proved by the subsequent US history, the pedigree of which alone and nothing else being held against the successive US ruling clans.

Yet the founding fathers of the United States of America still enjoy utmost respect of the people, world over.

In early 1865, Abraham Lincoln succeeded in having the 13th amendment to the US Constitution passed ending slavery in that country.

As a statesman, ruler and liberator, human civilization would hold his name in perpetual honour. It is with gratitude the world remembers that the League of Nations, precursor to the UNO, is the brainchild of a far-seeing American President Woodrow Wilson.

A co-framer of the American Constitution, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, thinking far ahead of his time observed in 1785 that "a nation that makes an unjust war is just a great gang".

Ironically, in 1985 President Ronald Reagan gave a diametrically opposing opinion of these great men.

Receiving a group of fifteen bearded men in the White House he addressed the Press. Proudly he said, "These are the moral equivalent of American Founding Fathers". May be he was not aware or rather could not completely grasped his "home work" furnished by the CIA, that they are none other than the founding fathers of the infamous Taliban.

Why then the peace-loving people of the world hate the US ruling clans holding them in very strong dislike, detest and bear malice towards them.

In between, some men of authority of the US ruling class also have expressed their genuine concern over this question even sending some alarming signals to their counter-parts. The late George W. Ball, Under Secretary of State under Kennedy and Johnson administrations said in 1980: "There is little exception about military strength or economic weight; other nations have gone far in the direction.

What is truly exceptional is moral leadership, which means a firm adherence to principles and the rejection of certain arrogant practices that have now become almost automatic in our political life".

Samuel P. Hutington in his contribution to the Journal of Foreign Affairs in 1999 reported a comment made by a British diplomat - "One reads about the world's desire for American leadership only in the United States. Everywhere else one reads about American arrogance and unilateralism".

George F. Kenan, Director of the US Department of Policy Planning, as far back as 1948 admitted most candidly, "We have about 50% of the World's wealth but only 6.3% of the world's population. In this situation, we cannot failed to be the object of resentment.

Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationship that will permit us to maintain this position of disparit. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease the talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization".

Some others rudely displayed the US exceptionalism, hegemonic arrogance openly at the UN and its affiliated bodies and challenged the world, "So What!"

Madeline Albright, while she was the President Clinton's UN Ambassador, addressing the Security Council on measures regarding Iraq said that the US could act "multilaterally if we can and unilaterally if we must".

What she did not say is, We do not care what anybody says; we run the world!

The real cause of global resentment, however, towards the US ruling clans is well-known the world over. Today, the US has become a vivid example of economic parasitism in world history. With 5% of the global population, it consumes up to 40% of all the world's resources. The main US commodity that it uses to earn in the world market is paper dollar and not technology or machinery.

None possesses more weapons of mass destruction than the US - be they nuclear, chemical or biological.

The global wave of sympathy that engulfed the US after 9/11 has now receded and the Los Angeles Times reported on its issue of 23 March 2003 that the belief that President Bush "is a greater threat to peace than Saddam Hussein" has become the talk of every drawing room locally and abroad.

According to UNESCO statistics as at 31 December 2001 the US is the only country other than Somalia, that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

It voted against the Rome Statute to establish an International Criminal Court against 120 members supporting.

The US reaction to Kyoto Protocol on Environment and Anti-ballistic Missiles Treaty had been the same.

The US economic parasitism was, once, starkly spelt out by none other than Sandy Berger, the National Security Adviser to President Clinton. "Washington's objective in the IMF is to leverage our power and influence, though we provide only 1/5th of the IMF funds. Our contribution enable us to lead these decisive institutions and put us in a position to accomplish goals". We, in particular, of the developing world have amply experienced how bitter these "goals" are.

It was the US-inspired "regime change" which ousted the democratically elected head of Iran - Mohamed Mossadegh in 1953 for nationalizing the Iran oil companies threatening the US and British oil interests.

Altogether about thirty UN resolutions either affirming the rights of Palestinians or condemning the Israeli repressive violence was shot down by the USA.

Israeli Army's deliberate killing of UN personnel in the Occupied Territories and the statement of Israeli Cabinet members to kill President Yasser Arafat or deport him have been condemned at the UN Security Council and the 2 relevant resolutions were blocked by the US.

The Talibans of Afghanistan, Al-Quida, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, the Miami-based anti-Cuban terrorist groups and several others have been funded and nurtured by the USA at one time or other and been used as instruments of the US policy home and abroad. It maintains altogether 750 military bases in 3/4 of the countries on earth and 31% of its wealth. In the name of freedom and democracy, the US condemns the peoples and nations all over the world to virtual slavery and eternal bondage.

With the track record of its foreign and economic policies, the USA is fast achieving the status of a pariah state in the contemporary world.

Let us take the case of Cuba. Since this article is written to coincide with the celebrations of the 45th National day of Cuba, the writer took the liberty to treat Cuba as an individual case.

Furthermore, Cuba deserves such a prominence in this trial as it is the only country in the world which has been the constant and continuous victim of the US overt and covert harassments for almost four decades.

Born of the revolution of 1959, the Socialist Republic of Cuba celebrates its 45th National Day today (Jan 1 2004).

Prior to the revolution, Cuba was an island of sins catering to every whims and fancies of the super-rich, particularly those of North America and, its capital city Havana was then famous for its casinos, brothels, a virtual haven for international drug smuggling and money laundering.

In 1959 the US investments in Cuba amounts to approximately 2 billion dollars i.e. about 1/6th of all US investments in whole of Latin America. Over the period between 1919 - 1958, the US corporations took out of Cuba a total profit of 1.5 billion dollars.

The revolution put an end to this state of affairs, followed by state nationalisation of the US-owned properties and an all-embraced land reform was introduced, thereby tillers of land became the rightful owners of the country's land.

The nationalisation of US properties with compensation paid, in 1961 spelt the end of economic position of the US imperialist in Cuba. This in turn inaugurated a new stage in the national liberation struggle of the Latin American and the Caribbean sub-continent.

Apart from that, the Cuban revolution released the Cuban masses into the island's political arena for the first time in their known history and gave them a novel dignity and self-worth. Cuba proved to the masses of the Latin America and the Caribbeans that for any oppressed people mental and psychological release from the bondage of alien values is crucial to their self-discovery.

The State Statistical Bureau of Cuba reveals that in 2002 alone Cuba has lost 685 million dollars worth of foreign trade due to US economic and trade embargo, while the total loss during the 4 decades of US sanctions amounts to 72 billion US dollars.

As was stated in US State Department report of April 6th, 1960 the sanctions against Cuba were imposed with the expressed goal of causing "hunger, despair and the overthrow of the government". Since then almost 44 years have passed. During this period US regime changed hands between 9 Presidents from Eisenhower to Bush junior.

But the expressed "goal" still remains unrealised. Up-to-date no news reach here or elsewhere that none of 11.2 million population of Cuba either died of "hunger" or committed suicide out of "despair". Instead President Castro and his government still survive becoming stronger and stable with each passing day.

During the past 44 years, Cuba's achievement on human development indexes are truly amazing. The Nobel laurate economist Gunnar Myrdal and the Director WHO Dr. Haltdam Mahlar after a visit to Cuba jointly observed at a subsequent press conference that "Cuba is an outstanding success among underdeveloped countries.

It is notable from an economic point of view for it has carried out the greater part of the transformations which I, as an economist, would recommend to developing countries. If any one were to ask me where there has been success in economic development, I would tell them to look at Cuba".

Dr. Haltdam Mahlar added in the same press conference that the WHO goal of "Health for all in the year 2000" was already as reality in Cuba, and that ".....the single index, the infant mortality rate" he added "is enough to attest to the extraordinary success of the work done in this respect".

Concluding the visit he remarked: "I am leaving fully convinced that all Cubans have the right and access to medical care. I think the theoretical aspects of which we were informed soon after our arrival in Havana are good but their implementation is even better."

Four decades of US sanctions further consolidated by extra-territorial laws such as Helms-Burton and Torricelli coupled with overt and covert multiple subversions could not stop the Cuba's march along its chosen path.

In between, Cuba's international image has since been steadily growing. This is amply reflected, in my opinion, on the steadily changing voting pattern in the UN General Assembly whenever a resolution moved against US sanctions on Cuba.

There have been 12 such resolutions in the recent past demanding the USA to end its four-decade old embargo. At the last UN General Assembly, such a resolution was carried over by a majority of votes, with only three members - the USA, Israel and Marshall Islands - opposing and only two abstaining. This voting pattern registers a steady increasing in favour of Cuba while the members opposing and abstaining dwindling to an unprecedented low.

In parallel to this, the worldwide condemnation of the unfair prosecution of 6 Cuban patriots by the US on trump-up charges of espionage and the demand for their release is gaining momentum. There must be some reason why Cuba was re-elected in the UN Economic and Social Council for another three year-term. In UN Commission on Human Rights, Cuba has now been a member for 15 years at a stretch.

The Democratic US Senator Clairbrone Pell once charged, "We invade them at Bay of Pigs; we strangle their economy; we try to assassinate their President; and then we wonder why Cuba is hostile to the USA."

It is true that Cuba posed a threat to the USA but definitely not militarily but of a different kind. The Socialist Cuba is increasingly becoming for the oppressed, exploited and betrayed Caribbean and Latin American people a shining example, an inspiration and hope.

The Cuban government was giving the lie to the often repeated dictum from Washington that "a Marxist model" held no future for them. In reality, revolutionary Cuba was posing an alternative socio-economic-political system which based not on dependent, distorted capitalism but on grass roots democratic, anti-imperialistic and socialist orientation.

That is why the people all over the world celebrate the 45th Cuban National Day as one of their own. It is precisely this fact that drives the progressive people throughout the world to urge and demand the US authorities to lift forthwith the 40-year-old US economic and trade blockades imposed on Cuba and let them decide their own destiny on their chosen path of development.

www.ceylincoproperties.com

STONE 'N' STRING

www.ppilk.com

www.crescat.com

News | Business | Features | Editorial | Security
Politics | World | Letters | Sports | Obituaries

Produced by Lake House
Copyright © 2003 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
Comments and suggestions to :Web Manager