No More Embargos

Embargos are frequently used as an apparently bloodless form of pressure. But they don’t affect governments, but rather their peoples. It’s the citizens who are punished.

The Cuban embargo has lasted for over 50 years…

And now an embargo against Iran.

I remember what a well-known Ecuadorian intellectual on the Executive Board of UNESCO said, referring to border conflicts with Peru: “Nothing unites a country on the inside like harassment from the outside”.

Because they’re immoral,

Because they’re ineffective,

No more embargos, beginning with Cuba!

How brave they are with the little ones!

Everyone judging Cuba… The Cuba that ends at Guantanamo. The Cuba that lacks public liberties, but where the “Ladies in White” may make statements and stage demonstrations, and cameras can film hunger strikes and the resistance. The Cuba of those who are tired of waiting and those who are waiting still.

The Cuba that has not bowed to the absolute power that has subjected it to interminable embargos. The Cuba that provides schooling for its children and healthcare that enables it to export teachers and doctors. The Cuba that must evolve, as must other “democratic” countries of the same hemisphere where over 40% of children receive no schooling and there is mass emigration, because their wealth is exploited by a handful of multinational corporations; countries that remilitarize the continent, accepting U.S. bases on their borders…; countries with the death penalty and the arbitrariness (until recently, but also applauded by the ultras) to invade other countries on a whim; and that have a large part of their communications media in the same hands...

Where are the reporters who, for example, can film what is happening inside China? How many death penalties have been executed there in the last year? How many are on hunger strikes?

I am certainly very aware of what must change in Cuba. Commencing with President Raul Castro’s last speech. But I resist always looking in the direction indicated by the world’s great media strategists. I like to do just the opposite…