Vol. 79/No. 2      January 26, 2015

DHAKA, Bangladesh — The Pakistani army’s scorched-earth tactics in 1971, coupled with extreme underdevelopment, left newly independent Bangladesh economically devastated. Washington and its imperialist cohorts descended on the young nation like vultures, using “aid” as a weapon to reinforce their domination.

In 1974, floods wiped out much of the rice crop in Bangladesh and the resulting famine killed nearly 1 million people. The cash-strapped government could not afford the prices demanded by U.S. grain monopolies, which cancelled two large orders scheduled for delivery in September.

Washington callously threatened to cancel all credits under its “Food for Peace” program unless Bangladesh stopped exporting jute gunny sacks to Cuba — part of the U.S. rulers’ efforts to strangle the Cuban Revolution. Jute products were one of Bangladesh’s few exports. Local officials expressed “surprise and shock that the United States would actually insist that a destitute Bangladesh should restrict its exports,” economist Amartya Sen wrote in Poverty and Famines in 1981.

Faced with this blackmail, Bangladesh canceled its trade with Cuba. U.S. food shipments were resumed months later. By then they were too late to have any impact on the famine.

Trade relations between Bangladesh and Cuba were normalized in subsequent years. Bangladeshis did not forget that revolutionary Cuba backed the liberation war and was one of the first states to recognize their country’s independence in January 1972.

— RON POULSEN