The article is headlined, "Now I understand very well the difference between an embargo and a blockade." The subheading reads: "States Eddie Slaughter, vice president of U.S. Black Farmers and Agriculturalists Association [BFAA], in Havana. Discriminatory policies of U.S. Department of Agriculture dispossesses not only blacks but women of their farms." Translation and subheadings are by the Militant. 
 
 
BY RAISA PAGES  
Gladys Williams is besieged by poverty in the United States: as a black woman without full-time work, she has been able to survive with the help of her family and the community in Georgia where she lives with her two children and grandchildren.

Her story is not unique, as shown by the story of Anna Marie Codario, who is white and has become a "squatter" on the farm handed down through three generations of her family. It was expropriated by the government of her country, which claimed that "as a woman I didn't have the capacity, nor was I competent to run it."

Hundreds of women in that country face a similar plight. Anna Marie and Gladys explained that some 50 landless women farmers in the United States decided to publicize their demands, but have been ignored by the media.

Perhaps this was why these women expressed with emotion their gratitude for the welcome they have received in Cuba as they saw the 30 reporters attending the press conference held at the headquarters of the National Association of Small Farmers, the organization that invited a delegation from the Atlanta Network on Cuba and a group of black Georgia farmers to visit the island.

"We had to come to Cuba to demand our rights, to find more forces and solidarity in a country where things are so different from what we are told over there," Anna Marie declared.

When a journalist asked Gladys whether she would consider handing over her grandchildren to people who are wealthy, her reply picked up on the questioner's intention.

"It seems that when someone becomes rich they lose the ability to love. Elián must return [to Cuba], because even though they offer him many material things, he will never have the love he will receive here among his father and family."  
 

More than 16 million acres confiscated

But what was most amazing wasn't what these two U.S. farmers described, but what Eddie Slaughter, BFAA vice president, explained. Descendants of the black soldiers who took part in the civil war against slavery have had their land taken from them--land won through courage and hard work by their forbears during that historic stage in the development of the nation, which eventually became the greatest power on Earth.

Since 1920, more than 16 million acres belonging to black farmers have been confiscated through the U.S. government's discriminatory policy, Slaughter stated.

He explained that another million acres could be added to this amount of confiscated land. In a legal process that began in 1981, the farmers went before the federal courts, after the U.S. Department of Agriculture ignored their demands for years.

Under pressure, that department acknowledged the racial discrimination that had caused the land loss, but proposed an out-of-court settlement. In March 1999, the U.S. Department of Agriculture agreed to pay $2.5 million in compensation to the farmers whose land had been taken. "But we haven't received a penny," Slaughter said, explaining that the amount does not even compensate for all the social harm and economic losses suffered over that period.

In 1910 there were around one million black farmers in the United States, he said. Today there are only 16,000.  
 

Disinformation is the greatest enemy

Karl Butts, a white vegetable farmer in Tampa, Florida, faces high taxes and high prices for the inputs needed for his crops, together with low prices for his produce as a result of cutthroat competition by the big transnational companies.

When people from his community heard he was traveling to Cuba, they feared for his safety. "The ignorance there about the reality of this island is such that I was advised to watch out because there were supposedly nuclear missiles everywhere and a lot of repression," he commented with irony, contrasting the very different atmosphere that has surrounded the farmers' five-day exchange with Cuban peasants and farm workers.

"I have discovered a big difference between the way small farmers are treated here and in the United States. Here they received the title to the land, and there they took it away from me because I am black," remarked Georgia farmer Lee Dobbins.

"There is no justice in the United States for blacks and poor people. We will take our case to the United Nations. Our aim here is to find people who will support us, because we suffer the same effects that are inflicted on Cuba by the [U.S.] blockade. We suffer as black people, and we are blockaded in our own country," Slaughter said.

Small-scale farming in the United States survives through high-interest loans obtained on the financial markets to enable us to buy what we need to farm, explained Willie Head. Production costs increase every year, he added.

"Here in Cuba farmers not only receive low-interest financial assistance, but are guaranteed the sale of their crops before they plant, and they are protected by bank insurance against natural disasters," he said.

"Farmers from Georgia and Alabama have tried to export rice to Cuba and other countries, but have been unable to because of the discriminatory policies of the U.S. Department of Agriculture," said Slaughter.

"On our return, we will hold meetings to report the truth about Cuba and its experiences in carrying out the land reform, the cooperative movement, the aid to small farmers, and urban farming.

"Truth, crushed to the earth, will rise again," said the vice president of BFAA, who said he now sees that the Yankee government imposes not an embargo, but a blockade against Cuba. "Now I understand the difference very well."  
 
 
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