Getty/AFP/Niurka Barroso

In mass march in Havana May 14, Cubans protested U.S. economic war. Sign depicting abuse in U.S.-run prison in Iraq says, "In Cuba this will never happen."

U.S. president George Bush had announced the measures at a May 6 press conference at the White House. A report by the so-called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba—appointed by Bush last October and headed by U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell—detailed the new sanctions. They include new limits on travel to Cuba by Cuban-Americans and on the number of family members on the island remittances can be sent to. Anyone in Cuba who is a member of the Communist Party is now prohibited from receiving such remittances.

On May 10, the Cuban government announced measures it would take in response. They include suspending, temporarily, sales at dollar stores of all goods except food and soap or other personal hygiene items. A number of the measures are of a long-term character, indicating the Cuban government is making further preparations to defend the Cuban people in case of an assault by Washington. They are also aimed at enabling Cuba to withstand economic pressures stemming from rising oil prices on the world market and making its economy less vulnerable to any possible interruption of its oil supplies from Venezuela. These steps come as the U.S. and other imperialist governments have intensified a propaganda offensive this year claiming Cuba is “destabilizing” Latin America, especially Venezuela.

The Cuban government measures include increasing the use of draft animals and decreasing the dependency on oil- and petroleum-derived inputs in agriculture; diversifying agricultural production; raising nickel and cobalt production; and intensifying the search for oil and gas reserves on the island.

According to the new U.S. sanctions, Cuban-Americans will be permitted to visit relatives on the island only once every three years, as opposed to once a year up till now. In addition, they will now be required to apply for permission for each trip where previously they were allowed to travel under a general license that covered visits to family members. Any Cuban who immigrates to the United States would not be eligible to apply for such a license until three years after they left Cuba.

A Cuban government statement noted that as Havana is taking more steps to facilitate visits to the country by Cubans living abroad, Washington is increasing the obstacles.

The restrictions on remittances to relatives in Cuba are aimed at reducing the amount of hard currency available to the Cuban economy. A limit of $1,200 per year on remittances and packages sent to family members in Cuba remains in place, but the new measures restrict those who can receive them to “immediate family members”—thus excluding cousins, aunts, and uncles, among others. In addition, Washington now prohibits remittances to anyone in Cuba who is a member of the Communist Party.

U.S. police agencies will reportedly set up “sting” operations to entrap “mule” networks and others who carry money to Cuba illegally and assist in any way in unauthorized remittances, according to a summary of the measures issued by the State Department.

While visiting family members, Cuban-Americans previously were allowed to spend up to $164 per day on expenses. That is now reduced to $50 per day. The State Department report justifies the cut by saying that “travelers will stay with family.” This measure is also aimed at the Cuban hotel and tourist industry.

The Powell commission report also increased U.S. government spending from $7 million to $36 million a year to back “civil society” groups—that is, groups collaborating with Washington in its campaign to overthrow the Cuban government.

The two governments have not had diplomatic relations since Washington broke them off in January 1961, as part of the U.S. rulers’ response to the victory of the 1959 revolution, when Cuba’s toilers brought down the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and rapidly installed a government defending the interests of workers and farmers. When the property interests and prerogatives of the wealthy U.S. families and local capitalists and landlords were affected by democratic measures like the land reform instituted immediately after the revolution, Washington adopted the course it has followed for more than 40 years of attempting to overthrow the revolutionary leadership and roll back the gains of Cuba’s working people.

In announcing the new measures Roger Noriega, the U.S. undersecretary of state for Latin American affairs, said the $45 million in funding to implement the measures will come from already allocated resources, eliminating the need to seek congressional approval, according to the Miami Herald.

The measures include funding for an airborne broadcasting platform aboard a C-130 military plane that will attempt to transmit U.S. propaganda opposing the revolution into Cuba. Washington has spent millions in funding for such broadcasts from land-based transmitters by the misnamed Radio Martí and TV Martí. Havana, however, has succeeded in jamming those transmissions.

A May 6 statement released by the campaign for Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said the Bush administration’s recommendations are an election-year tactic.

The Massachusetts senator, the statement said, “will fight for a free and democratic Cuba every single day, not just when election time comes around.”

At a well-attended press conference here on May 10, Dagoberto Rodríguez, ambassador at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C., denounced the new measures as a “flagrant interference in the internal affairs of Cuba.” He drew special attention to the restrictions on remittances to family members, calling them “a massive effort to divide our families by redefining who is or is not a family member.” Rodríguez said the measures, along with the “scandalous fact of keeping a concentration camp—which has met worldwide criticism—in a territory occupied by force in our country, constitute unheard-of acts of provocation.” He was referring to Camp Delta at the U.S. military garrison in Guantánamo, Cuba, where Washington has been holding some 600 men indefinitely without charges under humiliating and harsh conditions as part of its worldwide “war on terrorism.”

Addressing the May 14 rally, Cuban president Fidel Castro said, “This is an outraged protest and a denunciation of the brutal, ruthless, and cruel measures against our country that your country has just adopted.” Castro said Washington has no moral ground to stand on to accuse Havana of human rights violations when it brutally assaults and occupies countries like Afghanistan and Iraq and its military engages in degradation and abuse of prisoners.

“The unbelievable torture applied to prisoners in Iraq has rendered the world speechless,” he said.

The measures Havana announced in response to Washington’s new sanctions were outlined in a statement by the Cuban government. It said nickel and cobalt production would be increased along with the search for oil and gas reserves in areas of the country that have had promising studies.

Cobalt and nickel are among the commodities Cuba exports to earn hard currency.

In agriculture, priority would be given to export items and the orderly production of food. The use of draft animals for cultivation would be increased in order to reduce the cost of imported fuel, machinery, and parts. Further steps would be taken to diversify agricultural production by using the lands where sugar cane was grown previously, before a recent restructuring of the sugar industry.

The statement also said that the new U.S. sanctions would “unfortunately bring about an increase in prices of goods available in the hard currency shops and in the gas stations.”

Two days later Cuba’s ambassador to the United Nations, Orlando Requeijo, said the measures taken by his government aim to “concentrate our resources and finances in order to provide the food and hygienic products that the Cuban people need.” The suspension of sales at the dollar stores is a temporary measure, he said, according to Reuters.

The Cuban government added that none of the social programs of the revolution—from sales of products at subsidized prices to health care free for all to the universalization of higher education—will be affected.

Many Cubans living in the United States have indicated they oppose the new limits on family visits and remittances.

Upon arriving at Havana’s international airport and meeting family members, Gladys Ruiz said, according to the Associated Press, “I have my children here. I can’t wait three years.”
 
 
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