Vol. 75/No. 4      January 31, 2011

In a January 14 statement cynically titled “Reaching Out to the Cuban People,” the White House announced that President Barack Obama is lifting some restrictions on travel and remittances to Cuba.

Malcolm X once said, “You don’t stick a knife in a man’s back nine inches and then pull it out six inches and claim you are making progress.”

The White House measures do nothing to end Washington’s economic, commercial, and financial embargo of Cuba, nor does it “reinstitute the right to travel to Cuba for all U.S. citizens,” as the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs points out.

The measures make it easier to send money from the United States to Cuba for “private economic activity.” Washington hopes to stimulate petty capitalist commodity production as a counterweight to Cuba’s state property, a conquest of the Cuban Revolution. After working people in Cuba took power out of the hands of the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959, the revolutionary leadership implemented popular measures, from land reform and nationalization of industry under workers control, to banning racial discrimination, and offering solidarity to working class-struggles around the world.

Washington soon realized it would not be so easy to overthrow the new revolutionary government by armed force. The U.S. rulers began a parallel policy, sometimes known as Track II, seeking to foster internal opposition to the revolution. They hope to advance those aims today amid Cuba’s economic difficulties.

Defending Cuba’s socialist revolution is in the interests of working people the world over. We need to demand: End the U.S. embargo of Cuba! End the travel ban!
 
 
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New U.S. gov’t measures designed to subvert Cuba  
 
 
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