In a controversial 6-3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court held June 23 that a lawsuit by Exxon Mobil seeking more than $1 billion for property nationalized by Cuba can go forward. It follows another decision in late May allowing a former U.S. firm, the Havana Docks Corp., to sue four major cruise lines for “trafficking in property” confiscated by the popular government led by Fidel Castro that came to power Jan. 1, 1959.
The decisions back the U.S. imperialist rulers’ efforts to strangle Cuba’s economy as the Donald Trump administration ramps up pressure on the Cuban people — including an oil blockade, criminal indictment of Cuban leader Raúl Castro and escalating military threats. Their goal is to force the Cuban people to accept Washington’s dictates.
The court cases relied on the 1996 Helms-Burton Act signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton. The court ruled that Cuba’s right to protection from lawsuits like these under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally prohibits lawsuits in U.S. courts against foreign governments, was voided by the 1996 law. Its intent was to weaken Cuba for defending its national sovereignty.
Before the revolution U.S. companies owned or controlled 90% of the island’s electrical network, its telephone system, most of its mining industry, its sugarcane fields and its oil refineries. U.S. bosses dominated trade with Cuba, putting more than $1 billion into their own pockets between 1950 and the 1959 revolution. At the same time, half of Cuban working people had no access to electricity and more than half lived in huts, shacks or in slums, without sanitary facilities.
The new government mobilized workers and farmers in Cuba to take greater and greater control over the country’s resources and its patrimony. In response, Washington accelerated its political, economic and military aggression, determined to overthrow the government. This has remained their course to today, whichever political party is in power in Washington.
Day after day, tens of thousands of Cuban working people occupied fields, utilities and factories and mobilized in the streets to guarantee that all the most hated symbols of exploitation and degradation organized and supported by Washington — from AT&T to Standard Oil and United Fruit — become the property of the Cuban people.
Revolution acts to end corruption
The revolutionary government also moved to end the widespread corruption endemic under the rule of U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. Cuba seized properties, putting the country’s resources and productive capacity under the service of the people. The U.S. rulers have never forgiven the Cuban people for disregarding their sacrosanct property rights.
A much-touted example of these “rights” championed in the capitalist media is that of José Ramón López, son of José López Vilaboy, a crony of Batista who faced 27 charges of embezzlement in the first year of the revolution. The family is now seeking compensation, claiming they “owned” what is today the José Martí International Airport, Cubana Airlines and various other properties run by the country today.
The U.S. capitalist rulers also lie when they claim the Cuban government never offered compensation to expropriated foreign companies. Even as Canada, U.K., France, Spain and Switzerland negotiated property settlements with Cuba during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, Washington instructed U.S. companies not to negotiate with Havana. It insisted instead on holding firm to its goal of overthrowing the Cuban Revolution and restoring private property and capitalist order on the island.
Washington “never asked us how many died of starvation in our country, how many were suffering from tuberculosis, how many were unemployed,” Fidel Castro said in a speech to the United Nations in September 1960. “Did they ever express solidarity regarding our needs? Never.”
Instead, Washington demanded, “Pay this instant, in dollars, and whatever we ask,” rejecting the Cuban government’s proposal to pay for nationalized property over 20 years and at the value the companies themselves claimed on their tax returns, Castro said. “What alternative was there for the revolutionary government? To betray the people?”
“We do not have to apologize to anyone. What we have done we have done with our eyes wide open and, above all, fully convinced of our right to do it!” Castro said to prolonged applause.
The Supreme Court ruling opens the door to even more lawsuits under the Helms-Burton Act, furthering attempts by the U.S. rulers to bring the Cuban Revolution to its knees.
The growing economic and financial sanctions against Cuba, expanded again by Washington May 1, have led to a swath of foreign businesses backing off doing business on the island. On June 6 Visa and Mastercard both suspended operations in Cuba, further restricting access to credit to Cubans and the country’s collection of much-needed hard currency from international transactions.
Shipping giants Hapag-Lloyd, a German company, and CMA CGM from France announced May 17 they were suspending all bookings to and from Cuba until further notice.