Cuba is a nation in the global South that has been brutalized just like any other. This former Spanish colony only abolished slavery in 1886 compared to Haiti (1804), Jamaica (1835), and the United States (1865). It is currently subject to the longest-lasting trade embargo in modern history (despite last year all but three countries at the UN voting to end the embargo), at the hands of the world’s one true global superpower. Despite this, Cuba has not just survived, but flourished in the face of all Western imperialism could throw at it. It is a story we should all know and take heart from.
While a full history of colonial Cuba is far beyond the scale of this article, it is nevertheless essential we understand its relationship with the nation that has undoubtedly, adversely, affected the island the most throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. This is the United States of America.
“It is currently subject to the longest-lasting trade embargo in modern history. Despite this, Cuba has not just survived, but flourished in the face of all Western imperialism could throw at it”
The idea that America deserves custody of Cuba dates back to 1832 when US secretary of state John Quincy Adams stated that Cuba, then a Spanish colony, could be “forcibly disjointed from its own unnatural connection with Spain.” America, however, was unable to act upon its ambitions until the later stages of Cuba’s second war of independence (Spanish-American war) in 1896. At this stage, the Spanish had been all but beaten, and the US seeing its chance intervened, effectively preventing what could have been a social revolution. The US would have unrivaled domination of the island up until the 1958 Cuban Revolution.
By the 1920s, US companies would control two-thirds of Cuba’s trademark sugar production, and by the late 1940s 75% of the arable land. They employed one-quarter of Cuba’s workforce but only 25,000 were full-time, creating chronic instability for the remaining half a million. As is the case in most global South countries, poverty and unemployment were inherent parts of the system, which forced a huge number of unemployed workers to sell their labor for near-starvation wages.
In 1955 “US investors controlled 90 percent of telephone and electric services, 50 percent of public service railways and 40% of raw sugar production.” On the eve of the Cuban Revolution, the situation was dire, “only 4 percent of Cubans in rural areas ate meat, only 1 percent ate fish, 3 percent ate bread, 11 percent had milk after weaning and less than 20 percent ate eggs. More than 75 percent of rural dwellings were wooden huts, and only 2 percent of rural Cubans had running water and 9 percent had electricity. Some 24 percent of the population was illiterate, life expectancy was 59 years and infant mortality was 60 per 1000 live births. Racial discrimination was rife and institutionalized (YAFFE, pp. 18-19).”
It was these circumstances that led to the revolution of ’59. In short, a group of just 80 rebels returned from exile in July 1953, and by 1959 dictator Fulgencio Batista had fled the country. The rebels would become the Cuban Communist Party. After the new government began to nationalize many of the industries above, an enraged United States immediately began plotting to usurp Cuba’s new government and regain its political and economic dominance of the island. After all the godfather can tolerate no disobedience.
“For half a century the Cuban people have endured almost every conceivable form of terrorism. The bombs that have destroyed department stores, hotel lobbies, theatres, famous restaurants and bars—people’s lives. The second worst act of air terrorism in the Americas resulting in the deaths of 73 civilians. An exploding ship in Havana harbor, killing and injuring hundreds. Attacks on defenseless villages. Teenagers tortured and murdered for teaching farmers to read and write. Biological terrorism causing the deaths of more than 100 children. The psychological horror that drove thousands of parents to willingly send their children to an unknown fate in a foreign country (Bolender & Chomsky, 2010., p. 1).”
“A group of just 80 rebels returned from exile in July 1953, and by 1959 dictator Fulgencio Batista had fled the country. The rebels would become the Cuban Communist Party”
Perhaps nothing demonstrates the vindictiveness and callousness of slighted imperial powers better than the operation that came to be known as Peter Pan.
In 1960, Cuban priests began handing out what they claimed was undisputable proof that the new revolutionary government was planning to take parental control over their children. The act of Parental Authority would, they claimed, transfer parental authority to the state, children would be torn away from their homes and their parents would have no say in how they were raised. To the scared and unsuspecting it was a convincing document. The priests told parents that sending their children out of the country was the only option.
Cuban church officials knew, however, that they were handing out a lie, as did the Roman Catholic Diocese in Miami as well as various state departments and the network of CIA agents in Havana. The act of parental authority was a fabrication. Its purpose was to discredit the government and to inflict psychological terrorism upon Cuba’s religious faithful. It worked.
“Terrorism can also be psychological. Operation Peter Pan was just such a program”
From November 1960 to October 1962, there was an exodus of more than 14,000 children out of the country. The vast majority were taken in by Miami church organizations, then later by Spain and other countries. Remnants of the program continued until 1981, and have been estimated to have affected more than 25,000 children. The average age of children ranges from 5 to 16, although infants and older teenagers were also spirited away. Many infants arrived in Miami with no documents, they ended up in orphanages with no chance of ever finding their real parents.
“Parents with children attending Catholic schools were specifically targeted. To add to the horror, mothers were told if they didn’t surrender their children, they would be subject to 15 years in jail, or simply made to disappear (Bolender & Chomsky, 2010., p. 71).” During the 1980s, the State Department even turned down a request from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to help reunite Cuban children with their parents.
An expert on the operation stated that “Terrorism can take many forms — the most dramatic is a bomb in the hotel lobby… But terrorism can also be psychological. Operation Peter Pan was just such a program — aimed at the one thing parents hold most dear — their children (Bolender & Chomsky, 2010., p. 78).” It was a despicable abuse of the church’s power and authority and should demonstrate clearly that religious organizations such as the Catholic Church are in no way apolitical. Especially when said organizations are some of the largest landowners in the country.
By 2010, the victims of terrorism in Cuba numbered 3,478 dead as well as 2,099 injured, more than the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers which claimed the lives of 2,996 people. And of course, this makes no mention of the economic blockade which has cost the island economy $130 billion according to the U.N.
Yet, despite all of this Cuba not only survives but flourishes, quality of life indicators are rivaled virtually nowhere else in the global South. Perhaps more incredible still, Cuba has been and continues to be a nation committed to Third World internationalism.
An individual nation can never hope to overturn the system of global White supremacy, however, building on successes like that of Cuba might be a starting block to something far greater.