[BRC-NEWS] Big Lies about Havana and Detroit Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit April 22, 2000 Big Lies About Havana And Detroit By Charles E. Simmons As the late U.S. Congressman and judge George Crockett Jr. remarked during the days of U.S. government support for the apartheid government which kept Nelson Mandela in jail for 27 years, "Americans are the most lied to and misinformed people in the world when it comes to international affairs." The current developments in U.S.-Cuba relations, symbolized by the crisis in Miami surrounding the status of six year old Elian Gonzales, is a tragic example of that misinformation and the results of 40 years of the U.S government -- in both Democratic and Republican administrations -- lying to the American people about Cuba and Fidel Castro. A brief history of the relations between the U.S. and Cuba since the revolution in 1959 is crucial but it will also help the informed reader to know something about the relationship between the two nations over the past century, long before Dr. Castro was born in Santiago de Cuba, in Oriente Province, the island's center of the African slave trade. It is important to know that the U.S. intervened in the Cuban war for independence against Spain, in which one of the leading Cuban freedom fighters was an Afro-Cuban, Antonio Maceo. The intervention on the side of Cuba turned out to be a swindle in which Washington ended up switching roles with Spain to the detriment of the poor masses of the Cuban population which was kept in a state of colonial military occupation, prostitution, poverty and racism for the next 70 years. During that time Cuban resources and labor was stolen by gangsters from Las Vegas and such companies as United Fruit and various tobacco interests until the revolution in 1959 that brought another group of freedom fighters to power, including the Afro-Cuban Juan Almeida, Ernesto Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro. The revolution, led by Cuban youth, expelled the American and other western corporations, along with the tiny minority of Cubans who had benefited from the exploitation and segregation during the Batista government and fled to Miami and received royal treatment until today. In Cuba the original members of the Miami counter-revolutionaries are known as Gusanos or "Worms." The favored treatment for them has included extensive financial aid, the status of honorary whites, and the blessings of upward political and economic mobility while Mexican and Haitian immigrants were being rounded up like cattle, thrown back in the ocean or across the border or simply murdered. The special treatment for the anti-Castro Cubans was not unique for counter revolutionaries brought to U.S., but rare for third world refugees, yet these Cubans were clearly expected to carry out the wishes of the CIA which was to restore the U.S. presence and domination of the island by military means and terrorism. Their acts on behalf of the CIA, well documented in U.S. government hearings, included bombings, poisoning of crops and waterways, attempted assassinations of Cuban leaders including Fidel Castro, and the failed invasion known as the 'Bay of Pigs' in the early 1960s. The leaders of the present struggle to keep little Elian Gonzales in the U.S. are either part of or closely associated with that gang of CIA hirelings. On the other hand, it must also be pointed out that the group of anti-Castro Cubans are not the majority of Cubans in exile, neither in Miami or in other parts of the nation, but are merely the most vocal and at least until now have had the blessings of Washington. Nor do they speak for the entire population of Latinos in the U.S. or the Americas. It is commonplace in the U.S. media to denounce Cuba for its poverty in comparison to the wealthy giant to the north. But the media seldom explain that Cuba is much better off than most other agricultural nations, nor that Cuba has a higher literacy rate than the U.S., overall better health and housing conditions for working and poor people, and is one of the few nations in the world that has addressed the issue of racism or to grant political asylum to freedom fighters such as the Black Panthers, and North Carolina freedom fighter Robert F. Williams who went into exile in 1960 following FBI charges that he kidnapped members of the KKK. Fidel Castro was the only president in the world to send troops to fight on the side of Angolan and Nelson Mandela's freedom fighters against the U.S.-backed segregationist governments. For all of these reasons, Washington remains angry with Castro but some sectors of the U.S. business community are ready to change their backward policies, not for the sake of benefiting Cuba, but to line their own pockets, and to undo the egalitarian characteristics of the revolution. Cuba still has a long way to go on all fronts, has had economic set-backs following the collapse of their major trading partners in the former USSR and Eastern Europe, and Cuban leaders will be the first to admit it. But the greatest American lie is the omission of the fact that Washington has -- in violation of international law and morality -- kept Cuba in a military and economic blockade for 40 years which is the cause of the shortages in the economy. Those of us in Detroit should think about the long corporate blockade against the Coleman Young administration and the damage suffered to the Detroit economic development as a result of Young's insistence on satisfying the needs of the little people. We must ask whether there would have been better schools, health services, more housing for low and moderate income families, and better working conditions but for the corporate blockade against America's inner cities. Part of the confusion these days about Cuba is that some Wall Street interests are ready to change U.S. policy, to drop the hatchet and try to make some money like their competitors in France, Canada and Japan are doing. However, many old line and racist politicians such as Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, have not received the message that the Cold War policies no longer completely dictate corporate policies. Therefore, China and the former socialist nations are now fair game in spite of any political barriers. At the same time, both Republicans and Democrats fear that the small group of anti-Castro Cubans now speak for the entire Latino population in the U.S. or at least in Florida, and that the party that appears first to reconcile with Castro will lose their vote and perhaps some politicians. Residents of America's embattled cities and rural communities should keep in mind the lies and distortions told in the local daily media about these embattled neighborhoods and citizens, confronting total dis- enfranchisement, intense brutality and land grabbing on all fronts, and then the issues of Cuba will be easier to understand. -30- Charles E. Simmons Detroit Community Activist, Professor of Journalism and Media Law Eastern Michigan University Csim592951@aol.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- BRC-NEWS: Black Radical Congress - General News Articles/Reports Subscribe: Email "subscribe brc-news" to www.blackradicalcongress.org | BRC | blackradicalcongress@email.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-04.29.00-02:00:51-30874