And so now we will travel a mere 50 miles north to witness a radically different experience. We pick up the story from the common history of the Caribbean highlighted above.
1762 – Sugar, tobacco and fruit exported to Spain and the Pope.
1809 – Thomas Jefferson – “It will be objected to our receiving Cuba that no limit can then be drawn to our future acquisitions… nothing should ever be accepted that would require a Navy to defend it”
1819 – Cubans riot – repeated in 1826, 1828, 1830, 1848, 1851 and 1855 … by this stage no Cuban could have the right to trial, travel without military permission, occupy a public post, set up in industry or business, have anyone staying in their house, or marry inter-racially.
1868 – Carlos Manuel de Cespedes liberates his slaves and starts the rebellion amongst the negroes, mulattoes and cafe-au-laits.
1878 – Cuban revolt crushed at the cost of 85,000 Spanish lives and 50,000 Cubans. Cespedes is Cuba’s version of George Washington. Slavery abolished.
1895 – Jose Marti, Cuban poet and fundraiser “Doing is the best way of saying” sees the U.S. threat and returns to fight – killed by the very first bullet! By the following year 60,000 Cubans were fighting 200,000 Spaniards with the U.S. gun-ship “Maine” docked at Havana to “protect Americans living in Cuba”.
1898 – Cubans blow up the Maine. But, having fought off the Spaniards, the Cubans lost to the Americans who, while they were there, took Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines – revenge for the 266 US Serviceman who died. U.S. install Mr Wood as the first Governor and the money starts getting paid to Washington. U.S. and Spain sign Cuban treaty in Paris. The Platt amendment which the Cubans are forced to sign to get rid of the U.S. troops, allows the U.S. to re-invade to protect any threat to their interests. U.S. install Thomas Estrada Palma who receives orders and wages from Washington.
1906 – Palma re-elected. Rebellion. U.S. armed intervention. Mr Magoon installed as President. After three years, Palma left, a millionaire after 3 years of administrative corruption.
1916-21 – Another U.S. armed intervention to protect $1200 million of investments and to put down striking Sugar workers.
1925 – U.S. control all Government, Banks, Mines, Trains, Sugar, Cattle and Tobacco … 70% of everything in Cuba.
1925 – Gerardo Machado, Cuba’s first dictator, with personal Police Force of 15,000 men to assassinate opponents.
1933 – General Strike. Machado flees. Provisional Government of Carlos de Cespedes. U.S. backed Sergeant Fulgencio Batista leads coup. Promoted to Colonel.
1940 – Election. Batista becomes President. Free and fair? Batista was “elected” because no-one else dared stand.
1948 – Cubans form the Ortodox Party, led by Eduardo Chipas.
1952 – Batista stages another coup to avoid election defeat – abolishes the constitution, dissolves congress, outlaws the Communist Party and gets more aid from the U.S. to expand the military.
1953 – Fidel Castro of the Ortodox party (who were unable to control him) gets 150 crazies to attack the 1000 strong Moncado garrison. Attack fails. Castro gets 19 years hard labour.
1955 – To appease the people, Batista releases Castro and his friends and organises elections. Castro goes with the others to Mexico to learn a bit more. Trained by General Bayo, a Spanish war veteran. Castro meets Che Guevara, an Argentinean doctor.
In another failed attempt to overthrow Batista (hurricane this time and met by Batista’s troops), they flee to the mountains, recover and gain support from the Ortodox, the Communists and the Campesinos. The growing army conquers the Oriente (the mountains in the South) and urban terrorism starts in support of Castro. Batista responds “No wounded, no prisoners” and kills 20,000, supported by aeroplanes, tanks, machine guns and ammunition.
1958 – Revolution wins! Castro inherits 43% illiteracy and 5 million people (out of 6 million) living in huts. 550 of Batista’s assassins executed. INRA – the National Institute for Agrarian Reform starts giving land to the people and compensation to the previous owners as Government bonds. Urban reform halves rent for property owners. Extra houses appropriated from the Rich but to be paid for within 10 years at the value declared by the owner. The American-installed Prostitution racket moves to Puerto Rico and Miami. Newspapers and the Church support the U.S. Cubans stop reading newspapers and stop going to church.
1959 – U.S., clearly delighted by Cuba’s new found capacity to care for its people and determine its own future, react by napalming the Cuban cane-fields.
1960/61 – French steamship “La Couvre”, carrying Belgian weapons for Cuba, is bombed by the CIA. John Foster Dulles says “The U.S. does not have friends only interests”. In retaliation, Cuba nationalises the U.S. refineries of Esso, Texaco and Sinclair and refines Soviet oil. U.S. impose sugar embargo. Cuba nationalises all U.S. property. U.S.SR and China agree to buy 700k and 500k of sugar respectively. U.S. sabotage increases. Castro arms the people – every neighbourhood has a “Committee for the Defence of the Revolution”. U.S. prepare for invasion with mercenaries from Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Florida. The U.S. may like to suggest that these mercenaries were an International Force of sympathetic countries? No. These are mercenaries – ex-Plantation Owners, Militarists, Police, War Criminals, Fugitives, trigger-happy Playboys and Bums.
1961 – 120,000 literacy workers spread out across the island. By the end of the year, illiteracy falls from 23% to 3%.
1961 – The Bay of Pigs – 1500 mercenaries, 5 U.S. ships, 2 battle ships, 3 freighters loaded with tanks and artillery from Nicaragua and all escorted by 2 U.S. Navy Destroyers invades (remember Jefferson?) Defeated in 48 hours by the locals. The Mercenaries came to defend the “Principles” of 804,000 acres of U.S. land, 10,000 buildings, 70 industries, 10 Sugar Mills, 5 mines, 2 banks and 2 newspapers. Cuba exchanged U.S. hostages for medicines.
1962 – Cuban Missile Crisis – Nikita Kruschev sends arms to Cuba. U.S. blockade. Missiles return to U.S.S.R. on the condition that the U.S. do not invade Cuba (remember the Platt amendment?) and end the blockade. Missiles withdrawn, but blockade continues.
1980s – U.S. approve $32 million for TV channel to be beamed at Cuba – “TV Marti” (remember Jose Marti the Poet? See 1895 above)
1982 – 350 hospitals, compared with 50 in 1958 pre-revolutionary Cuba. Polio and malaria have been eliminated. Infant mortality, literacy, life expectancy better than Chicago or the U.S. Navajo Indian reservation.
In recent years, after the embargoes against Cuba by Reagan and then Bush, along with the naming of Cuba as part of the “axis of evil”, relations have begun to thaw with Obama’s visit to see Raul Castro in 2015. Raul took over from his brother Fidel in 2008.
Currently Cuba may be viewed as probably the only country in the Caribbean that is genuinely able to determine to a larger degree its own future direction. It is in the interests of the U.S. to accept this in order to prevent Cuba making alternative arrangements with Russia or China and so Cuba has, for now at least, escaped from the “axis of evil” still being experienced in Haiti at the hands of US Foreign Policy. There will nevertheless be a “Cuban desk” at the CIA who will always be on the lookout for ways to undermine the autonomy of any country beyond the direct control of U.S. capital.
The U.S. will eventually insist that Cuba has ”free and fair” elections, at which point expect to see mega-US-funded candidates who are very quietly very interested in the needs of U.S. corporations. Massive campaigns will saturate the streets and the TV screens of Cuba with promises of all shades of rosy future, Cubans would be well advised to have a look at what that rosy future looks like in Haiti and to remember why they had a revolution in the first place.
How could I be guilty of such rampant speculation about future American actions in Cuba? By looking at past American actions in Chile, where we turn next.
But before that, now we have some idea of the different experiences of our friends in central America and in the Caribbean, it is time for us to look at the facts of their existence and to reveal how beneficial a close relationship with the United States can be.