More than one agency or program has designed the White House, no matter who occupies it, to guarantee its “national security” by endangering its “backyard.” Author: Adam Iglesias
I EVER read that Cuba was ideologically rooted after the victory of the Revolution in a war to the death with the United States. This definition sank into my soul, and although the allusion was made from a critical position to the allegedly stable Cuban immobility, I saw it from our historical point of view.
The development of relations between Cuba and the United States over more than two centuries of good neighborliness gives us reason to continue to remain in the trenches, which Che explained clearly and in a few words, which we Cubans repeat from the realization that we already have what we have encountered for two centuries: imperialism, not a bit different.
Because? The fact is that on the other side of the Florida Strait, they are indeed stubbornly adhering to the policy that, on April 28, 1823, defined us as “ripe fruit.” Then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams said that “there are laws of political gravity, as well as laws of physical gravity, and Cuba, separated from Spain, should gravitate toward the Union…”.
For the record, he was not the only one and not the first one with a desire for fruits that actually were, are and will be forbidden and forbidden to him by the decision of the Cubans, rooted in dignity and national pride.
Two successive U.S. presidents brought paramount interests to the island, which had been a colony of Spain as early as 1810, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who felt that if Cuba came under “any European government” it would be against the interests of the United States. States, because it will affect the trade and security of this country.
Let’s not forget that we were given the title “Key to the Bay”, which translates as the entrance to the southern hemisphere, that backyard that the Politics of ripe fruits and the famous Monroe Doctrine, in which they have since expressed their claims to total domination and plunder of the continent considered as territory enclosed in “America for Americans”. And the “Americans” were the inhabitants of the nascent state, where gluttonous capitalism pressed with incredible force.
That April 200 years ago is remembered in history because of John Quincy Adams’ instructions to Hugh Nelson, who was his minister in Madrid, about what has since been a plan of action against Cuba and, through him, a policy towards the south. which had liberated itself from Spain, but which it sought to protect and dispossess.
Madrid was left with only Cuba and Puerto Rico, a document raised with impunity and shamelessly pointed out: “These islands, due to their local position, are natural appendages of the (North) American continent, and one of them (the island of Cuba), almost in full view of our coast, has become, for a variety of reasons, of paramount importance to the political and commercial interests of our union.”
He even spoke at length about his love for Cuba, about his “dominant position” in the Gulf of Mexico and the Antilles, about the “great and protected port of Havana” and the base territory for profitable trade, for which, according to Quincy Adams, after a few years became President of the United States, there was no other foreign territory that could compare with it in value to the national interests of the northern nation, with which it had to be connected geographically, commercially and politically.
In other words, the “ripe fruit”, Cuba, which must fall into its collection basket, which it blocks and pursues violently because it refuses to cede sovereignty and independence, has a foreign policy expression in the Monroe Doctrine of December 1823, as well as by John Quincy Adams, but took the name of the then US President James Monroe, from which an empire developed with its genocidal and predatory wars, with the purchase or usurpation of territories that showered the flag of 13 colonies with 50 stars and stripes of the 20th century.
In our hemisphere, it was characterized by coups d’état and military dictatorships that guaranteed a neo-colonial portfolio that provided resources in Latin America and the Caribbean for American companies and financial empires.
The victory of the Cuban revolution refuted the claims of Washington. The small island became a lighthouse. A decolonized world emerged on other continents. And this is a problem for US hegemonic politics.
That is, therefore, the main story to be remembered, because these terms, with two centuries between them and up to the present day, continue to define the interventionist, interventionist task, as well as the desires of the United States in the region that they evaluate. I repeat, their piece of land to plunder.
They have blockaded Cuba for more than six decades and there is nothing to indicate that they are raising such injustice because this land and this people are committing grave sins of independence, sovereignty and resistance. And as for the rest of America, other peoples and nations also face a powerful neighbor who does not give up his claims.
More than one agency or program has designed the White House, no matter who occupies it, to guarantee their “national security” by subordinating the “backyard” whatever it’s called: OAS, TIAR, IMF, World Bank, FTAA. Even the long military arm, which includes in its operational plans 31 countries in the region and 24,900,000 kilometers, the Southern Command, one of ten located in the four main points of the planet, to certify absolute control by force.
Around these days, the head of the US Southern Command, four-star General Laura Richardson, was not shy in words, stating in analytical center Atlantic Council, what new benefits can be reaped for the benefit of the economy and national security of the United States:
Why is this region important? With all its rich resources and rare earth elements, there is a triangle of lithium essential for technology today. 60 percent of the world’s lithium is in the lithium triangle: Argentina, Bolivia, Chile,” the military leader said.
To this, he added other important reasons that, in his opinion, justify the desire: the concentration of “the largest oil reserves” in the world, including reserves of “light and sweet oil discovered off the coast of Guyana more than a year ago” – and this explains the desire of Washington the staunch defense of Essequibo’s alleged territorial allegiance to Guyana and the denial of this by Venezuela. Richardson added: “They also have the resources of Venezuela, including oil, copper, gold,” and made a comprehensive cross-border leap to demonstrate the geostrategic importance of the Amazon, the “lungs of the world.”
There was something else in the grim gaze of the military representative of the imperial eagle, and in this she used the possessive verb without discussion: “we have 31 percent of the world’s fresh water in this region.”
Conclusion of the Chief of the Southern Command: “This region matters”; The United States “has a lot to do”… “This has a lot to do with national security, and we have to start our game.”
The geopolitical game of 200 years ago used the old colonial empires as an excuse: Spain, France, Great Britain and Russia… Now Russia and China are used as an excuse. This is the intransigence of those who do not want to lose their hegemony or succumb to the multipolarity of the world.
Therefore, what became history in 1823 will remain history in this first quarter of the 21st century. Our intransigence does not correspond to immobility, which we are called, but to reason and justice, which accompany us with dignity and patriotism. The same applies to this America of ours, which stretches from the Rio Grande to Patagonia, including the beautiful pearls of the Antilles.
Source: Juventud Rebelde