BACKBENCHER
Rod P. Kapunan
3/10-11/2012
The United States is the only country that resorts to branding states to denote some kind of political categorization. Often such name calling is reflective of its attitude towards that state. It has called some states “totalitarian states” in referring to the former Soviet Union, China under Mao, North Korea, and Cuba; “failed states” for countries like Somalia, Ethiopia, Sudan and other famine-stricken countries in the Sahel Region of Africa; and, “narco States” like Colombia, Mexico, and Afghanistan.
“Totalitarian states” are perceived as undemocratic where power is concentrated in one ruler; “failed states” or those it consider to have lost its power to govern; and the “narco states” or those governments sustained through the production, sale and distribution of drugs like cocaine and opium. The US has also branded some as “rogue states” in referring to Iraq under Saddam Hussein, Libya under Muammar Gaddhafi, Iran under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and North Korea under Kim Jong Il. The US views their behavior as odd for refusing to kowtow to what it wants. The US often accuses them of sponsoring “international terrorism” or are “endeavoring to acquire weapons of mass destruction.”
Surprisingly, as the world looks at how the US has prejudged them, it has overlooked using the most important categorization that would fit to its status as a country that has no respect for international law, always seeking to enforce its interest by the use of force in defiance of the United Nations Charter. Perhaps, the US purposely reserved that title to itself. After all, it alone has the power, and the ability to use it with arrogance to subjugate other states with unparalleled ferocity and savagery to be fittingly called a criminal state, together with its Zionist enforcer in the Middle East, Israel.
At the outset, the economic embargo imposed on Cuba was a criminal act committed by one state against a sovereign state. We say this because in 1962 or barely three years after Cuba ousted Fulgencio Batista, the US arbitrarily reacted by imposing an economic blockade against a people just wishing to chart their own destiny. For the last 50 years the economic blockade has become much tighter that it has caused untold sufferings to the entire population, with the US hoping it would dampen their spirit to turn their back against their legendary revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
No state is authorized to impose an economic blockade against another state. That would be tantamount to war. But what is Cuba against a criminal state that parades itself as the guardian of democracy? It was criminal because the US sought to internationalize its aggressive design against Cuba by urging its allies or by blackmailing other countries to join the embargo which has never been sanction by the UN. The US has emerged as a mafia Godfather because it exerts its power and influence to secure the cooperation of law-abiding states to initially obey its criminal design of economically squeezing Cuba as what the members of the Organization of American States did to expel Cuba on July 26, 1964.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the world thought it would usher in the end of the Cold War. But true to its instinct as a criminal state, the US rather tightened the screw on the partial restriction imposed by President Kennedy on February 7, 1962. On October 15, 1992, US Congressman Robert Torricelli introduced a misnomer act dubbed as “Cuban Democracy Act.” That act sought to widen the scope of the embargo by prohibiting foreign-based subsidiaries of US companies from trading with Cuba, prohibiting US citizens from traveling to that island, and curtailing remittances to family relatives in Cuba.
It was followed on March 12, 1996 by the Helms-Burton Act, also given a misleading title of “Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act.” It sought to impose much tougher sanctions on foreign companies doing business in Cuba, gave a go-signal to US citizens to sue foreign investors who make use of American-owned properties seized by the Cuban government, and to deny entry to the US to such foreign investors doing business in Cuba. It was an act of gangsterism for intimidation is not only evident, but went beyond to blackmail legitimate business transactions carried out by other countries.
Conservative estimates put it that direct damage to the Cuban people as a result of the economic blockade that has been broadened to include commercial and financial blockade as of December 2010 would run to $104 billion. Taking into consideration the continued depreciation of the US dollar against the price of gold in the international financial market, damaged to the Cuban economy would exceed $975 billion.
For 15 straight years, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to end the US embargo against Cuba. One hundred eighty-three member-states voted for the lifting while a fellow criminal state, Israel, voted against to show both its color and loyalty to the US. The two other states voted to oppose, and they were Marshall Islands and Palau. Their vote was understandable for without the US food and economic assistance, the people there would starve and their economy would sink deep into the ocean.
(rodkap@yahoo.com.ph)
