Cuba still faces challenging problems. Many of them are caused by the U.S. embargo of Cuba. The United Nations has voted 23 times in favor of the U.S. lifting the embargo. The only countries voting against it have been the U.S. and Israel. [HERE ].
The U.S. embargo has not only caused an unnecessary hardship on the Cuban people, but it has also been a cause of shame for U.S. foreign policy throughout Latin America and Africa. [HERE ]
To make matters even worse, the U.S. still has Cuba on the U.S. list of state-sponsored terrorists. Cuba is one of only four countries that the U.S. has on the list. The other three are Iran, Syria and North Korea.
The Cuban people feel that it is hypocritical for the U.S. to have them on the list of state-sponsored terrorists, since they feel that it is the U.S. that is sponsoring terrorists and has supported acts of terrorism against Cuba by the Cuban exile community. The U.S. has an admitted program of regime change towards Cuba. [HERE ]
Much of U.S. "democracy promotion" in Cuba has included sponsoring, supporting and harboring terrorists in the U.S. who have bombed hotels, restaurants and nightclubs in Cuba, strafed Cuban tourist beaches with machine guns from speedboats, spread agricultural diseases and blown up airliners. [HERE ].
In 2014, it was exposed that the U.S. Agency for International Development had spread a fake Twitter network in Cuba to try and foment regime change. [HERE ]
The U.S. embargo and keeping Cuba on the state-sponsored terrorist list does great harm to the Cuban economy. It also makes it difficult, if not impossible, to import life-saving pharmaceuticals, medical supplies, nutritional needs, and diagnostic and medical equipment.
The U.S. needs reminding that regime change is against all international norms, protocols and law. It is also a violation of the United Nations Charter. U.S. exceptionalism is no excuse for violating the rule of law.
U.S. Military Occupation of Guantanamo Bay
Cuba also wants the return of Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. tried to colonize Cuba after it occupied the island in 1901, following the Spanish-American War. The Cuban people put up a fierce rebellion that resulted in the withdrawal of the U.S. military occupation of Cuba. However, before leaving the U.S. extracted its "pound of flesh" from Cuba by passing the Platt Amendment in Congress requiring the Cuban government to agree, among other things, to lease Guantanamo Bay to the U.S. indefinitely for "coaling and a naval station". [HERE ]
Cuba feels that the continued occupation by the U.S. of Guantanamo Bay is a violation of their national sovereignty, violates international law and is a grave insult to their pride. Cuba is especially distressed that Guantanamo is being used by the U.S. as a prison and torture site.
"CodePink" Historic Trip to Cuba
In February 2015, Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, the co-founders of the women's peace activist group CodePink [HERE ], lead a people-to-people delegation to Cuba.
I was among the 150 participants in the CodePink group. It was the largest U.S. delegation to Cuba since President Obama's announcement December 17, 2014 that he intended to normalize relations with Cuba. [HERE ]
One would be terribly naà ¯ve to think that the Cuban government did not try to present its best image to the CodePink delegation. Still we saw with our own eyes and heard with our own ears the tremendous progress Cuba has achieved. We saw the good, the bad and the ugly.
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