SILENT GAZA: U.S Embargo On Cuba Is Premeditated Murder
Momii Palapaz, PNN
“It is easier to change laws than to change minds. We consider Cuba as a Black country. You may have blond hair and blue eyes but genes tell another story”, said Second Secretary Gabriela Castillo from the Cuban embassy. The sister city of Oakland is Santiago. With the City of Oakland cultural and arts commission, Black artists and writers visit and work directly with the Cuban people.
The fumes of diesel were suffocating. It was in the 90’s, when we arrived, humid and sweaty. But we were filled with excitement, arriving on the land of the Cuban people. This sovereign nation of Indigenous Taino, Siboney and Guallanayabelle and African and Spanish descendants is free of imperialist domination, yet are bombarded by decades of US embargos on everything to survive. The roar of vehicle traffic and multitudes of tourists crowded the city streets of Havana. We soaked in the ambience of colonial Spanish architecture, mixed with American made cars barreling down the boulevard with an overload of customers.
“32,000 pregnant women need ultrasound. Cuba has free medical (care). So this is a collective punishment. (There is) 4% to 9% deaths of children.” The U.S. is ‘blocking (any) legal possibility of trade. Cuba has paid for goods but (they) are not shipped…denying money, supplies (and) every policy is about starving, killing Cubans.”, said Cuban Embassy First Secretary Sulia Páez Chacon. “12,000 children have cancer. The impact of the policy to block trade is to discredit Cuban society.” We need to support Cuba and build solidarity. Cuba is undergoing a “Silent Gaza”.
In commemoration of Black August, the Oakland Rising opened their office for “‘Eyes on Cuba’: A Conversation About Humanitarian Conditions Facing Cuba in the Midst of Crippling U.S. Blockade”. Over 100 people gathered. Many were from delegations like the longtime solidarity visits from the Venceremos Brigade.
The neighborhoods throughout the island are all organized into decision making groups..“You cannot have a revolution if people don’t know how to read. Nothing will work if everyone isn't involved. Political decisions are not top down but neighborhood to neighborhood” said representative Castillo,
Why the hate over a small sovereign country off the coast of Florida? The US has attempted domination for over 70 years. It has attempted murder of then President Fidel Castro hundreds of times. Its ban on transporting everything to do with survival has suffocated, strangled and created deadly consequences for more than 11 million people. This sickening blockade is the way the US deals with countries who do not want to be colonized by the U.S. There are no companies protesting the blockade and embargo on trade. The US government is threatening countries worldwide that if they do business with Cuba, they too will be sanctioned, threatened with tariffs or other penalties for doing trade, money transactions and friendly diplomatic relations. The US cowed 40 banks in countries around the world to stop transacting with Cuba. Countries that previously allowed visas and travel to Cuba are now suspending documents to visit.
I visited Cuba in 2016 with the Pastors for Peace delegation. Since my teens I wished to go and envied those who went before me. I took the trip to confirm my undying love for solidarity, support and sovereignty of countries like Cuba, who have historically determined to be free. Haiti, on the island next to Cuba, has been suffering greatly from internal reactionaries and invasions by US, French and other imperialist powers. US is multiplying the torture with deportations of Temporary Protective Status Haitians who live on Turtle Island.
Cuba’s history is a lush tropical land, with an abundance of minerals and genocide of the indigenous populations of Taino, Siboney and Guallanayabelle. Cuba was a flourishing island of Spanish conquest. They had already worked to death, raped and killed the native people. The need for new labor was vital to the future of Spanish profits. It was a desperate plan of trying to inhabit, control, militarize and capitalize on Cuba.
Before the days of the “manifest destiny” of US expansion 1899, international powers from Britain, France, Portugal, Spain and the US, vied to extricate and transport African people. The Caribbean islands of Haiti, Cuba, Dominican Republic and throughout the region, were a destination for colonizers to settle and expand their power over stolen land.
During the 18 and early 1900s, Japanese and Okinawans were part of the vast migration spurred on by poverty in their countries while imperialist powers were converging on the natural resources of Asia and the South Pacific. A new era of slavery/migration was happening throughout the southern hemisphere. During President Batista's rule of the 1940’s, the US collaborated with the Cuban government to imprison Cuban Japanese citizens on the island of Youth, off the west coast.
From left to right: 9 Barrios-Pogolotti, Afro Descendant Network, U.S. Students at Medical School, neighborhood domino game
At a Tule Lake Pilgrimage, a number of years ago, I met Steven Wake. He had taken a delegation of Japanese Americans to Cuba to visit the Island of Youth. With taiko drummers, equipment, and curious youth and adults, they toured the country and bonded with a community of Cuban Japanese, eating, dancing, playing Taiko drums and talking about their migration decades before.
When asked, “what should we do?” representatives Sulia and Gabriela answered that it wasn’t their place to tell anyone what to do. We know what to do. Build support. Send money for medicine, all the needs of survival. Write to politicians and demand support. Contact Bay Resistance, Venceremos Brigade, Pastors For Peace, Bay Area Cuban Solidarity Network and many other organizations you can find on the internet.
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