Booksinternationale.com wiki / Cuba

Hard bound, stated first edition, 255pp includes references and index. Previous owner name inked neatly and modestly to top of front free endpaper else a fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. 440 grams. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Purchase direct from: Books on the Web. Item number: 18767.

US$34.65

2. Geuvara, Che

Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War

Publisher: NY: Monthly Review Press, 1971,

Trade paperback, second printing, illustrated with maps and plates, 287pp includes section of 26 letters at back. Clean and tight. Near fine. 359 grams. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Purchase direct from: Books on the Web. Item number: 19228.

US$7.43

3. Healy, David F.

The United States in Cuba 1898-1902; Generals, Politicians, and the Search for Policy

Publisher: Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1963,

Hard bound, first edition, few illustrations, extensively referenced, 260pp includes bibliography and index. Previous owner name inked neatly and modestly to top of front free endpaper. No scored text but numerous ink marks to margins (as highlights), else very good in moderately edge torn near very good dust jacket. 437 grams. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Purchase direct from: Books on the Web. Item number: 18777.

US$20.79

4. Hernandez, Jose M.

Cuba and the United States; Intervention and Militarism, 1868-1933

Publisher: Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993,

Hard bound, first edition, extensively referenced, 266pp includes bibliography and index. Previous owner name inked neatly and modestly to top of front free endpaper. No scored text but numerous ink marks to margins (as highlights), else very good in moderately edge torn near very good dust jacket. 620 grams. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Purchase direct from: Books on the Web. Item number: 18781.

US$37.13

5. Recio, Renato, Eduardo Jimenez, and Milena Recio

Cuba (The Golden Book Series)

Publisher: Florence/Havana: Bonechi/Jose Marti, 2003,

paper bound, 4to, high-gloss paper illustrated in colour throughout, 127pp. Covers moderately creased else a fine copy.

Purchase direct from: Books on the Web. Item number: 17220.

US$22.28

6. Seers, Dudley (ed.)

Cuba: The Economic and Social Revolution

Publisher: Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1964,

Hard bound, edition not stated, illustrated with numerous tables, extensively referenced, 432pp includes index. Previous owner name inked neatly and modestly to top of front free endpaper. Very good in moderately edge torn near very good dust jacket. 770 grams. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Purchase direct from: Books on the Web. Item number: 18780.

US$19.80

7. Ward, Fred

Inside Cuba Today

Publisher: NY: Crown, 1978,

Hard bound, first edition, illustrated with photographs, 308pp includes index. Very good in very good dust jacket. 654 grams. All books in stock and available for immediate shipment from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Purchase direct from: Books on the Web. Item number: 17737.

US$4.95

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http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July06/Crumpacker10.htm

Mein Kampf Revisited

The Transition to Oligarchy: Planning for the Re-Colonization of Cuba

by Tom Crumpacker

July 10, 2006

The Plan

The Bush Administration's "Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba," co-chaired by our Secretaries of State and Commerce, has presented a new report to our President this week. It's a lengthy and comprehensive plan, detailing the steps which US government and other "vital actors" will be taking to bring Cuba back into the family of overt US colonies, which now include some of the Pacific Islands, Puerto Rico, Kabul, and the Green Zone in Baghdad.

The Administration was roundly criticized for not having such a plan for Iraq after its conquests there. Some even claimed it was the reason for the failure of the occupation. One of the purposes of this Plan may be to forestall such criticism in Cuba's case.

Nevertheless this Plan is much the same as the one for Iraq (which was not publicly articulated beforehand.) By privatizing what used to be done publicly, it will bring Cuba into the modern, civilized world by creating a capitalist utopia where private entrepreneurs from the "international community" (mostly US corporations) and the "Cuban community abroad" (mostly US citizens), unencumbered by societal restraint, will unleash their full creative powers to save the long-suffering Cuban people from continuing poverty and tyranny, while incidentally benefiting themselves.

The recommendation for Cuba destabilization activities going on now is to continue or increase everything, especially the radio-TV projects illegally being forced on Cubans by US airplanes, denying hard currency to Cuba by tightening the blockade, i.e., fining foreign banks which deal in Cuba transactions, punishing and rewarding foreign governments which increase or decrease Cuba trade, and tightening and increasing punishment for the travel restrictions, the cost of which already triples what we spend trying to trace Al Qaeda funds. The funding for this will be a new US slush fund of $80 million increased by $20 million per year, plus all the dirty destabilization money (unknown multimillions per year) now being funneled through AID, NED, the so-called NGO's in Florida, and the US Interests Section in Havana.

Under the Plan, in the future all Cuban communication, electric power, transport, mining, industry, agriculture, medical, and other productive enterprise will be privatized and the vital actors (US and its entrepreneurs) will build and create for Cuba a water and sanitation system, a health care system, an education system, a transportation system, a communication system, a shelter system (homes for everyone), a food security system (a chicken in every pot), all presumably similar to what we are doing for or to the Iraqi people. Much more, in fact, than we are willing to do for the people of New Orleans.

Our generosity to the Cubans is conditioned however on their acceptance of a new political economy which is similar to our own. There's very little said in the Plan about what already exists in Cuba, and nothing about the effects of our blockade and terrorism against Cubans. It's as if the institutions, infrastructure and protective capabilities which have been created in 45 years of independence are so insignificant they're not worth mentioning.

Not surprisingly, this plan is rife with the usual code words this Administration uses to manipulate public opinion, such as "democracy"

(commercial oligarchy), "freedom" (of the big fish to eat the little ones), and "dissenters" (the few hundred Cubans, US paid mercenaries, on the island). The Plan is also full of statements about what changes the Cuban people want (with no supporting evidence), but says little about any role for them in pursuing their supposed desires. Indeed, they are treated as the objects of a transformation to be carried out by others. They are seen as helpless and ignorant, in desperate need of education and training in the complexities of modern consumer society. Somewhat similar in tone but much more intense than the 19th century French idea of "noblesse oblige" (the noble obligation) or the English idea of "the white man's burden." (Kipling)

The Plan is to rebuild the Cuban nation from the bottom up, from scratch to an eventual capitalist neo-colony similar to those that now exist in Central America and the Caribbean. Very little is said, however, about how we get from present reality to "scratch." The first six months are said to be crucial. This is when the Cuban Transition Government (CTG) will be set up. Clearly this means a puppet government such as were created for Afghanistan and Iraq. The nation building will be done on request of these puppets. Funding will consist of an imposed IMF structural adjustment loan, other International bank loans, international investment, especially by the "Cuban community abroad," and direct US taxpayer help where deemed appropriate.

The Cuban Constitution

Much concern is expressed in the Plan about Fidel Castro's "strategy" for succession. Cuba has a constitution, but no mention of it is made in the Plan. Nor, seemingly, is one to be written for them, as was done in Afghanistan and Iraq. Apparently constitutions are no longer considered necessary. The Plan says that Castro's strategy is that his brother becomes president when he leaves office, which the Plan's vital actors (US and its entrepreneurs) will not allow to happen.

The Cuban Constitution was developed at local and provincial levels in the early 1970s, and was approved by 97% of eligible Cuban voters in

1976. Following the "rectification" period in the late 1980s, it was substantially amended in 1992 by the same process and a more than 2/3 vote in the National Assembly as required. In 2002, in response to the proposed Varela Project, it was reaffirmed by a vote of over 8 m Cubans, 93% of the adult population.

This constitution establishes a nonpartisan participatory-representative electoral system, which is not similar to ours, but in many respects is more accountable and democratic. At the local and provincial levels there must be two or more candidates for each office, at the national level it's a parliamentary type system where any candidate for the 619, five-year National Assembly seats must receive at least 50% of the vote to win office.

The executive (called the Council of State, analogous to our president and cabinet) consists of 24 elected (every five years) members of the Assembly headed by a president and vice president, which presently are the duly elected Castro brothers.

The Constitution provides that if the president is unable to continue or leaves for any reason, the Vice President will take his place until the National Assembly elects a new President. The Assembly and the Castro brothers have frequently said any succession will occur according to the Constitution. The only way it could be stopped or changed is by a US military intervention. Thus, this Plan is in effect, as Cuba's Assembly President Richard Alarcon has stated, a declaration of war. It's a combination of unsupported, vague generalities, gross exaggeration, insults, hypocrisy and outright falsehoods. It's a tunnel-visioned ultimatum that acknowledges no possibility that there may be other views and perspectives about Cuba. It eliminates the likelihood of public discussion of such in the US before our superior military power is introduced to settle the matter. It bears no relation to the reality of Cuba or the century and half struggle of its people for autonomy. It's another blast in the relentless Cuba propaganda campaign that our government has been conducting for years.

Many Americans are becoming aware of how unreliable our media is and how we are being manipulated through it by our government. After all, for most of us, everything we know about foreign countries comes from the media. In the past, by exercising our constitutional right to travel to other countries at peace with us, we were able to see and learn the truth ourselves or from reports by honest people. In the case of Cuba, however, the effects of the false propaganda are multiplied exponentially by prohibiting travel there. Our government knows that if we were able to learn the reality of Cuba, its entire re-colonization effort would quickly collapse in ridicule.

The Plan in its Larger Context

It's unusual to publicly issue beforehand a plan for the subjugation of a sovereign nation. The last historical example which comes to mind is the 1924 publication of Adolph Hitler's Mein Kampf, which outlined his proposed steps in the upcoming takeover of Germany by the Nazi Party. Unfortunately, no one in Europe paid much attention to it. Americans should ask themselves why our government is issuing a Plan like this at this time.

Clearly, pander is an important factor. The South Florida business community, which consists of people with all kinds of ancestry, including Cuban, American, Latin, has always seen Cuba as its competitor in the main industry, tourism. It funds most of our national and Florida anti-Cuba politicians and receives from them in return a brutal blockade, a vicious anti-Cuba policy, and even more taxpayer money in return.

Many of these people see the present Administration as their last chance to retake power in Cuba. At this point the overbuilt South Florida real estate market is looking like a lead balloon and things are getting a little "iffy" in the construction, mortgage, banking, tourism, stock markets and other areas. Moreover, significant oil deposits have been located off the North coast of Cuba which the present Cuban government, if left in power, will develop to benefit only the Cubans who live on the island.

As suggested in the Plan, Chamber of Commerce and other business conferences are being held frequently in Miami to plan for the rapid takeover of Cuba. They are already arguing among themselves about the spoils. The image is one of a pack of salivating hounds looking across the Florida Straits to an island with significant resources and 11 m workers and consumers waiting to be exploited.

The Plan alleges that Cuba and Venezuela are "intermeddling" in other Latin countries' internal affairs (which is something the US would never do.) No Latin country has complained of such and no evidence has ever been produced to support such a charge. It's true that Cuba sends physicians, nurses and teachers to help poor people in Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa, but only on request of their governments. The truth is that after a century of US corporate exploitation, some countries in South America are becoming independent nations. The Cuban Revolution stands as a shining example that such can be done.

The Plan says it was written and assembled by over 100 experts from various government agencies, but CIA is not among these. There are plenty of reasons to believe that CIA, at least the agents who know something about Cuba, agree with the 1990's onsite Pentagon investigations of Cuban military installations that Cuba constitutes no risk to our national security. Nevertheless, part of the Plan is being kept secret on national security grounds.

We know now that our government has been at least allowing anti-Cuba terrorist groups like Alpha 66 to conduct weekly arms training sessions in and near the Everglades National Park and elsewhere. In recent months local authorities in Ft. Lauderdale and Los Angeles have happened upon large arms caches, which are admittedly intended for another Cuba invasion. The weapons include rocket launchers, bazookas, Uzis, all kinds of grenades and machine guns. The possessors have been charged locally but it's very unlikely they'll ever be tried publicly. In the Los Angeles case the defense of the Alpha 66 member with over

1,500 war weapons in his home is that they were supplied by our government.

There are several possible scenarios that could be used to publicly justify another military intervention in Cuba. One of the most unfounded, pernicious, dangerous aspects of the US propaganda campaign is the assertion that the Cuban Revolution has been the work of one man

("the tyrant") and the people on the island are desperate to return to US corporate rule. Three years ago a poll indicated that 25% of Miamians of Cuban ancestry want to return to Cuba when the leadership there changes. Many of these people, especially the younger ones, do not fit in with our commercial culture and are not doing well in Miami, the poorest big city in the US per capita.

Thus, there's a distinct possibility of a boat exodus from South Florida to Cuba when the Cuban leadership changes, possibly tens or hundreds of thousands of people. In the Clinton years, Washington, Florida and Miami had coordinated contingency plans to prevent this by using the Coast Guard and various agencies. This is nowhere mentioned in the Plan but it can be inferred that such contingency plans no longer exist or will not be used. Most of these boat people will be law abiding, but some of them will be US citizens who could cause trouble in Cuba and seek US government intervention for help.

Americans would be wise, in their own self-interest, to try to reign in this Administration before it further executes this Plan. Any intervention in Cuba will lead to a brutal war and a long, harsh, bloody occupation/insurgency, which will end only when the Americans withdraw completely.

Tom Crumpacker is a member of the Miami Coalition to End the US Embargo of Cuba. He lives in Austin, Texas.

The complete text of the new Bush transition report, officially released, can be found at the State Department website, whose URL is given here.

This message features Wayne Smith's response to the Bush report. Also see the link to Ricardo Alarcon's response.

OFFICIAL TEXT OF BUSH "transition" REPORT ON CUBA: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/68873.pdf

RICARDO ALARCON'S RESPONSE TO THE BUSH REPORT: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2006/julio/mier5/28cronicas.html

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New Cuba Commission Report: Formula For Continued Failure By Wayne S. Smith

In May of 2004, the Bush Administration's Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba issued an almost 500-page report that seemed to conclude the Castro government was virtually at the point of collapse. Just a few more nudges - a few more Radio Marti broadcasts, denials of a few more travel licenses, and support to a few more dissidents - and it would all be over. The United States, the report seemed to suggest, would then come in and show the Cubans how to operate their schools properly, make their trains run on time, and grow their crops more efficiently. It was envisaged as such a U.S.-run operation that in July of 2005, a U.S. transition coordinator was appointed. One skeptical observer noted at the time that in the case of Iraq, the Bush Administration had at least waited until it invaded and occupied the country before appointing a transition coordinator. Did his appointment in this case mean the U.S. intended to invade Cuba as well? And if not, what was the U.S. transition coordinator supposed to do from his office in the State Department building? Even today, that remains unclear.

Perhaps OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza's reaction to the idea of a U.S. transition coordinator for Cuba summed it up best. "But there is no transition," he said, "and it isn't your country."

Indeed, the transition plan put forward in 2004 had such a "made-in-the-USA" tone to it that it backfired in Cuba. Even Cubans who had their disagreements with the Castro government did not want to be told by the United States how they should run their country. Leading dissidents described the new approach as counterproductive. Elizardo Sanchez of the Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, for example, noted that the U.S. policy announced in

2004, "has had an effect exactly the opposite of the one you should want."

Cuba's Catholic Bishops also disagreed with the U.S. approach, saying its measures "threaten both the present and the future of our nation."

Nor did many Cubans agree with the idea that they should give up free health care and education, and various other services provided by the government

The New Report. Now the Commission has issued a new report, at a ceremony on July 10 presided over by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Commerce Secretary Gutierrez and Transition Coordinator Caleb McCarry. Interestingly, perhaps in response to charges that the first report was nothing but an American occupation plan, the new one stresses that its purpose is, rather, to offer assistance to Cubans on the island. Solutions must come from them, it insists. The United States simply stands ready and willing to support their initiatives. But having said that, the report then goes on with page after page of recommended actions, from reorganizing the economy and the educational system to the holding of multiparty elections - always provided, of course, that Cubans on the island wish to initiate them!

And the basic premise, that the regime is on the verge of collapse, is as pronounced and as unrealistic in the new report as in the old. Two years have passed and rather than collapsing, the Cuban economy has shown strong signs of reinvigoration. Even the CIA gives it a growth rate of 8%. Cuba has new and vitally important economic relationships with Venezuela and China and indications of an important new oil field off the north coast, for which various nations are bidding for drilling sites. Things are looking up, not down.

There is no indication of that in the new report, however. Rather, it says: "Chronic malnutrition, polluted drinking water, and untreated chronic diseases continue to affect a significant percentage of the Cuban people." And of course adds that: "Conditions will not improve as long as Fidel Castro remains in power."

Never mind that UN indices consistently indicate Cuba's population to be considerably healthier than those of most neighboring states, including the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico - one reason being that they have free health care. It is interesting to note also that life expectancy for Cubans is five years longer than for African-Americans!

Funds Diverted for International Meddling. Whatever the earnings produced by the Cuban economy, the report insists they are used not for the Cuban people, but for nefarious purposes. "The revenue . does not go to benefit the Cuban people," the report insists, "but is diverted to maintain the regime's repressive security apparatus and fund Castro's interventionist and destabilizing policies in other countries of the Hemisphere..The Castro regime's international meddling is done at the expense of the needs of the Cuban people."

First of all, if this were so, if funds had been so massively diverted, Cubans would no longer have free health care and education and other social-welfare programs would have long since collapsed. That they have not is evidence that the report's allegations are false. Further, it provides no example of this "international meddling" to which such a huge share of the Cuban economy is supposedly being channeled. Cuban doctors have been sent to many other countries, including Guatemala and Haiti, in addition to Venezuela and Bolivia. They have been praised on every occasion for their excellent and selfless assistance. If this is the meddling to which the report refers, there should be more of it. If it is not, then the report should provide examples of the interventionist actions to which it has reference.

Prevent Succession. When Castro passes from the scene, he will, under the Cuban Constitution, be succeeded by the Vice President. At this point in time, that is Raul Castro. There will be many within that new leadership structure, and many within Cuban society, arguing for political and economic reforms - just as there will be other voices opposed..

The principal objective of the Bush Commission's new plan, however, is to prevent the succession altogether, calling on Cuban citizens and the international community to reject the government that would replace Castro under the Cuban Constitution and to insist instead on an entirely new one. But neither the Cuban people nor the international community are likely to take so frontal a position against a successor regime. Change, rather, will have to come about slowly and as the result of an internal process, not as the result of a formula imposed from abroad - and certainly not one imposed by the United States. As Oswaldo Paya, one of Cuba's leading dissident leaders, stated a few weeks ago in anticipation of the publication of this second report: "We do not accept transition programs made outside of Cuba."

Measures to Block Succession. The Bush administration's objective, as stated in the new Commission report, is to see to it that "the Castro regime's succession strategy does not succeed," but the measures put forward to achieve that goal are as inadequate as were those put forward two years ago to bring an end to the Castro government.

Expanded Broadcasting. The new report, for example, calls for increased Radio and TV Marti broadcasting and an expansion of third-country broadcasting. But the broadcasting already conducted over the past two years, of the one kind or the other, hasn't had any appreciable effect on public opinion. More of it isn't likely to have any more.

Support for Dissidents and Civil Society. The report two years ago called for support to dissidents and representatives of "civil society" as a means of confronting the government. The new report calls for more of the same, and even for the establishment of an $80 million fund to increase that support. But as in an earlier report we quoted one dissident on the island summing up the effect of that support: "The good news is that most of that money remains in Miami; the bad news is it makes our position more difficult even so."

What he meant is that much of the money is given to organizations in Miami, some of it, supposedly, to pass on to groups in Cuba, but that little in fact gets through; it stays with those in Miami. Further, when the U.S. says its objective is to bring down the Cuban government, and then says that one of its means of accomplishing that is by providing funds to Cuban dissidents, it in effect places them in the position of being the paid agents of a foreign power seeking to overthrow their own. Inevitably, that puts them in an even more difficult position and severely limits their effectiveness.

That will be no less true now than in the past. The new fund, in short, is not likely to have any greater impact than did the old one, especially as, as noted above, many of the dissidents themselves do not agree with the U.S. action plan. It should be noted, for example, that one of Cuba's leading dissidents, Oswaldo Paya, on July 1 of this year, published an opinion piece in The Washington Post emphasizing that Cubans wanted to preserve the right to free health care and education - something at odds with the recommendations in the original Commission report. Paya has also said he wants the U.S. embargo to end and for Americans to be allowed to travel to Cuba, a position that has enraged hard-line exiles in Miami.

Curtail Travel. Measures were introduced two years ago to sharply reduce the travel of Americans and especially Cuban-Americans, and to curtail remittances and parcel deliveries. Claiming that these measures have had great success, the new report calls for their strengthened implementation. But while the new restrictions on the travel of Americans and Cuban-Americans to the island have of course reduced revenues from that source, overall revenues from tourism have not fallen, since Canadians, Europeans and Latin Americans

(especially Venezuelans) have continued to travel in even greater numbers.

Moreover, this is a problem with several dimensions. It had long been an article of faith, for example, that the best way to get the message of American democracy abroad was through the travel of American citizens. Does reducing their travel to Cuba, then, not work at cross purposes with the broader objective of encouraging change in Cuba? And whether the pain caused to divided Cuban-American families is worth the few millions denied to the Cuban government is an open question.

No Assistance to the Cuban Council of Churches. New measures are called for even against Cuban churches, through a tightening of regulations for the export of humanitarian items to ensure that exports are not consigned to entities that are "regime administered or controlled organizations, such as the Cuban Council of Churches." This follows on denial of visas to various members of the Cuban Council of Churches, which the Bush administration insists is controlled by the Cuban government. As an American religious leader countered heatedly: "In that they have to play by the rules laid down by the Cuban government, they are of course 'controlled.' But to suggest that the Cuban Council of Churches is simply an instrument of the government is absurd. They are legitimate religious leaders whose cooperation we highly value."

Be that as it may, American churches will no longer be able to send the Cuban Council of Churches humanitarian assistance, a prohibition the U.S.-based Church World Service is already vigorously protesting.

Effort to Monitor Nickel Exports. Given that nickel exports are now such an important source of revenues for the Cuban government, the Commission report calls for the creation an inter-agency Cuban Nickel Targeting Task Force to strengthen measures to control imports of nickel-bearing substances or products (i.e., "we won't buy your steel if there's any chance it contains Cuban nickel!"), and for several other measures to discourage other countries from buying Cuban nickel. Such tactics have been tried in years past with very little success. They are not likely to have any greater success now. Indeed, they are more likely to cause a strong negative reaction in the international community.

Reaction of the Cuban People to Efforts to Undermine Their Economy. One must wonder also how the Bush administration expects the Cuban people to react to its call for measures which can only have the purpose of making their own lives more difficult? Are they supposed to be grateful to the United States should its policies result in new shortages and thus be ready to support its campaign against their own government? Not likely. On the contrary, fostering a siege mentality in Cuba can only work against any popular support for U.S. policy.

The Secret Annex. The measures to block the succession process that are discussed in this report - or, at least those that are openly discussed - aren't likely to work. However, the report carries an annex which it is said must remain secret for "reasons of national security" and to maximize its chances of success. We can only guess what is in the annex. Given the history of U.S.-Cuban relations, however, there will inevitably be speculation that it contains new assassination plots against Castro (although this time against Raul) and new plans for exile raids if not direct U.S. military action. There is already virtually no support in the international community for U.S. policy toward Cuba. The uncertainty and suspicion resulting from this secret annex are likely to reduce it even further.

Wayne S. Smith is now a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and perhaps the most veteran U.S. observer of U.S.-Cuban relations, having been a Cuba analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (1957-58), Third Secretary of Political Affairs in the American Embassy in Havana (1958-61), Cuban Desk Officer (1964-66), Director of Cuban Affairs in the Department of State (1977-79), and Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (1979-82).

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