Cuba Has a Rich History of International Solidarity. US Wants to Extinguish It. |
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At night, the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo, Cuba appears like a tangled string of Christmas lights along the coastline, casting colored silhouettes across the waves that lap ashore. Sailors and Marines pack the local sports bar blaring pop music. Others frequent the bowling alley or play video games under intense strobe lights. Yet in contrast to the brightly illuminated base, nighttime blots out the nearby town of Caimanera, as a result of the energy blockade on Cuba that President Donald Trump tightened this January.
Trump claims that the embargo is necessary to promote a democratic transition in Cuba. Similarly, U.S.-backed opposition leaders in Miami such as Rosa María Payá argue that “the Cuban people [are] grateful” for the sanctions, which will help “make Cuba great again.”
But the truth is far more bitter. Trump’s sanctions are accelerating a social crisis that has immobilized Cuban industry, gutted public services, and forced over 10 percent of the population to leave the island in recent years. Hospitals lack electricity, and grocery store shelves are empty amid rolling blackouts. Ratcheting up pressure, U.S. authorities issued a new raft of sanctions against senior Cuban officials this May, while conducting military reconnaissance flights off the coastline.
Trump’s economic powerplay and preparations for a potential invasion are only the latest moves in an ongoing saga of aggression toward Cuba. Rather than prioritizing democracy, Washington has long deployed economic pressure to challenge the island’s fiercely independent social and foreign policies — above all, its commitment to wealth redistribution, solidarity with liberation struggles, and opposition to U.S. imperial hubris.
Washington’s professed support for democracy in Cuba rings hollow when placed against the historical backdrop. In the 1950s, U.S. officials assisted the island’s dictator Fulgencio Batista, as he attempted to extinguish a popular revolution spearheaded by Fidel Castro. His regime tortured over 700 dissidents to death, dangling mutilated bodies from telegraph poles and tossing them into gutters. While training Batista’s forces, the CIA confided that they were “too enthusiastic” about torture. Nonetheless, Washington organized “to prevent a Castro victory,” fearing that his leftist agenda would undermine its vice-like grip over Cuban politics and commerce.
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After taking power in January 1959, revolutionary leaders nationalized strategic industries, outlawed formal racial segregation, and pursued a breathtaking array of anti-poverty reforms. In response, the State Department promoted “economic warfare” by plotting to reduce access to oil and the U.S. sugar market. Officials emphasized that they should “disguise these actions” as peaceful. But their objective was clear: “to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of [the Castro] government.”
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy escalated pressure by bankrolling terrorist operations and a failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs. He also armed counterrevolutionaries that targeted the revolution’s literacy campaign, butchering teachers for teaching peasants to read.
To defend Cuba, Castro stationed Soviet missiles on the island. At the brink of nuclear war, Kennedy vehemently opposed a “no-invasion guarantee” in negotiations with Soviet leaders, while refusing to even talk to Cuban officials. Privately, he was blunt: “our objective is to preserve our right to invade” in an emergency. After the Soviets withdrew the missiles, U.S. officials insisted that their “ultimate objective” remained “the overthrow of… Castro,” sponsoring attacks against industrial sites and “tighten[ing] the noose around the Cuban economy.”
Yet their most cynical ploy targeted Cuba’s youth. As relations deteriorated, the U.S. government organized Operation Peter Pan, which sowed chaos and fractured families by convincing Cubans to ship their children to the United States. To spark a mass exodus, the CIA published false propaganda announcing that authorities planned to abolish parental authority. Radio advertisements warned that socialists would seize and “indoctrinate” every minor. “Don’t let your child be taken!” broadcasts warned.
Meanwhile, the State Department colluded with Father Bryan Walsh and the Catholic Welfare Bureau in Miami, which oversaw the transfer of over 14,000 Cuban children to the United States. Many never reunited with their families. Walsh packed Cuban children into orphanages, foster homes, and makeshift facilities. One Peter Pan survivor, Alex López, recalled living for one year in a snake-infested camp in the Everglades. Residents slept in canvas tents and washed in the swamp. But the worst part was the priests. López described the sadistic cruelty of one of the camp rectors and “being raped by that horrible man.” Many others also experienced sexual abuse, violence, and neglect. Walsh himself forced campers to strip before beating them with paddles. In 2006, one........