BRUSSELS - European Union states are nearing agreement on ending sanctions on Cuba in defiance of U.S. calls for continued pressure for democratic reform on the communist island, diplomats said on Tuesday.
Closed-door talks on the move are continuing as EU leaders host U.S. President George W. Bush for a farewell summit in Slovenia. EU foreign ministers could endorse the step at a meeting in Luxembourg next Monday, the envoys said.
EU negotiators cited changes in Cuba in the last year as a rationale for moving forward.
What is interesting about this is that these talks are taking place while George W. Bush is in Europe. It signals his weakness as a world leader and international rejection of his policy toward Cuba.
2 comments:
This is good news, although the sanctions on Cuba should have been lifted years ago, or what's more, never enacted in the first place. As if Cuba was really ever a threat to anyone except ruling class elites.
Harold is certainly right. The U.S. blockade began in 1960 as a conscious attempt to overthrow the Cuban revolution. The following year the U.S. through the CIA launched the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The year after that the Cuban missile crisis almost led to a nuclear World War III. Numerous assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, terrorist attacks on Cuban shores sponsored by the U.S., attempts to sabotage the Cuban economy in a wide variety of ways(from importing defective equipment to the use of bactiological agents against Cuban swineherds) are also part of this sordid history.
In reality, Cuba after the Spanish-American War and two decades before the Soviet revolution, became the model for U.S. non colonial imperialism in Latin America and eventually the world. The U.S. claimed it had the right to intervene in Cuba to protect Cuba's "independence" from Cuban government policies the U.S. didn't like. particularly economic policies and foreign treaties.
Frankly, it was only U.S. power over Europe that led European nations to go along with their own sanctions. That power is now massively in decline. Also, not only was Cuba never a threat to the U.S. in regard to the American people, but the U.S. ruling class and government has been and continues to be in its actions a threat to Cuba's existence as a socialist country.
If you look at this really disgraceful record, you might conclude that the U.S. ruling class and government really owes the Cuban government and people something like "cold war reparations" above and beyond merely ending the blocade(the Cuban government has never asked for that) along with a complete suspension of all support for anti-Cuban terrorist groups anywhere.
Norman Markowitz
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