May 8, 2003

Subject: A Cockcroft Chomsky exchange #2

Dear Noam:

Since I lost a long reply I had prepared for you on my computer, probably by hitting a wrong key or something, let me sum up what I was saying and offer you some more evidence so that we can at least keep our dialogue going. [*For my first message to you, and your reply to me, scroll to the asterisk at very end of part 2 of this message.*]

First, I thank you for getting back to me, confirming Roxanne’s impression of you as one who takes to heart queries or pleas from others and responds whenever possible.

Second, I did read the statement you signed. It is the Campaign for Peace and Democracy Statement Protesting Repression in Cuba <www.cpdweb.org> -- in the rest of this message to you to be referred to as CPDS. The CPDS obviously went through an "early draft," in your words, and you insisted on changes to put the human rights issues in Cuba "in context" [to quote your reply to me: "Of course, it's crucially necessary to give the proper context, as was done in this case (at my insistence in fact, but that's a separate matter)"]. Apparently, the CPSD put so much emphasis on what it says at the outset -- "We, the undersigned, strongly protest the current wave of repression in Cuba" - that you had to insist on more "context."

Perhaps that should have told you something about the main motivation behind the CPDS. Did that not make you wonder about those behind the CPDS? A key initiator and author of the CPDS, I have been told, was Joanne Landy, a self-proclaimed "social democrat" who for decades has been calling for the overthrow of the Cuban government and is today serving on the Council of Foreign Relations, a longtime key institution of U.S. imperialism (for a generally accepted definition of imperialism, see my earlier article I sent you as an attachment on US imperialist strategy, full reference below).

The "COMMENT FROM THE CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY" that follows the CPDS is, in my view, even more shameful than the CPDS statement itself. It includes this remarkably ambivalent statement: "Washington's interest is in reconstructing a society of private wealth and privilege and in promoting a conservative, and probably repressive, pro-U.S. government in Havana." "Probably repressive"? Look at Iraq or any other country in which the US government has directly or indirectly engineered "regime change" and tell me the new US-backed regime wasn’t "certainly repressive."

As you know, the CPDS rolls on for a paragraph and a half in this vein about Cuban "repression" before even implying a context of some kind of US history of "international terrorism and economic warfare" affecting Cuba. Finally, the CPDS rejects any notion of Cuban democracy and concludes "we support democracy in Cuba…. [and] call on the Castro government to release all political prisoners and let the Cuban people speak, write and organize freely." A word count shows that nearly sixty percent of the CPDS is extremely critical of Cuba. In sum, this anti-Cuba argument is the one being stressed in the CPDS, as is suggested by the fact that the opening and concluding sections consist of this criticism rather than the generalized critique of US foreign policy in the middle of the statement. Nowhere does the CPDS discuss the "current wave" of US aggression and heightened threat against Cuba (see below).

Third, you write me that the CPDS "stresses very clearly the 44 years of terror and economic strangulation, and in fact everything else you seem to think was missing," which I have just shown it does not "stress" at all. Moreover, as I show below, the immediate current context is missing, and it is pivotal.

Fourth, the CPDS does not mention the current US manipulation of the migration context or the longstanding detention of the "Cuban Five," major points defining the immediate current context. Even more important to this context are the statements by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on April 11 right after the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and by top US government officials since then (George W. Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld, etc.) saying Cuba should, in effect, be treated like Iraq. This overarching context, of course, consists of the preventive war and neoliberal globalization doctrines of the Bush administration and the oft-declared doctrine "either you’re with us or against us."

As Penny Schoner has pointed out in a Portside communiqué dated April 28, 2003:

On a more subtle level, as you and I, among others, have often pointed out in our writings, the standard operating procedure of contemporary US foreign policy has been to lay the groundwork for "democratic transitions" to economic and political systems of neoliberal globalization, i.e., radically reduced state roles in regulating economies, privatization of energy and water, destruction of self-determination, economic IMF-style austerity programs, un-payable foreign debts, opening up of markets for transnational corporations, environmental destruction,increased poverty, expansion of low-wage labor pools and forced migration, more frequent wars, and terrible human suffering on a daily basis for the majority of humankind.

I took great efforts to explain both the specific migration context, including the "Cuban Five," and the overarching Bush doctrines context noted above, in the two essays I wrote and sent you as attachments but which you found irrelevant ["the attachments...don’t bear on this question"]. The overarching context of the Bush strategy is spelled out in one of those attachments, the one defining imperialism, "La estrategia imperialista estadounidense y su momento de verdad" (published in the Buenos Aires magazine La Maza, April 2003, and available also in Boletín Electrónico No 639 - América Latina y el Caribe - 1/4/03 via germain@chasque.net). The official Bush strategy itself may be found in considerable detail at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nssall.html>. My other attachment, "Una perspectiva histórica sobre la migración cubana y la hipocrecía de la política estadounidense anti-terrorista y pro-derechos humanos" (a chapter for a book to be published in 2003 by Universidad de Guadalajara and another publisher in Mexico) delves into the criminal US immigration policy vis-à-vis Cuba.

Yes, the policy is "criminal," on many grounds, but mainly because it encourages Cubans to undertake dangerous methods like rafting and hijacking planes and ferry boats to arrive on US soil, thereby unnecessarily putting lives at risk. Once on US soil, Cubans with or without visas, unlike any other national group, gain immediate legal US residence status and financial assistance. US immigration policy is also criminal because it has been used over the years as a means to destabilize Cuba in US hopes of overthrowing the Cuban Revolution. If for any reason you would like to see these attachments of my carefully documented articles again, please let me know.

The violations of the human rights of the 5 Cubans arrested in Miami and confined for prolonged periods to the hole and other ignominies in the course of their detention are important here. The five individuals were spying on the Cuban mafioso terrorists (the "contras" as a friend of mine calls them). In other words, the "Cuban Five" were combating terrorism, unlike the US government which spreads terrorism. The five got caught. Two of the five are US citizens. Their attorney Len Weinglass, among others, has pointed out that they are political prisoners who have experienced several violations of their human rights. Many concerned intellectuals and workers around the world (myself included) have been campaigning for their freedom for some time now. Have you?

My aforementioned "Una perspectiva histórica sobre la migración cubana y la hipocrecía de la política estadounidense anti-terrorista y pro-derechos humanos" points out that these five "fueron ilegalmente juzgados culpables, sin testigos y sin pruebas, de "espionaje" y sentenciados a condenas muy duras.... Actualmente, estos ‘Cinco Héroes Prisioneros del Imperio,’ como se conocen en Cuba, están mantenidos alejados de sus familias, aislados unos de otros, y a pesar de ser presos políticos comparten encierro con reos comunes." There is reportedly talk in some circles of a possible prisoner exchange being a motive of the 70-odd arrests made in Cuba. Whether potentially true or not, such talk does show the relevance of my just quoted article on migration, along with the crisis in migration being fomented by the US government in order to have a "human rights" pretext for "regime change" in Cuba (see below).

You chose not to consider the April 9 press conference by the Cuban foreign minister that I recommended to you, on the unexplained and cavalier grounds that it, along with all evidence from the Cuban government, is "an embarrassment." Had you looked at the transcript of that press conference <http://www.cubasolidarity.ca/flashdissidents.html> you would have discovered evidence not only about the alleged "dissidents" but also about the US manipulation of the immigration issue that has ratcheted up significantly in the past seven or eight months. The immigration evidence, of course, is also available from the US government.

The 1994-95 bilateral accords obligate the United States to grant in Cuba at least 20,000 visas per Oct.-to-Sept. year, yet in the first 5 months of the current year in question, through Feb. 28, 2003, only 505 visas were granted, compared with 7,000 to 11,000 for the same periods in previous years. This replay of the Reagan era, when the United States choked off legal Cuban migration and thereby generated major crises that the 1994-95 Cuba-US agreement was meant to prevent ever happening again, is why the Cubans rightly view this current period as a heightened phase of US aggressiveness, especially in the overarching context of Bush’s preventive war doctrine. Worse yet, the US government has declared that any furthur immigration crisis involving Cubans will be treated as a direct and serious threat to US national security, thus putting Cuba in a classic "Catch-22" situation: the United States chokes off legal paths for Cubans to emigrate, funds hijackings and "dissidents" seeking to emigrate, and then says, "See? Cuba has no human rights and is threatening US national security."

Fifth, you say you are "unaware of the statement being used against Cuba… Not Otto Reich, not the Washington Post, not the board of Dissent, not NPR, etc." By now there is more than ample evidence of its being so used by Reich and his sidekick Roger Noriega (picked by Bush to be assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs), among other high government officials, as well as by the US and world press and the notorious terrorist-linked Cuban American National Foundation (CANF). According to the widely respected Mexico City newspaper La Jornada (May 2, 2003), the director of the CANF’s Washington office said that the declarations of well known leftists in the United States are having an impact and "cortan la premisa de legitimidad del régimen" (in English, "chops down the premise of the regime’s legitimacy"). As is well known, most of Bush’s top officials on Latin America have ties to the CANF or to other terrorist-linked organizations of the Cuban mafiosos in Florida, New Jersey, and elsewhere. In other words, since these elements refer to the CPDS as they talk to the press they are more than likely mentioning it in the circles of the Bush government where their cohorts are formulating policy.

However, that’s not the point, and if my original message seemed to make a big deal of it, then I was wrong to do so and acknowledge my mistake here. Your and my writings and statements are often used by the right wing for bad ends, as, alas, we both know by now. But this will never silence us.

On this point, nonetheless, it is instructive to note what the Cuban Council of Churches and other Christian leaders inside Cuba say in their April 23 call to the rest of the world to recognize the absolute legitimacy of the recent arrests and jail sentences and to defend the Cuban people against the escalated US "symphony of war" and threat of imposing "regime change":

It is this sentiment that underlies other Cuban appeals, from the island’s leading artists and intellectuals, for example, on April 19, 2003, to Cuba’s "friends who are far away" who have signed statements like the CPDS "that we believe to be the consequence of distance, disinformation, and the trauma of failed socialist experiments. Unfortunately, and although this was not the intention of these friends, these texts are being used in the campaign aimed at isolating us and paving the way for United States military aggression against Cuba."

Sixth, I think we have to consider how progressives might use our arguments or actions, and here we do have an extra responsibility. As my friend concerned a bout the Miami contras wrote me: "It is hesitant progressives who matter, those who have little capacity to understand what is going on and why, and thus rely on those figures who have been on the correct side in the past, the Chomsky [-type] figure[s] in the US." It is these hesitant or under-informed progressives who will now read about how even leading critics of US policy like Noam Chomsky share US critiques of "the current wave of repression in Cuba." This will lead far too many of them to conclude that, "well, maybe the US is right."

Propaganda builds, lies and half-truths are spread, and the groundwork is laid for "regime change." That we have seen in the case of Iraq (not to mention Nicaragua in the 1980s, Chile 1970-73, and many other instances), and that is what we are now seeing unfold as the current context vis-à-vis Cuba omitted by the CPSD.

Seventh, to your credit, of course, you have now signed the "To the conscience of the world" statement warning about this danger and defending Cuba’s right to self-determination, which I, our mutual friend Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, and others have been actively promoting many hours a day ever since the CPDS appeared, one reason this reply to your reply has been delayed as long as it has (for full text and signatures as of early May 3, now many more of course - some 1,800- see below my signature of this message). It is this "To the conscience of the world" statement that establishes the exact current context mentioned only in a general and indirect way in the CPSD’s words "As the Bush administration, further emboldened by its military victory in Iraq, threatens to wage ‘preemptive’ wars around the globe we reaffirm our support for the right of self-determination in Cuba and our strong opposition to the U.S. policy of economic sanctions that has brought such suffering to the Cuban people." Even these words in the CPSD end by emphasizing the US economic sanctions against Cuba, not the threat to have a regime change there.

On the other hand, the "To the conscience of the world" statement says outright: "At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion." In effect, we who have promoted this latter statement see the US imperialist handwriting on the wall and hope and think we can help block its coming to pass. Those who promoted the CPSD and signed it apparently thought they saw a "wave" of repression in Cuba, without even mentioning how the "wave" came to pass, and jumped on Cuba primarily, not the US government.

Eighth, this brings me to more of the immediate actual context in which the CPSD appeared and continues to function (fortunately losing steam now that the "To the conscience of the world" statement is gaining more momentum than it). Since you reject accepting anything in the April 9 press conference by the Cuban foreign minister or the speeches by Fidel Castro, let me try to get you to consider at least impeccable non-Cuban sources, of which there are many. Take the CPSD’s concern about journalists, owners of private libraries and members of illegal opposition parties, for instance. You might start with the Portside discussion on Cuba where Rhonda L. Neugebauer, currently heading up a UC-Riverside bibliographical division on Latin American Studies/Social Sciences and Humanities, sums up her in-depth research as follows: "Based on my research, I found that the ‘librarians’ are also self-proclaimed ‘independent,’ ‘journalists,’ ‘trade unionists,’ and ‘teachers’ - one and the same. They change their ‘titles’ according to who is listening/paying attention. The Cuban government tolerated these foreign-funded provocateurs for years before acting to round some of them up. Their ‘free speech,’ which I observed as they faxed and telephoned reports to Radio Martí (a branch of the US government) was certainly not ‘free’ and it was not accurate. It was bought and paid for by the US government and other generous donors like George Soros."

Or take the "dissident" Partido Liberal Cubano’s youth wing, which James Cason, head of the US Interest Section in Havana, publicly helped launch - if that’s not direct foreign participation in Cuba’s domestic politics, i.e., foreign subversion aimed at regime change, then what is? The CIA, unlike Cason, still wears the cloak to cover the dagger - it does not go public until after the regime has been changed, and usually in order to engage in cover-up or else to boast of its contributions to "democratic transition" or "democratic change" (the latter a concept endorsed by the CPDS, knowing full well it means regime change and the end of the Cuban Revolution and all its accomplishments in health, housing, and education, the most fundamental human rights of all).

Cuban law makes collaboration with criminal US policy, especially the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, a criminal offense punishable with lengthy prison terms. Evidence for the Cuban claim that the recently sentenced "dissidents" are mercenaries of the United States can be found at any number of US government websites. There we learn, for example, that US laws (Helms-Burton Act and USAID laws, among others) call for financing of "dissidents" in Cuba. USAID alone, according to USAID official Adolfo Franco, has spent US$20 million carrying out Helms-Burton mandates. Millions of these dollars have gone to Cuban "dissidents" since 1997. In a country like Cuba, these are not small sums. No country in the world tolerates its citizens’ being paid by a foreign power in the interests of changing the regime, neither the world’s only superpower nor the tiny Caribbean island nation that superpower is currently lining up in the crosshairs of its massively destructive arsenal.

Or consider the "Varela Project," another foreign-funded operation whose leaders are commiting what the recently sentenced "dissidents" were charged with: crimes of collaboration with criminal US policy and against the "independence or territorial integrity of the state." Jimmy Carter and others champion the Varela Project because it is a reformist approach to eliminating Cuba’s revolutionary state and economy, supposedly working within the parameters of the Cuban Constitution. As you know, Cuba’s response was a popularly voted upon and overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendment making socialism in Cuba "irrevocable." In this way the Cubans let the United States know that they recognize the Varela Project as a covert US operation and part of the Bush "initiative for a new Cuba."

No one in the US government and, to my knowledge, no one who signed the CPDS, has explained away the evidence that "the dissidents" were paid agents of the United States. The people sentenced to jail terms were not convicted for dissenting or having different opinions. They were convicted - according to Cuban law and with their own defense lawyers in an open process -- for collaborating with a foreign power and giving information to and receiving money and orders from the US Interest Section in Havana.

Ninth, contrary to the CPDS, these were not "unfair trials." So far as I can determine from phone calls to friends in Cuba and combing through available evidence, the trials followed every last letter of Cuban law. Some people don’t like Cuban law, some people don’t like US law (I find faults in both, for example), but these were legal trials, not "unfair" ones. The accused had defense attorneys. Evidence was gathered, presented, weighed, and so on. Given the rapidity with which US aggressive moves and violations of human rights on a massive worldwide scale take place these days, the Cuban trials were not allowed to drag on and on. Of course, this is also possible under Cuban and US law, not that I want to dwell on the two countries’ distinctly different laws or criminal justice systems (Cuba does not imprison children or have military courts or jail people secretly and without due process). Besides, it is my view that the Bush presidency is an illegitimate one created against the popular vote by a Supreme Court coup narrowly carried out by a 5-4 margin and through several illegal acts, including the Florida vote fraud, pulled off in significant part by Gov. Jeb Bush and the Cuban mafioso. By contrast, the Cuban government is a legitimate one created by a people’s revolution and is supported by a large majority of the Cuban people, as shown last May Day as well as on earlier occasions and as shown by frequent elections in which not 20 percent of eligible voters participate but something like 99 percent participate, their votes neither paid for nor forced.

Tenth, you might look at some of the reports of what the defense lawyers for the 70-plus accused said, and what some of the leading figures among the accused themselves said at their trials. The Cuban authorities and press are making these statements readily available. For example, it turns out that money does indeed talk, especially in an economically blockaded country where the dollar goes a very long ways. Some of the leading figures among the accused themselves have acknowledged that the "dissidents" become "dissidents" in order to receive the monies and "prizes" offered by Cason and the US government, both directly and indirectly (through third parties). In light of such testimony by the accused themselves, part of the public record, it is indeed scary when one discovers that the Cuban authorities found thousands of US dollars stashed away in hidden places in the homes of the some of the leading figures of the accused. (Did the authorities plant the US dollars? None of the accused or their defense attorneys, to my knowledge, has said so. If the money was planted, then, of course, this is a shocking criminal act.)

Noam, believe me, I feel and indeed know that there are some legitimate, non-U.S. financed or even U.S.-backed dissidents inside Cuba, but these are not the ones you are signing on to protest about in the CPDS. Some of these dissidents are inside the world’s largest (per capita) Communist Party. But that is not what is being discussed in the CPDS, clearly.

Eleventh, the "bottom line," to use a capitalist phrase much to my disliking, is: (1) where do we put the emphasis; (2) where is the evidence? and (3) where do we stand on the death penalty?

On the latter, I oppose the death penalty and find its implementation in this case repugnant. I have read the Cuban statements justifying its use as "an exception," which is true, by the way - it is an exception. Cuba has had a moratorium on the death penalty and has sought to eliminate it, as it still does. I accept that, but I do not accept its application in this case. On the other hand, I recognize that Cuba is defending itself with a reluctant decision to implement the death penalty for those 3 terrorists with prior criminal records who hijacked that ferry and threatened the lives of those aboard, and that Cuba saw the death penalty as appropriate in this rare instance for saving the Cuban Revolution and the Cuban people from a US attack should the escalating series of US-sponsored hijackings not end. That’s a judgment call, one that the Cuban state and the Cuban people have every right to make. I do recognize the Cuban state’s right to make its own decisions and what in my view may be serious mistakes, so long as they do not form a pattern of "wave of repression," a pattern you apparently believed to be the case when you signed the CPDS that opens with the phrase "current wave of repression," in other words implicitly accepting the notion of repeated waves of repression as well as the "current" one (both of which notions I reject, based on the evidence - see my earlier attachments to you and the chapter on Cuba in my Latin America textbook I referred to in my first message to you as well as much of this message).

On point 2 above, the evidence is largely available. What I have seen to date favors the Cuban state, not the CPDS (and, like you, I am no big fan of any state!).

Finally, point 3: where do we put the emphasis? You know by now that I put it on defending the Cuban people against what was done and is being done to the Iraqui people and other peoples, especially in Latin America, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Mindanao, the Philippines, by US imperialism and its proxies. This does not mean remaining silent on the death penalty, but it does mean rejecting the distorted CPDS while not hestitating in signing either the ANSWER statement [<http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/cuba/index.html, reproduced below beneath my signature to this message, 3,500 + signatures by May 2, 2003] or the "To the conscience of the world" statement. I did not hesitate when I signed those statements, even though I wished the ANSWER statement had mentioned the death penalty, contextualized it, and objected to it. But at the time ANSWER’s was the only statement circulating that had the right focus. I deeply wish you had hesitated more than you apparently did on signing the CPDS -- even after influencing the sponsors to add the historical context (not immediate current context as such). Yes, I still think you should reconsider your signature on the CPDS.

On Cuba, I see the fundamental responsibility of the US activist intellectual at this conjuncture pretty much in the way ANSWER states at the outset of its statement: "We in the U.S. progressive and anti-war movement recognize our obligation to expose and organize against the Bush administration's plans to overthrow the government of Cuba." That is the crux of the matter. That was what ultimately motivated me to send you my original message expressing my "shock and awe" at your instead signing on to the CPDS.

That continues as the motive in this reply to your reply, although I do hope and am rather confident that our support of Cuba’s people in their hours of need in the critical struggles against the US threat that lie ahead will come to dominate our future actions, as witness your signing of the "To the conscience of the world" statement, which, parenthetically, also omits the death penalty issue and indeed says nothing about human rights violations inside Cuba.

Noam, with continued great admiration and complete respect, even in the blazing heat of the historic world moment of the US invasion and devastation of Iraq with the promise of more US-launched wars to come, during which we are momentarily in disagreement on one of those wars’ targets, I send you warmest greetings and desires to continue this exchange as needed in the days and years ahead (long life to each of us!). No one in my view has the right to bad-mouth you, Zinn, Saramago, or Galeano, given your generally outstanding track records. But all of us do have the right and duty to disagree with you and let others in the world know of this disagreement when so much is at stake as there is in this current situation of militarily unchecked US imperialist aggression worldwide and heightened threat to Cuba’s people and their revolution. Fidel Castro calls this worldwide aggression under the Bush doctrine of imperialism "fascist" and compares it to Nazism (see his May Day speech 2003). I and others, especially in the burgeoning global antiwar and anti-capitalist globalization movements, happen to think it is has death potentials beyond Nazism, and I do not see the wounded limited bourgeois democracy of the USA as yet in a "fascist" or stable situation (nor does Castro, by the way).

Even if the US threat to the world is not as serious as I or others view it, it certainly is that serious in Latin America. The Cubans remember what happened to the Chilean attempt at democratic revolution under Salvador Allende in the early 1970s and the bloodbath that followed under the US-imposed puppet Pinochet, or to the Sandinistas’ similar attempt in Nicaragua destroyed by US-sponsored terrorism (the United States being the only government in the world convicted of state terrorism, precisely in the Nicaragua case, by the World Court in 1986). [end part 1, because of lack of space in one e-mail] Thanks to the US-imposed "regime change" (counterrevolution), Nicaragua is today the second poorest nation in Latin America.

As my article-attachments I sent you point out, the talk in Washington is of a new "axis of evil," consisting of Cuba, Venezuela, and Lula’s Brazil. Just being on the US government’s "terrorist list" makes Cuba a "legitimate target" under the Bush doctrine, according to US official spokespeople as well as recent history. After the post-S11 US wars of massive destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, everyone knows what that means.

However one characterizes the Bush phase of US imperialism, it IS the reality you, I, and the vast majority of humankind live under and struggle (consciously or not) against. This, not the CPDS, is where our priority should very consciously be, don’t you think?

I might add that I know of no government in the world other than Cuba’s that has spoken out so clearly and without reservation against this Bush phase of US imperialism. Correct me please if I am wrong.

The issue isn’t, as the aforementioned COMMENT FROM THE CAMPAIGN FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY following the CPDS states, "simultaneously protesting the Castro government's repression and U.S. interventionism" but rather which of the two takes precedence and whether the Cuban government’s "repression" is "repression" in this instance or not. Even, for the sake of argument, if it is repression, does your protest there take precedence over, or hold equal weight with, your combating U.S. aggression against Cuba aimed at "regime change"? ["Democratic transition" is code for "regime change," as most language analysts these days readily recognize.] The CPDS gives more weight to the former, while the ANSWER and "To the conscience of the world" statements (appended below) give all the weight to the latter. I reject the CPDS for the reasons outlined in my original message plus this one, while placing my energy in the defense of Cuba and its people at this exceptionally critical conjuncture.

Fidel Castro’s May Day 2003 speech sums up the cultural, gender, racial, medical, and yes, human rights achievements of the Cuban Revolution with undeniable facts. As a Mexican friend of mine likes to say, "the presence of Cuba is in the thousands of vaccinations and the blood sacrificed by Cubans in dozens of tragedies around the world. Cuba’s generous presence of solidarity is in the biotechnological advances against the Aids disease in Africa. The presence of Cuba and its revolution is a pride to humanity, it will not be easy to eliminate, because there are no statues, just principles of a vast humanism." It is no "aberration" or "anachronism" (two of US Secretary of State Powell’s favorite words for Cuba) that Cuba was recently re-elected to the UN’s Commission on Human Rights by acclamation. We need to construct a new world, one of human solidarity, and the Cuban contribution to this new and possible world is already palpable and invaluable.

Noam, it is no secret that I have always CRITICALLY supported the Cuban Revolution and will continue to do so. Such is any reasonable person’s expectation. Such, I might add, is also the Cuban state’s expectation and the Cuban people’s expectation, as I have learned over my more than 40 years as a Latin Americanist and Cubanist scholar and human rights activist. I have published and spoken CRITICAL remarks about the Cuban Revolution throughout its trajectory, and I will continue to do so. But I remain profoundly in solidarity with Cuba. Are there contradictions? Of course, many, and one must confront them and deal with them all the time.

You state in your reply to me that "it is a serious error … to believe that one helps people by refraining from criticism of repressive and sometimes self-destructive acts of their leaders." Of course! Yet here again, or so it seems to me, we must keep in mind that Cuba’s recent so-called "respression" is a case of self-defense that any other nation under similar circumstances would have undertaken. Also, the adjective "self-destructive" is, in my view at least, a gross insult to a people and their leaders who have somehow NOT self-destructed but, on the contrary, have survived and carried out impressive social changes despite 44 years of repeated US aggressions costing 3,478 Cuban lives. These changes include world-renowned ones in health, education, equal rights for minorities, abundant daycare centers, agrarian reform, prison reform, housing - 85% of Cubans own their own homes with no property taxes and 15% pay a maximum rent of 10% of their salaries -- etc.). Most observers attribute these accomplishments to revolutionary overhaul of a corrupted and impoverished society and astute political leadership, not "self-destructiveness." Indeed, many are the Latin American commentaries I have been reading that suggest this is another shrewd move by Castro to preserve these gains rather than a "self-destructive act." It is a way of saying "We will not roll over for you and let you do to us what you did to Iraq. We will not accept the world’s worst violator of human rights with all its weapons of mass destruction telling us how to run our lives. We will defend ourselves and make your aggression too costly to undertake, and we will take our case to the conscience of the world." The Vietnamese communists did that too, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas tried to do that, and now the Cubans are trying to do it.

In his April 25 speech, Castro acknowledged that these recent punitive measures against US-promoted counterrevolutionaries and mercenaries pleading "right to dissent" would, at first, have negative consequences among some of Cuba’s friends in Europe and the United States. And he explained why the Cuban state nonetheless believed it had to do what it did. As already stated, I disagree with him on the death penalty. I also recognize the right to make mistakes occasionally. Perhaps some day Castro will say he made a mistake in this recent affair, as he has done in the past (unlike most other world leaders, he has publicly acknowledged serious mistakes he has made, e.g. in the case of the failed "ten-million ton" sugar harvest of 1969). As I have tried to explain in this message and my earlier one to you, this is not the time to be piling onto Cuba (I urge you to click on <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GreenLeft_discussion/message/1184> and read the piece by Emile Schepers, "Progressives Should Think Twice About Piling Onto Cuba" - a very well informed and logically presented short essay).

So "adelante!" as the saying goes, and on with our defense of the Cubans’ right to self-determination in the face of the most serious threat they have faced since the Bay of Pigs invasion, a threat faced to one degree or another (however much greater or lesser a degree) by all the world’s peoples.

Jim [James D. Cockcroft]

"To the conscience of the world" [Where to send signatures (a donde se deben enviar las firmas): maszabala@cubarte.cult.cu

maszabala@ceisic.cult.cu

direccion@direccioncubarte.cult.cu

porcuba@cubarte.cult.cu]

The international order has been violated as a consequence of the invasion against Iraq. A single power is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation amongst countries. This power has invoked a series of unverified reasons in order to justify its invasion. Unilateral action has led to massive loss of civilian life and devastation of one of the cultural patrimonies of humanity.

We only possess our moral authority, with which we appeal to world conscience in order to avoid a new violation of the principles, which inform and guide the global community of nations. At this very moment, a strong campaign of destabilization against a Latin American nation has been unleashed. The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion. Therefore, we call upon citizens and policy makers to uphold the universal principles of national sovereignity, respect of territorial integrity and self-determination, essential to just and peaceful co-existence among nations.

México, abril de 2003 This document was initially signed by the following individuals: Leopoldo Zea Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez Miguel León Portilla Andrés Henestrosa María Rojo Jaime Labastida Víctor Flores Olea Federico Álvarez Gilberto López y Rivas Pablo González Casanova In response to this call, the following Nobel Prize winners added their names: Rigoberta Menchú Nadine Gordimer Adolfo Pérez Esquivel Gabriel García Márquez And then: Mario Benedetti Ernesto Cardenal Oscar Niemeyer Harry Bellafonte Danny Glover Antonio Gades Volodia Teitelboim José Balmes Jorge Enrique Adoum Thiago de Melo Daniel Viglietti Pino Solanas Jorge Sanjinés Luisa Valenzuela Luis Sepúlveda Abelardo Castillo Sylvia Iparraguirre Fernando García Eduardo Mignogna Tristan Bauer Eduardo Pavlovsky Norman Brisky Noé Jitrik Mempo Giardinelli Miguel Bonasso Andrés Rivera James Petras Emir Sader Atilio Borón Arcira Argumedo Gianni Miná Claude Couffon Roy Brown Paul Estrade Hebe de Bonafini Santiago García Ariel Dorfman Claudia Korol Eduardo Galeano Nelson Osorio Hildebrando Pérez Giulio Girardi Piero Vivarelli Juan Antonio Hormigón Rosa Vicente Deonisio da Silva Henri Alleg Fernando Aínsa Danny Rivera Pablo Marcano Armando Gnisci Margaret Randall Heinz Dietrich Steffan Angela Correa Miguel Vayo Horacio González Liliana Herrero Dolly Oussi Rodolfo Hermina William Blum Jane Franklin Mamani Mamani Néstor Cohen Manuel Cabieses Donoso Claufe Rodrigues Alessandra Riccio Rosa María Robles Mayté Pinero Bia Falbo Tony Ryan Brian Willson Jorge Pixley Ivana Jinkings Evaristo Villar Miguel Urbano Joao Pedro Stedile Ana Esther Ceceña Rosy Zúñiga Stefaan Declercq Ricardo Gebrim Raúl Zibechi María Poumier Rosalyn Baxandall Nancy Rice Louis Segal Víctor Heredia Beth Carvalho Vera de Abreu Figuereido Nelson Rodrigues Filho Marilia Barbosa Mauricio Figueredo María José Zack Arthur Poerner Rodolfo Livingston James D. Cockcroft Teotonio Dos Santos Jean Carey Bond Abelardo Castillo Néstor Kohan Roxanne Dumbar Ortiz Eduardo Auer Alberto Pablo Ruiz Alejandra Beatriz Camba Rosa Ma. D´ Alesio de Velarde Matías Scaglione Ana de Mario Cuauhtemoc Amescua Edward S. Herman Beatriz Palacios Carlos Carvajal Patricia Barbieri Héctor Celano Francisco de Alentar Beatriz Kajt Julio Carabeli Lita Stantic Chude Allen David Barkham Fernando Quilodrán Daniel Randazo Francisco Alday Torre Alicia Jrapko Peter Ranis Gerardo D. Etcheverry Michael Gasser Diego Muñoz Gervasio Espinosa José L. Ronconi Martín de Mauro Richard B. Du Boff Rina Bertacani Roberto Curie Inés Izaguirre Austin Hingey Diego Muñoz Abelardo Castillo Sylvia Ipaguirre Carlos Zamorano Graciela Rosenblum Enrique Rajchenberg Gudrun Lekensdorf Carlos Lekensdorf Alicia Pelliza Carlos Sbriller Anna Escudero Baltasar Patricio A Brodsky Francisco Calderón Sánchez de Rojas Cristina Barros Valero Marco Buenrrostro Veitia Iddia Cecilia Fridman Leslie Hoag Hope Coriún Aharonian Alfonso Sastre Uzma Aslam Khan Tununa Mercado Alicia Castellanos Guerrero Mario Casartelli Simón J. Ortiz Alejandro Stuart Josefina Morales Ramírez Renato Prada Oropeza Felipe Lampero Fernando Butazzoni Raúl Ariza René Benedicto Sergio Carcas Beinusz Szmukler Beatriz Lajland Ricardo Gebrin Keith Ellis Daniel Campione Julio C. Gambina Marta Harnecker Michael Lebowitz Pedro Salazar Guillermo Mariaca Iturri Hernán López Echagüe Mercedes Alifano Benítez Miguel Baires Mario Maestri Florence Carboni Pancho Navarrete González Rodolfo Díaz Sarvide María Pilar Aquino Günther Belchaus María Dolores de la Peña Arturo Andrés Roig Caty Eibenschutz Antonio Miró Carlos Aznárez Rosa Ribeiro Efrén Orozco Elsa Ferreira Lobo Inés Vázquez Manuel Callau Stefan Declerq [through early May 3, with a total of 1759 signatures by May 8, 2003-jc]

STATEMENT SUPPORTING CUBA AGAINST BUSH'S ATTACKS - Initiated by the International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition -

We invite you to sign this statement in solidarity with the people of Cuba. To add your name, go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/cuba/sign.html

STOP BUSH'S NEW AGGRESSION AGAINST CUBA

We, the undersigned individuals and organizations, view with great concern the intensifying campaign of subversion and aggression against Cuba, directed by the U.S. government.

We in the U.S. progressive and anti-war movement recognize our obligation to expose and organize against the Bush administration's plans to overthrow the government of Cuba. Under the rubric of the "war against terrorism" the Bush administration has aggressively embarked on a campaign to carry out the overturn of governments that seek to maintain independent control over their own land and resources. At stake in Cuba are the considerable social and economic gains of the people made in spite of overwhelming opposition from the government representing the most powerful country in the world.

On April 7, James Cason, chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana and the top U.S. diplomat in Cuba, declared, "all of our allies agree that their policy goal in Cuba is, ultimately, the same as ours: the rapid and peaceful transition to a democratic government characterized by strong support for human rights and an open market economy." He stated on the same day, "the Administration's top priority is to promote a rapid, peaceful transition."

Coming from a U.S. government representative, the meaning is clear: "transition" translates to overthrow.

In the wake of the war on Iraq, there is no corner of the world that is safe today from U.S. aggression. This is especially the case for Cuba, part of whose national territory remains under U.S. military occupation. U.S. diplomats have warned Cuba, along with Iran, Syria and North Korea, to "learn the lessons of Iraq."

Over the past 43 years Cuba has suffered the loss of 3,478 of its citizens from numerous acts of terrorism, invasions, assassinations, assassination attempts, biological warfare and blockade. The government of one country has perpetrated these illegal acts against Cuba: the government of the United States.

The United States government has imposed an economic and political blockade on the island nation for more than 40 years, causing $70 billion damage to Cuba's economy, and inflicting unnecessary suffering on the most vulnerable in Cuban society. The U.S. military has continued to maintain and expand its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, a legacy of colonialism. Today, hundreds of people -- including children under the age of 16 years -- are being imprisoned and interrogated by the U.S. at Guantanamo with no recourse whatsoever to due process.

Recently, a coordinated campaign of aggressions and foreign subversion against Cuba has been revealed, indicating the U.S. may be setting the stage for a renewed confrontation with Cuba.

The trial of the 75 Cuban individuals arrested in March uncovered the directing role of the U.S. Interests Section in guiding, financing, and organizing subversive actions against the Cuban government. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has funneled some $20 million in support to anti-government organizations in Cuba as a part of this counter-revolutionary campaign. After the popular revolution that overthrew the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Batista in 1959, the U.S. government has resorted to invasion, nuclear threats, biological and chemical attacks, assassination attempts and murders, C.I.A. financed and organized "opposition," and economic destabilization. For forty years the overthrow of the Cuban government has been a priority for U.S. policy makers. The Bush administration's goal is to carry out regime change and replace the Cuban government with a puppet regime. It is a testament to the popular support of the Cuban government and its ability to stand up and confront U.S. aggression that the people of Cuba have successfully repelled overt and covert attempts to recolonize their country.

Over the past seven months, a series of seven armed airplane and boat hijackings have occurred in Cuba -- an exceptionally high number in such a short time. The hijackings have together endangered the lives of hundreds of people. Thus far, the Justice Department has failed to prosecute any of the hijackers who arrived in the U.S. Despite having committed the terrorist crime of air piracy, several have been released on bail.

At the same time, the U.S. Interests Section has virtually stopped granting visas to Cubans applying for admission to the United States. Under the 1995 U.S.-Cuba Migratory Agreement, the U.S. agreed to grant 20,000 entry visas to the U.S. annually. The purpose of the 1995 agreement was to assure a safe, legal and orderly immigration process.

However, from October 2002 to Feb. 2003, the first five months of the accord's calendar year, only 505 visas were granted to Cubans wishing to enter the U.S. This fact must be understood in conjunction with the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA) of 1966, a law which uniquely accords Cuban immigrants the right to U.S. residency and financial assistance if they set foot on U.S. soil. Cutting off legal channels for immigration while the CAA remains in effect, serves as open invitation to Cubans to immigrate illegally to the U.S. Non-prosecution of even those individuals who hijack planes to get to the U.S., means that the U.S. government is openly encouraging the most dangerous forms of terrorism against Cuba.

As a fact of international law, which recognizes the rights of states to defend their sovereignty, Cuba is exercising its legal right and responsibility to defend and protect its people against foreign government subversion, terrorism, and other forms of U.S. aggression.

In light of these developments, and understanding the real dangers that Cuba faces from the U.S. government:

1) We demand that the Bush Administration cease and desist from the current campaign of attacks on the Cuban people and government.

2) We call on the U.S. government to end its blockade against Cuba, to lift restrictions on travel, and to end its ongoing multi-faceted war against the Cuban government.

3) We further call upon the Bush Administration to free the five Cubans who are imprisoned in the U.S. for trying to stop Miami-based terrorism against their people.

- Initiated by the International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition -

To add your name to this statement in solidarity with the people of Cuba, go to http://www.internationalanswer.org/campaigns/cuba/sign.html

Send replies to answer@action-mail.org

* My first message to you:

4/28/2003 chomsky@mit.edu, hzinn@bu.edu cc: rdunbaro@pacbell.net

Subject: urgent on Cuba, please reconsider

Dear Noam, Howard (and Roxanne, hi!): Since my good friend Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is the only one of you who will instantly recognize my name and also knows Noam well, I am sending this brief message to her as well. In Latin America, my name has been linked by the mass media often to Noam's. But that is not the main reason I write you. I write now to urge you "two good men" (in the best sense) to reconsider your signing of a statement that is already being used against the Cuban government and the Cuban people as part of the US unbridled offensive against them now entering its 44th year of war (more accurately, its 105th year, of course --- read any of our works). I am still in a state of shock and awe at your signing of such a statement (some of the DSA members I can understand, but you too?!!). By now you have read or heard of the responses partly addressed to you by Tito Gerassi and Dave McReynolds, which I can only echo here. In one word, Shame! But please do read on, for an emotional rant I do not want to engage in with you, quite the contrary. It is my sincere belief, that given your great track record -- incidentally, in both your cases, especially Howard's, I played a significant role in getting certain key books of yours published by my publisher in Mexico, siglo veintiuno editores (it was an honor, believe me!) --- I can only assume that you were not adequately informed when you signed that statement on recent punitive acts carried out in Cuba. Had you been more fully informed, I am very confident, you would have refused to sign. Now that statements like that of ANSWER are circulating to sign "us names" on, you will have at least some of the key evidence. Most of it comes from Cuba, of course (can one expect it perhaps from the US government, mass media, or what is left of the left?), and the Cuban foreign minister's famed press conference, as well as the recent speech by the popular Cuban president who, wisely, wants no monuments built to him, are good starting points. The rest of the evidence is more historical and, frankly, even deeper, much deeper, in its meaning. I append here in the form of Attachments rtf. in Spanish (sorry, Howard, but I write on demand these days in Spanish a lot) that may prove helpful on the historical context on the Cuban immigration matter, which is, together with the Iraq War and permanent preventive war doctrine of current US imperialism, the crux of why Cuba RELUCTANTLY had to carry out the sentences you are protesting (much lighter than anything comparable in either recent or distant US history or pre-1959 Cuban history). Needless to say, I oppose the death penalty, but: historical/political context anyone? My textbook on Latin America (history and politics, cited after my signature below) has a chapter on Cuba which even my harshest critics (those in the wishy-washy center of the political spectrum) have called remarkably balanced and informative, one reason it sells as well as it does. So I cannot be accused of being a knee-jerk Fidelista, any more than the cream of Latin America's intelligentsia can! I strongly urge you to read it. All of us do write about history, don't we? And, of course, the history is the present, not to mention the future. Like a drop of water in a vast ocean, each of us does and must make a difference. And you, mentors of mine and my students and youth world over, know that better than I. So, I sign off by sending you my highest esteem, but, repeating myself, cry of shame!. --- and, with fervent, sincere hopes of a "rectification" (in Cuban parlance), I salute your past, as I have always done, but now awaiting a change in your present. James D. Cockcroft, online teacher for SUNY's Center for Distant Learning, Visiting Fellow at Amsterdam's International Institute for Research and Education, and author of 35 books, several on hidden US history, Latinos/Latinas, and Latin America, most recently LATIN AMERICA: HISTORY, POLITICS, AND U.S. POLICY. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/International Thomson Publishing, Second edition, 1998 [maps, photos, documents, bibliography, chronology, analytical index, art work by Rini Templeton]. Order from International Thomson Publishing Customer Service 1-800-347-7707 or 477-3692. In translation as: AMÉRICA LATINA Y ESTADOS UNIDOS: HISTORIA Y POLÍTICA PAÍS POR PAÍS. Mexico City: siglo veintiuno editores, 2001 [mapas, fotos, documentos, bibliogafía, cronología, índice analítico, obras de arte por Rini Templeton]. Order via FAX [52]-(55)-56-58-75-99 or via phone [52] (55) 56-58-79-99 or 56-58-75-88

* Your reply to my first message:

03 May 2003

To: "James Cockcroft" jcockcro@yahoo.com

From: "Noam Chomsky" chomsky@MIT.EDU

Subject: Re: urgent on Cuba, please reconsider

Have been giving talks away, and have just been working through deluge of accumulated e-mail, and found your letter.

I suspect that you did not see the statement to which you refer. If you did, you'd see that what you say is mostly irrelevant. McReynolds plainly hadn't seen it. At least, he didn't refer to it (maybe he saw an early draft, I don't know). I've corresponded with Tito Gerassi. The actual statement stresses very clearly the 44 years of terror and economic strangulation, and in fact everything else you seem to think was missing. Which leads me to believe you are thinking of a different statement.

I'm unaware of the statement being used against Cuba. I read pretty widely, not everything of course, but haven't seen anything.

And I think there's a reason. Who is going to use a statement that bitterly condemns 44 years of US terror and economic warfare against Cuba, and denounces the current administration? Not Otto Reich, not the Washington Post, not the board of Dissent, not NPR, etc.

That aside, I have 45 years of experience to draw on. During these years, I've taken far stronger positions -- not just signing petitions, but writing articles and books -- in which I condemn in far harsher terms than this the leadership of the Palestinians, Sandinistas, etc., and nothing has ever been used by the government of Israel or the US or the Dissent-style worshippers of power. For the same reason: the context precludes it.

Furthermore, I think it's the right thing to do. We may disagree about this, but it is a serious error, in my opinion, to believe that one helps people by refraining from criticism of repressive and sometimes self-destructive acts of their leaders. The contrary often seems to me true, in this particular case as well. Of course, it's crucially necessary to give the proper context, as was done in this case (at my insistence in fact, but that's a separate matter). If there's a reason to react differently in this case, I'd be glad to hear it. I don't think the matter is a trivial one. But I haven't seen the reasons, if there are any. As for the evidence provided by the Cuban government, I'm afraid it is an embarrassment, and I'm sorry they did it. It's a gift to their real enemies.

Thanks for the attachments. Interesting and important, but they don't bear on this question.

Noam