91������̳

BY RAISA PAGES

Some call it an embargo, for others it's a blockade. But neither word correctly reflects the magnitude of the actions carried out by the US government against Cuba since 1959.

US Secretary of State Cristian Herter used the correct description for the proposed measures during a meeting of the US state department on June 24, 1959, five weeks after the Cuban Revolution passed the First Agrarian Reform Act. Heter considered his country's measures an "economic war" on Cuba, a policy that has continued for the last 44 years.

"We must rapidly use every conceivable method to weaken Cuban economic life", read an important official document signed by state department official L.D. Mallory on April 6, 1960. He added: "A course of action that would have major impact in denying Cuba money and supplies, in order to reduce salaries with the aim of causing hunger, desperation and overthrowing the government."

Since then, all economic and social sectors of the Cuban nation have felt the effects of the US government's aggressive policy. The blockade on foodstuffs for the island and the measures damaging sugar production and other agricultural produce has been terrorist in their modus operandi.

Proposals to destabilise the Cuban Revolution included agricultural, cattle raising and fishing sabotage. On October 26, 1959, two incendiary devices were thrown at the Niagara sugar factory in the western province of Pinar del Rio; the same month, the Punta Alegre refinery and Violeta sugar mill in the central-eastern region of Cuba were the targets of several air bombardments.

In January 1960, in the middle of the sugar cane harvest, air attacks over sugar cane plantations multiplied. In that month alone, the number of plantations set alight at various points damaged almost 1 million units of sugar cane. Two farmers' homes were also destroyed in the northern region of central province Villa Clara.

This kind of economic terrorism was repeated time and again. It is estimated that between 1960 and 1965, after pirate attacks and activities by US-financed mercenary gangs who burned sugar cane fields, losses rose to 1.5 million tons of sugar. This does not include damage by US agents to sugar-cane industry facilities used for producing and exporting the product.

During the February 18, 1960 attack on the Espana sugar mill in Matanzas province a bomb exploded aboard the plane, killing the pilot, US citizen Robert Ellis Frost, and another crew member, Onelio Santana Roque, former member of dictator Fulgencio Batista's repressive forces. Both men had taken part in several terrorist aerial incursions against Cuba and their departure base was Tamiami airport, Florida.

Aggressors directly attacked 46 sugar factories. In evidence presented during the January 2000 Cuban People's Lawsuit against the US government for economic damage, it was noted that sugar production losses increased to over US$11 billion due to sabotage and biological attacks.

Food production falls

The saboteurs also endangered agricultural and poultry farms established to produce foodstuff for the population. Between 1960 and 1980, 34 acts of sabotage and attacks were registered in the agricultural production sector.

This sector had to change all its technology because it had no access to US-made machinery and spare parts and was obliged to look towards more distant markets. The damage to agricultural production has exceeded $2 billion.

Another example of the economic war is the attack on different-size fishing boats. Almost 300 vessels have been attacked and boats used to catch tuna, lobsters, shrimps and other species of scaly fish have become targets of economic terrorism.

Sinking and destroying vessels reduces food production for the Cuban people plus the amount of produce for export, for instance lobsters and shrimps.

On October 10, 1972, crew members from two gunboats boarded the Aguja and Plataforma IV fishing vessels close to the island of Andros. They kidnapped those aboard and blew up the boats. Eleven Cubans were set adrift in a small vessel and picked up three days later by a helicopter from the Bahamas.

One year later, on October 4, 1973, gunboats attacked the Cayo Largo 17 and Cayo Largo 34 fishing vessels; fisher Roberto Torna died and the other crew members were cast into the sea in rubber dinghies without food or water. Fishers Bienvenido Matriz D¡az and Luis Orlando D¡az Perez were murdered on April 6, 1976.

Various Cuban families have been left bereaved by such maritime terrorism. Countless crew members have been injured in diverse attacks.

The cruel Task 21

"On February 15, the CIA will embark on a plan causing Cuban food harvests to fail", explained a US internal government document discussing "Task 21" dated January 18, 1962 under the name Project Cuba. This was to be the embryonic step in biological warfare against the island. The document explained the objectives and 32 original tasks in what was later known as Operation Mongoose.

The first impact of the US's biological war against Cuba took place that same year. Fowl pox vaccine was contaminated with Newcastle's disease — a fatal virus that affects poultry — causing the death of 1 million birds.

Economic damage caused by this epidemic amounted to 3.36 million pesos in chicken meat losses, plus the cost of disinfecting poultry sheds.

The next step in the operation to promote food scarcity for the Cuban population came in 1971 when, close to the airport in Havana, a virulent outbreak of African swine fever occurred. This affected herds in Havana and in the nearby province of Pinar del Rio.

Information from the same CIA agent who introduced the virus onto the island confirms that it came from the US Fort Gullick military base, close to the Panama Canal.

Half a million pigs were incinerated in order to avoid the disease spreading. This crime links in with the consequences of the other measures to achieve its objective: causing hunger within the country.

African swine fever surfaced once again in January 1980, in the municipalities adjoining the US military base at Guantanamo. On this occasion, almost 300,000 animals were slaughtered, an event that seriously affected the future of pork meat, one of the Cuban people's favourite dishes.

Sugar cane — used in Cuba's principal export at the time — was the next objective in the biological war.

In September 1978, a mildew epidemic broke out in the eastern province of Holguin, quickly spreading throughout the country. Barbados 4362, the principal variety of high-performance sugar cane, was virtually destroyed. Thirty-four per cent of the island's sugar cane fields had to be destroyed and new varieties replaced Barbados 4362, although they never achieved the same agro-industrial results as their predecessor, which was greatly missed by sugar cane growers. Because of the plague, 1 million tons of sugar had to be produced for the following harvest. Studies into the mildew outbreak showed it did not originate naturally.

Perhaps the biological warfare best remembered by Cubans is the outbreak of tobacco mildew, a fungus that quickly spread through tobacco plantations after first appearing in November 1979 in the central province of Villa Clara.

Reported in Cuba in 1957 as a result of importing recycled fabric used in plantations of covered tobacco plants; the fabric came from the United States where this fungus proliferated. Measures were taken to eradicate the disease and it was never detected again.

The arrival of tobacco mildew in 1979, 22 years after the first outbreak, was not by chance. The appearance of contamination points over a widespread area revealed that it had been spread from the air. Once again, the CIA had attempted to strangle Cuban farmers. Tobacco industry losses were so great that reductions on the export and domestic market were calculated at $350 million.

In the 1980s, while the island was developing important genetic programs for cattle vaccines, an outbreak of the virus known as "bovine nodular pseudo-dermatosis" was detected on August 4, 1981. Within three weeks, the disease had spread to nine Cuban provinces. The agent from which this virus originates had only been isolated in the US and Italy, but the US authorities had failed to inform any of the international health organisations.

At the time it appeared in Cuba, scientists were working on the disease at the US laboratory for tropical medicine on Plum Island. Cuba had to eradicate almost 3000 contamination points of the disease and establish strict quarantine regulations. The number of sick animals exceeded 220,000.

The Cuban cattle industry continued to be a CIA target. In the 1980s, the country registered its best ever figures for milk production, thanks to the success of its genetic programs. The CIA searched for a fatal pathogen that would produce serious losses in dairy farming. In April 1989, it introduced ulcerative mammitis into the eastern province of Granma. Outbreaks were soon reported in the western region of the island and the country has not yet been able to eradicate the disease completely from cattle herds, despite preventative measures and clean-up operations.

Intensified after 1990

After the Eastern European socialist bloc disappeared, the United States government intensified actions to deprive the Cuban people of food.

When trade between the island and its former allies ended, Cuban imports and exports had to be acquired from more distant places and it is estimated that the average voyage increased by 11,000 kilometres.

Every time Cuba announced an investment program to increase cultivation, its farms were suspiciously attacked in order to prevent agricultural advances and improved supplies on the island.

The introduction of a localised irrigation system for bananas — a produce highly consumed by Cubans, especially in the eastern region — made it possible to increase production. At the same time as huge banana investments were being carried out, sigatoka negra was detected in the central eastern province of Camagey. The disease, previously unknown in Cuba, appeared very close to the Maya international air corridor. From 1990-95, plantations sensitive to this banana fungus were reduced by 77%. Estimates place the cost of the plague at over $100 million and for a long time bananas were missing from Cuban people's diet. Many areas had to be replanted with banana varieties more resistant to the disease.

In December 1992, citrus fruits — in great export demand — were affected by biological warfare; the black plant louse, the most efficient transmitter of the disease known as tristeza de citrico (citrus sadness) was identified. The insect vector was traced to the Caimanera municipality, where the US naval base in Guantanamo is located. It was the first time that the dangerous insect had ever been reported in Cuba.

Another rare insect that had never been reported in the Americas appeared in Havana in 1993. It was the minador de citricos, a plague that spread from eastern Cuba to the central eastern province of Camaguey.

But the worst of the recent biological attacks occurred on October 21, 1996 when a US aircraft was observed spraying a powdered substance whilst flying over the western province of Matanzas via the Gir¢n international air corridor.

Two months later, the thrips palmi karny insect, until then unknown in Cuba, appeared in this territory, devastating the potato harvest and spreading to the main potato producing zones; by 1998, harvests had fallen by 50%. It cost almost $3 million each year to control the insect.

From 1978 to 1996, some five foreign species attacked the island's vegetable crops. From 1997-99, eight introduced diseases were registered.

This increase in economic terrorism and, above all, the appearance of various illnesses affecting the Cuban people, influenced the Cuban government's decision to bring down two "Brothers to the Rescue" light aircraft in 1996, after the pro-US organisation had been warned to stop illegal flights over Cuban territory.

Stronger pressure

In 1992, the US Congress approved the Torricelli amendment, which intensified the economic blockade against Cuba by prohibiting Cuban trade for US subsidiary companies based in third countries. The announcement of sanctions against those nations providing economic assistance to the island caused even greater problems for Cuba in negotiations to purchase food.

But as the Cuban Revolution was able to overcome these difficulties, in 1996 the US government resorted to the Helms-Burton Act, aimed at cutting off the flow of foreign capital to the island. Every progressive sector worldwide repudiated this piece of extra-territorial legislation. However, all the US intimidations and sanctions on business people could not prevent Cuba from doing business with foreign partners, although some did retreat in the face of such coercion.

The economic war on Cuba has resulted in the country acquiring food from distant places, being obliged to maintain high food stocks, and other financial problems.

Exceptional purchases from the US

The US government offered its help in the wake of the devastating effects caused by hurricane Michel, which hit Cuba on November 4, 2001. Cuban leaders replied that it would be better if Washington were to sell food and medicine to the island.

Thus, the sale of foodstuff to Cuba was approved as an exceptional measure, but everything had to be paid for upfront and in cash. The first US food shipment arrived on December 17, 2001. This is unilateral trade of an exceptional character, as a result of a natural disaster.

Recent information places US food transactions to the island at $500 million, following the first shipment.

Although this trade has been represented as a breakthrough in the blockade, the truth is that Cuba cannot export products to the United States, nor pay for purchases on credit.

For a long time now, many US sectors have profoundly rejected the economic war on the Cuban Revolution. This movement is continuing to grow but it has a fierce opponent: the powerful extreme right. These individuals are part of a policy described as one of the US government's most resounding failures.

[This article first appeared in Granma International .]

From 91������̳ Weekly, November 12, 2003.
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