Who Profits from the Cuba Blockade?

Who Profits from the Cuba Blockade?
May 8, 2013
Yusimí Rodríguez

HAVANA TIMES — I must apologize to the readers of Havana Times for my
recent article, "Who Did Cuba's Ladies in White Speak For?" The title, I
now see, ought to have been "Who Profits from the Cuba Blockade?", for,
that is what the issue is ultimately about: who stands to benefit from
the petition made by the Ladies in White?

Several readers have pointed out something significant to me: the Ladies
in White, or, more specifically, Berta Soler, should not feel entitled
to speak on behalf of anyone except themselves.

Likewise, I never speak on anyone's behalf save my own. But I am not an
influential or well-known public figure, as the Ladies in White are.
Nothing I can say will have the repercussions or the significance that
any declaration or action by the Ladies could have.

In any event, what's important is that they, or Berta Soler in this
case, have exercised their right to free speech. This is something I
stated in my previous article and say again now. Ideally, the Ladies in
White would be able to exercise this right in the Cuban media, so that
Cubans could freely decide whether or not they identify with their opinions.

One thing many of my readers agree on is that the US blockade is not
truly to blame for Cuba's situation, and that lifting it would not bring
significant changes to the country.

These readers tend to call it the "embargo". My apologies, but I've been
hearing and reading the term "blockade" in our news and our press for
far too long to suddenly start saying "embargo" now. It's difficult. But
that's not the point, the point is determining what repercussions it has
on our daily lives.

I confess I am unsure as to what the scope of its consequences is. On
the one hand, it is obviously doing something, as successive US
administrations have insisted on maintaining it, and the Ladies in White
have requested a continuation of these economic pressures on the island.
A group of Damas de Blanco. Photo: Tracey Eaton

A group of Damas de Blanco. Photo: Tracey Eaton

On the other hand, I sometimes ask myself: "how many of our problems are
actually caused by the blockade?" History has shown that the Ten Million
Ton Harvest (a failed undertaking), the massive failed Havana periphery
coffee plantations, the Revolutionary Offensive (which among other
things closed all small private businesses), were mistakes plain and
simple, and costly ones at that. How did the blockade have to do with
these, if anything?

It's hard to determine, with any degree of exactitude, to what extent
the blockade, sorry, the embargo…heck, the blockade, affects the lives
of the Cuban people. What I do know is that, while it is still around,
this blockade, or embargo, or whatever you want to call it, will
continue to be guilty of all our problems, of everything that doesn't
quite work, of all the mistakes made by our leaders.

So, I again ask myself: who stands to benefit from the blockade? Who
continue to use it as a pretext for the failure of the economic model
they now seek to modernize?

Who will continue to repress and discredit those who oppose the
government, claiming that they are at the service of a foreign power?
Who truly profits from the petition made by the Ladies in White?

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