Seven Oaks Magazine.

Of ripe fruit and rotten imperial ambitions: U.S. reaction to Fidel Castro’s illness
August 4, 2006
Derrick O'Keefe

Just in case the idea is taking root that the U.S. policy of empire building is the invention of the current gang of neo-conservative hawks in power, one need only conduct a cursory examination of the history of Cuba. With world headlines carefully watching the health of the dominant figure of the past fifty years of revolutionary history on the island, it’s worth taking the long view to understand the issues at play, and to appreciate the cold, ruthless continuity of imperial ambitions.

The official attitude of the U.S. government towards Cuba was, in fact, explicitly laid out as far back as 1823, when then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams described the Caribbean island as a “ripe fruit” that would naturally fall under U.S. control once it was wrested from the Spanish Empire. Adams would go on to be the sixth president of the young republic, but it would not be until the turn of the next century that his country would really begin to harvest their imperial possessions, taking the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico, while establishing a neo-colony in Cuba. To ensure their domination, and to prevent the legitimate independence of Cuba, the U.S. grafted the Platt Amendment onto the Cuban Constitution, which paradoxically granted that the United States “may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence”.

The Revolution that came to power in 1959 marked an abrupt end to the neo-colonial period in Cuba, nationalizing the land, industry and banking of the island, and in a matter of a few short years carrying out a profound social transformation. For upwards of forty-five years, the official policy of successive U.S. governments has been to strangle Cuba economically through a comprehensive embargo, or blockade, and to isolate the socialist island from its Latin American neighbours. The first tactic has been effective in a sense, if its aim has been to punish a population for choosing a different social system, while the attempt to keep the Cuban example ‘quarantined’ has begun to fail spectacularly in recent years, as evidenced by the radical processes underway in both Venezuela and Bolivia.

In recent days, media coverage has reduced the drama of Cuba to the health of one man, Fidel Castro, who has temporarily at least handed over power to his younger brother, Raul. More relevant than the hyperactive – and indeed, as one Cuban leader has called them, “vomit-provoking” -- celebrations of some in the exile community of Miami’s Little Havana, has been the response of U.S. government officials and the mainstream media. For instance, a Reuters news story, run in dozens of newspapers across North America, unintentionally carried a historically fitting headline, ‘Cuba ripe for economic change’ (August 2, 2006). The article outlines the basic demographics of Cuba, taking a patronizing if not offensive tone:

Then, the all too familiar ‘fruit’ coveted by the U.S. becomes evident. Energy-starved Cuba, it seems, is in the process of developing off shore oil:

Finally, the article concludes by lamenting another obstacle; in addition to the competition apparently having a head start on oil exploitation, Cuba’s socialist bureaucracy has thrown up an additional barrier to unrestrained profits:

In case the prospect of an invasion of attorneys doesn’t sound liberating enough, the U.S. government has, in recent years, openly stepped up its efforts at implementing regime change in Havana. In May 2004, the Bush-appointed Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, co-chaired by Colin Powell, released a 500-page document that was adopted as government policy. As observed in this week’s New Yorker, the administration even appointed a coordinator for the ‘transition’, a sort of “Paul Bremer designate of Cuba” (‘Castro’s last battle,’ by John Lee Anderson, p.54).

According to the Associated Press, GOP senators are already busy drafting legislation to take “advantage of the incapacitation of Fidel Castro to advance civil society-building measures and the transition to a democratic Cuba” (August 2, 2006). Surely the recent cases of Iraq and Cuba’s neighbour Haiti, where the U.S. backed a 2004 coup against the democratically elected Jean-Bertrand Aristide, tell us something about the real transition that the U.S. has in mind. It’s not democracy they’re after in Cuba or anywhere else, but a government pliant to U.S. interests that will implement neo-liberal economic policy.

The ham-fisted approach of the United States to Cuba was highlighted earlier this year when the U.S. Interests Section in Havana – a six-story encampment on the historic seaside Malecon – began broadcasting ‘subversive’ messages, turning its tinted windows into an anti-Castro news ticker. Cuba responded swiftly to this provocation, erecting 138 massive black flags directly across from the U.S. outpost, each flag representing a victim of U.S.-backed terrorism against the island.

Many martyrs have fallen in the course of the Cuban revolution, and many comprehensive social changes have occurred. Those delirious revelers in Miami, and the Bush administration, so jubilant at the prospect of Fidel’s physical demise, will find out that Cuba will not be as ripe for re-conquest as they anticipate. Their rotten visions for a return to neo-colonialism certainly don’t deserve to come to fruition.