The US Blockade of Cuba: Its Effects and Global Consequences
The US Blockade of Cuba: Its Effects and Global Consequences
Nicholas Partyka I Geopolitics I Analysis I May 2nd, 2014
The following is Part Two of a multi-part project entitled, "A Crossroads for Socialism: Cuba in Transition". This series of analyses, observations, and dispatches of Cuba focuses on the country's unprecedented, post-Fidel transition. With a heavy reliance on macroeconomic, geopolitical, and foreign policy analysis, Hampton contributor Nicholas Partyka seeks to pinpoint the nuanced economic, political, and social changes that are occurring on the island nation, and how these changes are impacting everyday Cubans.
It is not possible to discuss almost any aspect of life in Cuba without talking about the US blockade of the island. That the US has an 'embargo' against the island is one of the few things that Americans might know about Cuba. This policy of economic warfare against our hemispheric neighbor has been in place for more than five decades now. In this dispatch, I want to focus on the US blockade policy. We will look briefly at why it exists, its aims, its status under international law, and what its main effects are. Though many Americans may know that there is an "embargo" (though "blockade" is more accurate), few likely know how it works and what its costs are. Attempting to remedy this situation will be the point of this part of the series.
On New Year's Eve 1958, Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba. The next day, the revolutionary government took control of the country. For the better part of a year, the US foreign policy establishment did not know what to make of Fidel Castro and his revolution. Relations remained cordial until Fidel announced the implementation of a set of Agrarian Reform laws. These laws aimed to put land in the hands of poor farmers who had been largely excluded from land ownership under the old regime. Many of the lands nationalized under Fidel's measures belonged to US citizens or companies; e.g. King Ranch. Other nations also had property nationalized in Cuba in the wake of the revolution, but only the US refused compensation, which the Cubans offered.
In a somewhat ironic twist, the Cubans offered compensation for nationalized property on the basis of the property's value as determined by the most recent pre-revolutionary Cuban tax assessments. Now, this would only be a problem for US owners of Cuban property to be nationalized if those owners felt that there was too large a discrepancy between the value of the compensation offered and the market value of that property. This kind of situation would be likely to come about if US owners had massively underreported the value of their Cuban property to Cuban tax officials (perhaps with official blessing of the regime at the time). The response of the US to these compensation matters also has nothing to do with the fact that the then-sitting CIA Director, Allen Dulles, sat on the Board of Directors for at least one large US firm to have property nationalized in Cuba, namely the infamous United Fruit Company.
Before the revolution, underreporting taxable value saved money in taxes and thus put more of it back in the owner's pocket. After the revolution however, this meant that those owners would lose out in a compensation package offered by the new Cuban government as the value of the compensation offered would be substantially less than what the property would be worth on the market. US owners of Cuban property wanted to both receive the real value of their property, but also not thereby tacitly admit what Castro and the Cuban revolution had accused them of, namely taking advantage of Cuba and Cubans for their own private gain. This is a classic example of one not being able to have one's cake and eat it too. The refusal of the US to acknowledge this had lead to the lion's share of the trials and tribulations that have arisen as the US and Cuba attempt to normalize relations.
More:
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/cuba-project-part-two.html#.U2XsNmcU_mQ
= new reply since forum marked as read
came to mind even before I reached the paragraph containing that expression.
There's a street where most of the houses were owned by the Bacardi family - now restaurant and schools for children etc. Bacardi's lawyers subequently helped draft the US Helms-Burton Act.
WHO ARE THE DIRECT BENEFICIARIES OF THE HELMS-BURTON LAW ? http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/helmsdirben.htm
On the subject of Rum :
EU, Cuba spar with US over 'Havana Club' rum at WTO http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130625/eu-cuba-spar-us-over-havana-club-rum-at-wto
Even writing on the subject makes me angry. 
Tossers.
He was probably the Cuban "exiles'" biggest supporter.
[center]
Jesse Helms[/center]
Interesting learning former US Interests Section head, Wayne S. Smith called Helms-Burton "the Bacardi Claims Act." Smith is a very cool person who has stood up against these racist a-holes from the beginning, at great personal cost, as the Cuban American National Foundation tied him up in endless lawsuits for calling them out on their conspicuous cycle of getting money from the U.S. Congress, and pouring money right back into the Congress in huge contributions to their puppet Congressmen who will do their bidding. It evens out the US taxpayers pay for all of it.
They were trying to bankrupt him as he fought to protect himself in court from them.
Pure filth on their end, and they are murderous, too, as the financiers of terrorism against Cubans, in various assaults on Cubans from people like Habana airline mass murdering bomber Luis Posada Carriles.
