US blockade

Another article by CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat says that for the progressive and democratic sections in India, Cuba has been a constant source of inspiration after the epochal struggle for liberation in Vietnam. “Though separated by thousands of miles, the revolutionary transformation of this tiny country has found a powerful resonance in India,” he says. “In December 1959, US president Eisenhower approved a CIA proposed plan for toppling Castro in one year and replacing him by a junta friendly to the United States”. Since then, Fidel Castro and Cuba have thwarted the efforts of ten American presidents to overthrow the socialist government of Cuba”.

“Cuba has been subjected to an economic blockade for all these 50 years. The embargo got tightened during the Reagan presidency and new restrictions were placed by the Bush regime. No effort has been spared to disrupt the economy and starve the people of Cuba. Even medicines are not exempt from the blockade,” he says. “Healthcare in Cuba is badly affected by the blockade. Patients including children requiring dialysis are not able to access the latest Continuous Ambulatory Peritoneal Dialysis (CAPD) since leading international companies including Baxter from the United States are prevented from supplying such equipment to Cuba.

Determined Cubans

An article by economist Prabhat Patnaik says “no amount of economic hardships, no amount of foreign exchange shortages, no amount of material scarcity, has made the Cuban Revolution budge even for a moment from its absolute commitment to providing what it considers the basic welfare state facilities to its people”. “Policies of income deflation imposed on the people in the name of ‘austerity’ which generate mass unemployment, policies of enforcing ‘user charges’ for public healthcare and education, policies of privatising public enterprises to attract foreign capital, and policies of reversing land reforms to set up Golf Courses and Five-Star hotels for attracting tourists that bring in foreign exchange, all of which constitute the basic ingredients of the Fund-Bank package and are glibly advocated by bureaucrats from Washington DC to New Delhi to Pretoria, have been shunned by the Cuban Revolution. Cuba’s socialism had begun with the rejection of the IMF package fifty years ago; Cuba continues to reject this package even to this day.”

... contd.