CUBA: Carter's concept of 'democracy' debated

May 22, 2002
Issue 

BY KAREN FLETCHER, JO WILLIAMS & JORGE JORQUERA

HAVANA — Former US president Jimmy Carter's historic May 12-17 visit to Cuba has highlighted the differences within the US ruling class over how to defeat Cuba's socialist revolution.

The wing represented by Carter hopes to seduce the Cubans to abandon socialism by expanding US trade and investment, whereas the US government continues to pursue the strategy of strangling Cuba's economy and threatening military intervention.

US President George Bush's administration, attempting to distract attention from Carter's trip and justify a further tightening of the blockade, on May 5 accused the Cuban government of having "at least a limited offensive biological warfare research and development effort" and of providing the technology to "rogue states".

However, throughout his visit Carter repeatedly called for the lifting of the US blockade of Cuba and dismissed charges that Cuba was developing weapons of mass destruction.

Cuba's President Fidel Castro and the Cuban people seized the opportunity of Carter's visit to showcase their superior health, education and welfare systems and to expose the injustice of the blockade.

Carter's polite criticisms of Cuba's political system were widely publicised, debated and rebutted. The visit has highlighted the openness of Cuba's public debate.

Carter visited the Cojimar School of Social Work on May 13. Students were unimpressed with Carter's definition of democracy as being the freedom "to form our own businesses, to hire other people to work and make a profit".

The following day, during a visit to the University of Havana that was broadcast live on Cuban radio and TV, law student Miguel Fraga challenged Carter: "We live in the 21st century ... with the consequences of an unjust international economic order and a democracy that does not guarantee peoples the most minimal rights to health and food [even in the US]. The US talks to us of freedom and human rights... Is it possible to talk of democracy without social justice and equality of opportunities?"

Chemistry student Daniel Garcia commented that US-style "democracy" in Latin America "has killed millions of children from hunger and disease". He pointed out that "democratic" governments "have embezzled their peoples' money". Garcia asked Carter if this was his concept of democracy.

Carter did not address these questions directly but instead referred supportively to Project Varela, a petition containing more than 11,000 names calling for the establishment a US-style electoral system in Cuba. The petition was delivered to the Cuban National Assembly just days before Carter's arrival in Havana. Commenting on the petition, the president of the Federation of University Students, Hassan Perez, sharply questioned the value of "democracies" in which less than 50% of the voters go to the polls.

While US media outlets gave massive coverage to Carter's comments about Project Varela, and his meetings with the organisers of the petition, they did not report the comments made by the students or other Cubans who challenged Carter's platitudes about "democracy".

However, the New York Times editorial on May 16 unconsciously recognised Hassan's point about the US electoral system when it pinpointed the reason for Bush's continuing "strongman" attitude to the US blockade of Cuba: "Unfortunately, Mr Bush — trolling for Cuban-American votes in Florida for himself and his brother, Jeb, who is the state's governor — continues to exempt Cuban policy from America's approach to the rest of the world."

Like Carter and a growing lobby of US farmers and their supporters in the US Senate and Congress, the NYT editorial called for an end to trade and travel restrictions on Cuba: "The heartening news is that even plenty of Republicans are tired of having American foreign policy hijacked by anti-Castro activists in a key electoral state... One of these days, the Bush brothers will recognise that the isolation of Cuba serves neither American nor Cuban interests."

Bush is expected to announce increased travel restrictions, more US aid to counter-revolutionaries in Miami and Cuba and stepped-up efforts to broadcast counter-revolutionary propaganda to the Cuban population in a speech to be given in Miami on May 20.

But while Bush continues to play to the peanut gallery in Miami, the Cubans have contracted to purchase more than US$101 million worth of US agricultural products since November, more than 65% of which have already been shipped.

US products now represent 10% of all food imported by Cuba each year. If the US farm lobby continues to be successful in its campaign to widen the terms of the US export licenses, Cuba may soon be purchasing US$1 billion worth of US goods each year, including branded manufactured goods such as baby food, bottled fruit preserves and canned meat.

From Green Left Weekly, May 22, 2002.
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