VICII: Cuba Today - An Update on Our Friends and Neighbors

Kurt Mehta, a lawyer who has visited Cuba and studied the island extensively, and Sandy Baird, from the Cuban American Friendship Society and a person who fell in love with Cuba decades ago, lead this community discussion on Zoom.

 

Cuba has always been under the watchful eye of the United States. In the earliest days of Spanish and English colonialism, the southern part of the States, which would become the Confederacy desired Cuba to increase the power of the slaveocracy; when the American Revolution succeeded in independence from the 13 British colonies, the new republic began an imperial climb to control all of Latin America and the Caribbean. After the Cuban War of Independence and the Spanish American War was won by the United States, Cuba was restricted in its independence by the Platt Amendment and by the occupation of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for a US naval base and now a US prison for alleged terrorists. When Fidel Castro established a Socialist government in Cuba the United States saw “red” and determined on a policy of embargoes, blockades and “regime change” for Havana.

 

Under President Barack Obama the United States offered a carrot rather than a stick to Cuba. But the stick was returned under President Trump and now sanctions and restrictions on remunerations to Cuban families and on travel continue to attempt to cripple the island nation. Although Cuba is seeking a recovery of its economy and society after the crushing Covid pandemic, the United States seeks once again to undermine their neighbor only 90 miles away.