CHAPTER I: THE STRUGGLE OF THE CUBAN PEOPLE FOR THE RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION; OBSTACLES PLACED IN ITS WAY DUE TO THE HISTORIC DETERMINATION TO DOMINATE ON THE PART OF THE US RULING CIRCLES

The principal danger that has been faced by Cubans as regards enjoyment of their human rights arises from a history of deeply-rooted aspirations in the ruling circles of various foreign powers that have sought to dominate their territory. This has been particularly true, over the last 200 years, of the United States of America.

The Cuban people have been compelled, as few other nations in the world, to defend their right to self-determination, to freedom and to their very existence as a nation. This has entailed the commitment of vast human and material resources, including the lives of hundreds of thousands of its best youth.

First the Spanish colonial forces, and later up to the present day the imperialist ruling circles that hold sway in the United States of America, have resorted even to genocide in their attempts to suppress the determination of the Cuban people to decide its own future from a position of sovereignty.

The massacre of over 200,000 Cubans at the end of the 19th century through the imposition by the Spanish Captain General Valeriano Weyler of a population forced resettlement policy was followed in the 20th by tens of thousands of deaths at the hands of the Americans and their mercenaries, or by virtue of the criminal practices of the dictatorships imposed and nurtured by the neo-colonialists during first half of that century.

US hostility towards the Cuban people and its resolve to be independent —now reflected in the iniquitous anti-Cuba campaign at the Commission on Human Rights— predates the victory of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959 and the 1961 proclamation of its socialist character: it has been constant since the birth of the Cuban nation.

As early as 1767, a decade before the thirteen British colonies declared independence, Benjamin Franklin, one of the United States' founding fathers', advocated colonizing the Mississippi Valley "... for use against Cuba or Mexico itself (...)"

John Adams, second president of the United States, referred in 1783 to the need to take over the island, formulating the essence of the domination-oriented geopolitical thinking in relation to Cuba which has prevailed in America's ruling circles.

US ambitions to annex Cuba were publicly expressed also by Thomas Jefferson who, after his term in office, remarked in 1823: “I confess that ...Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. ...”The control which, with Florida Point, this island would give us over the Golf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure or our political well-being”.

Cuba remained under Spanish colonial rule during the independence proclamations and battles of the early decades of the 19th century in most of the Latin American republics. The factors resulting in this situation included open US opposition to Cuban independence, based on its declared intention of annexing the island.

On 28th April 1823, Union of the Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, outlined the key features of the US policy on Cuba that prevailed throughout the 19th century, in instructions sent to the US Minister in Spain. Among his comments, on what became known as the "ripe fruit" policy, was the observation that there are laws of political gravity as well as laws of physical gravity, and just as a fruit blown down from the tree cannot help but fall, so once Cuba was separated from Spain and its artificial link with Spain was broken, it would inevitably gravitate to the Union.

The "ripe fruit" policy became an integral part of western political thinking, to the detriment of the Cuban people's right to self-determination, something perceived then by many and still now by some as subject to the whim of an obvious "geographic destiny".

Following the failure of various attempts to purchase, the United States instigated and supported several incursions aimed at annexation. The resulting string of disasters did nothing to discourage the planners of America's domination of the island.
10th October 1868 marked the inception of the Cuban nation's bid for liberation. The US administrations that held office during the ensuing Ten Years' War did everything in their power to obstruct the representatives of the new republic in the United States in their work of propagandising, collecting funds, purchase of military equipment and dispatching expeditionary forces. At the same time, they provided Spain with every facility in its war on our patriots.

24th February 1895 marked a new stage in the war of independence, proclaimed by Cuba's National Hero, José Martí and the Cuban Revolutionary Party —conceived as the one party of the Cuban Revolution. Cuba's imminent independence in the wake of the clear economic and military disaster suffered by Spain was thwarted by US military intervention and occupation of the island.

Following the occupation, the US government and Congress passed an addendum to the first Constitution of the Republic of Cuba to guarantee their right of intervention: the notorious Platt Amendment.

The regime imposed on Cuba gave the United States total control of the country’s —political economic and military power— and created the conditions for a proliferation of corruption, violence, poverty and neglect, combined with utter disregard for the formalities of republican legality. This process culminated in the criminal dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, which lasted from 1952 to 1958.

The contrived, bogus republic imposed on the Cuban people by the United States by virtue of the Platt Amendment not only ensured America's right of intervention but also (among other special privileges) of trading preferences, construction of naval bases and mining for coal.

It was at this time that the US set up its naval base at Guantánamo, in one of eastern Cuba's best bays, on territory that the American government occupies illegally to this day in flagrant violation of international law and the manifest wishes of the Cuban people. Adding insult to injury, the present US administration has created a veritable moral and legal 'black hole' at this military base, in the name of its so-called 'war on terrorism'.

For our people, Cuba's revolutionary triumph on 1st January 1959 meant the conquest of true independence and sovereignty for the first time in a long history of struggles. Victory did not come cheap: some 20,000 lost their lives in the final stages of the campaign, falling in heroic head-on combat with the forces of a military dictatorship trained, armed and supplied by the US government; others were victims of torture and politically-motivated murder perpetrated by the regime.

In the wake of the revolutionary victory, the United States granted sanctuary and total impunity to those responsible for the most appalling violations of the human rights of the Cuban people. It was the destination of the flight from justice of hundreds of known torturers and murderers, proven embezzlers of public funds and other creatures that had served a regime whose operation deprived people of their most basic human rights and got rich on the blood and sweat of the Cuban people.

The war on revolutionary Cuba waged by the United States has included political, military, economic, diplomatic, psychological, propagandist and espionage action; biological warfare; terrorism and sabotage; the organization and logistical support of armed gangs and clandestine mercenary brigades; incitement to desertion and to illegal emigration; as well as assassination attempts on the leaders of Cuba's revolutionary change, to mention only some of the more publicized actions.

The US government's aggression and terrorism against Cuba since the success of the Revolution up until the present day has caused the deaths of 3,478 Cubans, including many women and children, and the unlawful maiming of another 2,099, as recorded in a Claim for Human Suffering submitted to the Cuban courts by a group of the country's social organizations.

The Cuban people have not yielded and will never yield to the most powerful imperialist regime in history. For the Cuban people, which has seen the sacrifice of the lives of thousands of its bravest youth, nothing is more sacred and revered than its independence and right to build its own future without outside interference.

Washington's anti-Cuba campaign at the Commission on Human Rights has nothing to do with promoting or defending democracy or the human rights of the Cuban people. On the contrary, it results from the superpower's need for a pretext to continue pursuing its imperialist plans against Cuba, whose people's inalienable right to self-determination it still refuses to recognize.