Boisterous protests outside US consulates in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban on April 17 — the anniversary of the abortive CIA-sponsored Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 — urged US President Donald Trump’s administration to lift its debilitating oil blockade of Cuba.
The blockade, alongside the decades-long economic embargo, aims to cripple the country and bring down its socialist government.
The protests drew a wide coalition of civil society organisations, political parties and trade unions, dovetailing with solidarity actions for Palestine Prisoners Day and calls to end the illegal US-Israeli war on Iran, a conflict inflicting carnage while spurring a global economic crisis.
Besieged by the blockade and a decades-long embargo, Cuba urgently needs food and humanitarian aid. The hands-on response from coalitions in South Africa, such as Cuba Solidarity Now, and from many organisations and governments worldwide, is determined.
Solidarity shipments of food, medicines and solar equipment have been reaching Havana, and at the end of March Russia broke the blockade, delivering more than 700,000 tons of oil under naval escort, with a second consignment on the way.
Trump has repeatedly hinted at invading Cuba. In March he told reporters: “I do believe I’ll be having the honour of taking Cuba. It’s a big honour, whether I free it, take it. I think I can do anything I want with it.” Earlier this month he said the US “may stop by Cuba” once the war on Iran is over.
These fake news attacks on South Africa echo the rhetoric Trump deployed against Venezuela and Iran in the run-up to hard economic or military action
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has vowed to repel any occupation, and mass protests resound with the enduring rallying call of the revolution: Patria o Muerte! Venceremos! (Homeland or death. We will win!)
In contrast to Trump’s capricious narcissism, the Cuban government urges dialogue and diplomacy to deal with the problems the US has with the country.
On April 18 the leaders of Brazil, Mexico and Spain, attending the In Defence of Democracy summit in Barcelona, issued a declaration expressing “deep concern over the serious humanitarian crisis facing the Cuban people, and call for the adoption of the measures necessary to alleviate this situation and to avoid actions that worsen living conditions or run contrary to international law”.
The declaration calls for respect for “territorial integrity, sovereign equality and peaceful settlement of disputes” and for “sincere, respectful dialogue in accordance with international law”. Without naming the US, it implicitly warned against outside interference: “The goal must be to find a lasting solution to the current situation and to ensure the Cuban people themselves decide their future in full freedom.”
South Africa was also represented at the Barcelona summit. President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered a passionate defence of the country’s International Court of Justice genocide case against Israel, drawing loud applause, but he remained conspicuously silent on Cuba. He did not add his name to the declaration. Why?
On the same day as the solidarity protests here, April 17, Trump addressed a rally in Phoenix. “We stopped Third World migration,” he crowed. “We suspended all refugee settlement except for persecuted South Africans. There’s a very horrible thing going on in South Africa. It’s a genocide. It’s a horrible thing. And we made it possible for these people to come to our country. They kill people if they’re white.”
These fake news attacks on South Africa echo the rhetoric Trump deployed against Venezuela and Iran in the run-up to hard economic or military action. “It has to be stopped,” he said of South Africa at last year’s World Economic Forum.
The threadbare anti-communism deployed to justify abandoning Cuba cuts little ice, as the real nature of US and Western imperial swagger stands increasingly exposed as arrant banditry
The writing is on the wall, and it would be foolish to look away. The interconnected threads of imperilled progressive values, national sovereignty and internationalism must be pulled together and tightened.
The Cuba-South Africa link is a particular thorn in the side of the US right. Cuba’s internationalism was instrumental in the struggle against apartheid and the success of liberation movements across southern Africa and beyond — an internationalism sustained in its subsequent humanitarian work worldwide.
The threadbare anti-communism deployed to justify abandoning Cuba cuts little ice, as the real nature of US and Western imperial swagger stands increasingly exposed as arrant banditry. Washington has seized Venezuela’s oil for itself and cut all shipments to Cuba, compounding the blockade.
Too much attention is paid to Trump’s weird ways, often laughed off as the ravings of an enfeebled mind or MAGA delusions. But the method in his madness is systemic. Those behind him are anything but crazed. Secretary of state Marco Rubio — architect of the assault on Venezuela and a prominent voice among the “Miami Mafia” lobby of Cuban exiles — is the power behind the throne on Cuba policy.
Trump’s attention may weave this way and that, but Rubio has long set his sights on toppling Havana’s socialist government and reinstating a capitalist regime. He publicly claims the Cuban system is decrepit, corrupt and collapsing. If so, why bother blockading the island to throttle its economy?
South Africa has a clear responsibility to join Brazil, Mexico and Spain. Not merely out of sentiment, though Cuba’s role in winning our freedom warrants it. Progressive countries must stand together. Their sovereignty, values and futures depend on it.
• Kasrils, a struggle veteran, is a former cabinet minister. Waller is a Pretoria-based freelance journalist.
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