"Targeted Wrath" by Felix Bethel
The following article by BFC5 member, Felix Bethel, appeared in The Bahama Journal on Thursday November 2nd 2006.
Rough Cut,
Felix F. Bethel.
“…Targeted wrath…”
I come from that long line of African people who once were bound hand and foot, shackled, chained to each other and brought to the Americas.
There they struggled and suffered.
There some of them despaired for Africa. And there some many others persevered.
Some have even prospered-despite the lash.
Some of these my brothers and sisters here in this blighted land we call home are today joined in this misery by some of my other brothers and sisters who live in other countries.
Here Cuba and Haiti immediately come to mind.
Lord have mercy on them.
Yet again, some others of my line have taken to waiting for that great change that will take place when time shall be no more. Some of them sing glory hallelujah as they proclaim as truth these wonderful words:
“When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more,
And the morning breaks, eternal, bright and fair;
When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,
And the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.”
All I can say to them is Amen and after that Amen, another Amen.
But no matter how they yearn, truth is that there are times in life when those who struggle for freedom know that they struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and a myriad of evil forces.
In this vein, it is always so dreadfully appalling when I stop and look at what the greatest power in the history of the world is doing in places like Iraq and in places like Cuba.
In the name of freedom, the United States of America has sown the wind and is now reaping a whirlwind of distress. And by the day, the grim harvest of hunger, disease and death is being reaped.
Sadly, there is today in this world no force that is cohesive enough or determined enough to counter this great power. Master of all that it surveys –including the heavens- this great power marches on.
Cuba is caught smack dab in the bull’s eye of its targeted wrath.
In this regard, please not that I am told that as far back as the early sixties U.S. policy towards Cuba was clear, blunt and to the point:
To bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.
Forty seven years later, that effort continues.
Now that I am old, I am discovering that there is a pure delight in reminiscing about times that once were. That is why I continue to go down memory lane. That is where some of my fondest memories and necessary fictions reside.
Today I wish to share with you a communication that some one sent me. It has to do with how the greatest military power in the history of the world has deployed some of its awesome power right here in our region of the world.
I share with you a communication that was presented somewhere some time ago by a great Cuban –Ricardo Alarcon. That he is also a great and good human being comes with the territory.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, my fellow Bahamians,
Hear Alarcon as he speaks:
“A few weeks from now, the UN General Assembly will pass, with practical unanimity, a new resolution, the number 15, condemning the blockade on Cuba, which Washington tries to describe as barely an "embargo". The United States Government will try to justify its policy once again without success. They have been doing this for almost half a century now, concealing the truth behind their fabrications and lies.
“The truth is, however, contained in documents that were kept secret by Washington until 1991. More than an embargo or blockade, it is in fact an act of ¨economic warfare¨, as the then secretary of state, Christian Herter, said in 1959.
“An economic warfare that began with the triumph of the Revolution in January of 1959 and it is still in force today, a war which has always had the same genocidal purpose: to bring about hunger, misery and desperation among the people of Cuba.
“Dictator Fulgencio Batista and his main accomplices plundered the Republic's Treasury and upon fleeing Cuba in January of that year they took with them more than 424 million dollars which came to rest in the United States and form the economic basis of a mafia often hailed by the US press as ¨successful businessmen¨ of Miami. For Cuba the situation was critical and Washington knew it.
The Department of State described it as such, saying in February 1959 that: "The serious threat to the stability of the Cuba peso which results from the fact that following the departure of the Batista administration it was determined that the currency reserve of the country is depleted", something which, "would tax the governing abilities of any of the best leaders".
“The Central Bank of Cuba sent a team of experts to Washington to seek a modest loan that would alleviate such a crisis. The issue was analyzed by the National Security Council on February 12, 1959. The decision was unequivocal: they would listen to the Cubans but offer them nothing at all.
“The dispossession of Cuban bank reserves, which constitutes a blatant act of economic aggression, took place long before any revolutionary measure was adopted on the Island (the first being the Law of Agrarian reform, passed on May 17 of that year).
“On March 26, 1959, the National Security Council also discussed the Cuba situation. At this meeting CIA's director, Allen Dulles, said that: "it was quite possible that the US Congress would do something which would affect the sale of Cuban sugar in the US".
“Depriving Cuba of its main source of income, sugar exports to the US market, would become a recurrent theme of Washington's secret meetings before, long before; relationships with the Soviet Union were re-established and before socialism was proclaimed to be Revolution's goal…
“But they weren't just talking about sugar: "if we were to cut the Cubans off from their fuel supply, the effect would be devastating on them within a month or six weeks".
“Nobody in Washington claimed to have been deceived.
“They knew that the actions taken against the Revolution would cause pain and suffering to all the Cuban people. They did it with premeditation and full knowledge of the effect, converting the act of genocide into a malicious political instrument. An analysis from this same Department, dated April 6, 1960 and approved with the signature of Assistant Secretary, Roy Rubottom, offers us explicit proof of this policy.
In this analysis it is flatly affirmed that:
"The majority of Cubans support Castro. The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government".
Forty odd years later, that bloody effort continues.
Only God knows when it will end.
My hope and prayer today is for the United States of America to understand that they have failed in Cuba and that they will continue to fail everywhere else if they continue to believe that proud people can be starved into submission; or napalmed into oblivion; or even bombed back to the so-called stone age.
Rough Cut,
Felix F. Bethel.
“…Targeted wrath…”
I come from that long line of African people who once were bound hand and foot, shackled, chained to each other and brought to the Americas.
There they struggled and suffered.
There some of them despaired for Africa. And there some many others persevered.
Some have even prospered-despite the lash.
Some of these my brothers and sisters here in this blighted land we call home are today joined in this misery by some of my other brothers and sisters who live in other countries.
Here Cuba and Haiti immediately come to mind.
Lord have mercy on them.
Yet again, some others of my line have taken to waiting for that great change that will take place when time shall be no more. Some of them sing glory hallelujah as they proclaim as truth these wonderful words:
“When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound, and time shall be no more,
And the morning breaks, eternal, bright and fair;
When the saved of earth shall gather over on the other shore,
And the roll is called up yonder, I'll be there.”
All I can say to them is Amen and after that Amen, another Amen.
But no matter how they yearn, truth is that there are times in life when those who struggle for freedom know that they struggle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and a myriad of evil forces.
In this vein, it is always so dreadfully appalling when I stop and look at what the greatest power in the history of the world is doing in places like Iraq and in places like Cuba.
In the name of freedom, the United States of America has sown the wind and is now reaping a whirlwind of distress. And by the day, the grim harvest of hunger, disease and death is being reaped.
Sadly, there is today in this world no force that is cohesive enough or determined enough to counter this great power. Master of all that it surveys –including the heavens- this great power marches on.
Cuba is caught smack dab in the bull’s eye of its targeted wrath.
In this regard, please not that I am told that as far back as the early sixties U.S. policy towards Cuba was clear, blunt and to the point:
To bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.
Forty seven years later, that effort continues.
Now that I am old, I am discovering that there is a pure delight in reminiscing about times that once were. That is why I continue to go down memory lane. That is where some of my fondest memories and necessary fictions reside.
Today I wish to share with you a communication that some one sent me. It has to do with how the greatest military power in the history of the world has deployed some of its awesome power right here in our region of the world.
I share with you a communication that was presented somewhere some time ago by a great Cuban –Ricardo Alarcon. That he is also a great and good human being comes with the territory.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, my fellow Bahamians,
Hear Alarcon as he speaks:
“A few weeks from now, the UN General Assembly will pass, with practical unanimity, a new resolution, the number 15, condemning the blockade on Cuba, which Washington tries to describe as barely an "embargo". The United States Government will try to justify its policy once again without success. They have been doing this for almost half a century now, concealing the truth behind their fabrications and lies.
“The truth is, however, contained in documents that were kept secret by Washington until 1991. More than an embargo or blockade, it is in fact an act of ¨economic warfare¨, as the then secretary of state, Christian Herter, said in 1959.
“An economic warfare that began with the triumph of the Revolution in January of 1959 and it is still in force today, a war which has always had the same genocidal purpose: to bring about hunger, misery and desperation among the people of Cuba.
“Dictator Fulgencio Batista and his main accomplices plundered the Republic's Treasury and upon fleeing Cuba in January of that year they took with them more than 424 million dollars which came to rest in the United States and form the economic basis of a mafia often hailed by the US press as ¨successful businessmen¨ of Miami. For Cuba the situation was critical and Washington knew it.
The Department of State described it as such, saying in February 1959 that: "The serious threat to the stability of the Cuba peso which results from the fact that following the departure of the Batista administration it was determined that the currency reserve of the country is depleted", something which, "would tax the governing abilities of any of the best leaders".
“The Central Bank of Cuba sent a team of experts to Washington to seek a modest loan that would alleviate such a crisis. The issue was analyzed by the National Security Council on February 12, 1959. The decision was unequivocal: they would listen to the Cubans but offer them nothing at all.
“The dispossession of Cuban bank reserves, which constitutes a blatant act of economic aggression, took place long before any revolutionary measure was adopted on the Island (the first being the Law of Agrarian reform, passed on May 17 of that year).
“On March 26, 1959, the National Security Council also discussed the Cuba situation. At this meeting CIA's director, Allen Dulles, said that: "it was quite possible that the US Congress would do something which would affect the sale of Cuban sugar in the US".
“Depriving Cuba of its main source of income, sugar exports to the US market, would become a recurrent theme of Washington's secret meetings before, long before; relationships with the Soviet Union were re-established and before socialism was proclaimed to be Revolution's goal…
“But they weren't just talking about sugar: "if we were to cut the Cubans off from their fuel supply, the effect would be devastating on them within a month or six weeks".
“Nobody in Washington claimed to have been deceived.
“They knew that the actions taken against the Revolution would cause pain and suffering to all the Cuban people. They did it with premeditation and full knowledge of the effect, converting the act of genocide into a malicious political instrument. An analysis from this same Department, dated April 6, 1960 and approved with the signature of Assistant Secretary, Roy Rubottom, offers us explicit proof of this policy.
In this analysis it is flatly affirmed that:
"The majority of Cubans support Castro. The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government".
Forty odd years later, that bloody effort continues.
Only God knows when it will end.
My hope and prayer today is for the United States of America to understand that they have failed in Cuba and that they will continue to fail everywhere else if they continue to believe that proud people can be starved into submission; or napalmed into oblivion; or even bombed back to the so-called stone age.
posted by teekoe at 5:56 AM
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