Bush Gunning
For Regime
Change In Cuba
By Marjorie Cohn
Counterpunch
17 October, 2003
In
a brazen move to solidify his electoral support among Cuban-Americans
in Florida, George W. Bush is gunning for another "regime change."
Last week, Bush announced the formation of a commission to "plan"
for a Cuban change in government.
No country has the
right to change the regime of another. The International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights, a treaty ratified by the United States and
thus part of the supreme law of the land under our Constitution, recognizes
self-determination as a human right and guarantees all peoples the right
to "freely determine their political status and freely pursue their
economic, social and cultural development."
One need only look
at the mess Bush has created in Iraq to understand the wisdom of this
principle. Iraq is completely destabilized, the infrastructure has been
demolished, thousands are without work, water, electricity and medical
care. Many say they were better off under the tyrannical rule of Saddam
Hussein. That choice was up to the Iraqis, not the United States.
What if Sweden decided
that the United States needed a regime change, because of the high number
of people living below the poverty level, without jobs or health care,
the police brutality on our streets and in our prisons, the execution
of innocent people, and the indefinite detention and inhumane treatment
of 600 people in Guantanamo for nearly two years? Would Sweden have
the right to impose "regime change" on the United States?
Since Fidel Castro's
socialist revolution in 1959, every U.S. President from Dwight D. Eisenhower
through George W. Bush has maintained a cruel economic embargo--now
a blockade--against Cuba. The embargo began as a means to foment unrest
among Cubans in the hopes they would overthrow the Castro government.
More recently, it has been maintained as a vehicle to pander to the
anti-Castro Cuban-Americans in Florida who wield tremendous political
clout in the U.S. electoral system.
The Association
for World Health found that the embargo had "caused a significant
rise in suffering--and even deaths in Cuba." The Cuban people are
denied access to half the new medicines on the world market, and are
unable to buy some life-saving medical supplies because the U.S. punishes
countries which trade with Cuba. Fatal heart attacks have increased
because the U.S. pacemaker monopoly refuses to sell to Cuba.
In spite of the
punishing blockade against it, Cuba has the highest literacy rate in
the Americas and one of the highest in the world. The life expectancy
in Cuba is the longest in Latin America and one of the longest in the
world. Cuba's universal health care system puts ours to shame.
To further its political
agenda, our government is in denial about the advances Cuba has made
in rates of literacy, health care, and low infant mortality.
Cuba is not a threat
to the United States. Yet, Bush is opportunistically setting the stage
for a regime change in Cuba. The people of Cuba have the right to determine
their own system of government, free from the "plans" of George
W. Bush.
Marjorie Cohn, a
professor at Thomas Jefferson School in San Diego, is executive vice
president of the National Lawyers Guild.