The Guardian - A shameful injustice by Philip Agee

Cuba's 50-year defiance of US attempts to isolate it is an
inspiration to Latin America's people

Philip Agee
Saturday March 10, 2007
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2030797,00.html

There is a wave of progressive change sweeping Latin America and the
Caribbean after the many lonely years in which Cuba held high the
torch, with free universal healthcare and education, and world-class
cultural, sports and scientific achievements. Although you won't find
a Cuban today who says things are perfect - far from it - probably
all would agree that compared with pre-revolutionary Cuba, there is a
world of improvement.

George Bush, the antithesis of this process, is now in Brazil at the
start of a mission to lure five countries away from regional economic
integration. However, the many thousands in the streets demonstrate
the region's vast repudiation of Bush and what he stands for,
something polls reflect unanimously.

All Cuba's achievements have been in defiance of US efforts to
isolate Cuba; every dirty method has been used, including
infiltration, sabotage, terrorism, assassination, economic and
biological warfare and incessant lies in the media of many countries.
I know these methods too well, having been a CIA officer in Latin
America in the 1960s. Altogether nearly 3,500 Cubans have died from
terrorist acts, and more than 2,000 are permanently disabled. No
country has suffered terrorism as long and consistently as Cuba.

The Cuban revolution has always needed intelligence capabilities in
the US for defence purposes, even before it took power in 1959. Such
was the fully justified mission of the Cuban Five, who have been in
jail since 1998 after being convicted of conspiracy to commit
espionage in Miami, where they had no chance of a fair trial. Their
sights were set exclusively on terrorist operations against Cuba -
activities ignored by the FBI - and they neither sought nor received
any classified government information. Their cases are still on
appeal, and will be for years, but their biased convictions rank with
the legal lynching in the 1920s of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo
Vanzetti, the anarchist immigrants, among the most shameful
injustices in US history.

Current US policy can be found in the 2004 report of the Commission
for Assistance to a Free Cuba (updated last year with a secret
annexe). A fundamental goal - the same, I remember, as in 1959 - is
the isolation of Cuba to stop this bad example spreading. If
successful, this would mean no less than annexation by, and complete
dependence on, the US, in fact if not in law. Other goals still
intact are to foment an internal political opposition and economic
hardship, leading to hunger and despair.

Yet nearly 50 years of US economic warfare hasn't worked, even though
Cubans estimate the cost to them at more than $80bn. After the
freefall in the early 1990s, with the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the economy began to recover in 1995. By 2005 growth was 11.8% and in
2006 12.5%, the highest in Latin America. Exports of services, nickel
and pharmaceutical and other products are booming, and the US has not
been able to stop this.

In the end efforts to isolate Cuba have failed. Last September Cuba
was elected, for the second time, to lead the Non-Aligned Movement of
118 countries, and two months later the UN voted for the 15th
consecutive year to condemn the US embargo, by 183 to 4. In 2007 Cuba
has diplomatic or consular relations with 182 countries, and Havana
hosts seemingly endless international conferences. In recent years
Cuba's resorts have been attracting more than 2 million tourists
annually. Far from isolating Cuba, the US has isolated itself.

More than 30,000 Cuban doctors and health workers are saving lives in
69 countries, many in difficult areas. Meanwhile 30,000 young people
from dozens of countries are studying medicine in Cuba on full
scholarships. All come from areas lacking doctors.

Cuba's literacy programme, known as "Yes I can", has been adopted in
nearly 30 countries, with thousands of Cuban volunteers teaching. The
scheme, conducted in Spanish, Portuguese, English, Creole, Quechua
and Aymara, has helped some 2 million people to read and write, most
of whom continue their education afterwards.

Thanks to this international assistance, Cuban prestige and
influence - and international solidarity with Cuba, - have never been
greater. It was to defend these worthy programmes that the Cuban
Five, unjustly convicted, went to Miami in the 1990s. Freedom for
them should be the cause of everyone for whom human rights and
justice are important, both in the US and around the world; and that
cause can be supported in 300 Free the Five solidarity committees in
90 countries.

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Philip Agee, a former CIA secret operations officer, is author of
Inside the Company: CIA Diary. He travels in Cuba and Latin America
as a campaigner, and manages an online travel service to Cuba.
philipagee@yahoo.com