7 6 December - January 2017
INTERNATIONAL
Cubad
US and Them
by Patrick Horan
T
HREE YEARS before he was assassi-
nated, in 1898 US President William
McKinley, noticing that the Spanish
Empire was financially emaciated and
reeling under the pressures of subdu
-
ing its restive Cuban colony, decided it was time
for the USA to have colonies.
Decrying 'Spanish cruelty' towards the native
Cubans, McKinley, aided by the pliant William
Randolph Hearst's New York Journal, succeeded
in whipping up public support for a war with the
perplexed Spanish.
Having fought the Spanish to a standstill, the
Cubans were within touching distance of secur
-
ing independence for themselves when McKinley
unhelpfully dispatched the marines. Forgetful of
the reason he had sent his troops there in the
first place - the welfare of the Cuban peoples of
course - the usually humanitarian McKinley then
proceeded to dictate a peace of unprecedented
severity.
For the next 20 years a succession of dictators
(the favoured term is ‘strong men’ or, ideally,
'moderates') was imposed by Washington on
Cuba to serve the interests of US corporations
and their shareholders, eager to exploit the
island’s rich soil and temperature, conducive to
the growth of, amongst other things, bananas
and sugar cane. Real wages for Cubans plum-
meted and poverty soared, but this was ignored
and rendered irrelevant because it interfered
with the received wisdom that freedom brought
only wonders for the natives, a wisdom that
could never be refuted and has therefore never
been refuted.
Most important was the profits that would
accrue to US corporations which now descended
on Cuba in biblical droves, squawking overhead
like vultures spying a fresh carcass. Conditions
for the native Cuban workers were little better
than indentured servitude, but as long as the US
had 'their man in Havana' who enjoyed preferen-
tial status in return for crushing occasional
native labour disputes, (by 1930, 75 of the larg-
est sugar mills were owned by US corporations
who themselves controlled 5 million of the
island's total 27 million acres) Washington slept
soundly.
This policy was abruptly brought to an end on
New Year’s Day 1959 by Fidel Castro's popular
revolution. US-sponsored 'strong man', Fulgen-
cio Batista, departed Cuba with both a heavy
heart and $300 million of the bankrupt island's
wealth. This was a revolution from 'the ground-
up'. In other words Castro had the support of the
masses .
Unhelpfully, Castro did not completely break
ties with the United States, thus making it harder
for Washington to denounce him as ‘pure evil’ or
a ‘Communist stooge’. At first he even asked for
support under the US strategic umbrella. When
he heard of this request, President Eisenhower
balked: Castro was a Communist, so no dice.
Castro was made to feel even more like a bad
smell when he insisted that his revolution was
here to stay and the preferential treatment here
-
tofore accorded US corporations was over.
Dismissed by the stiff and austere Eisen-
hower, Castro, hopes raised, was then