What Wikileaks Teaches Us About Obama and Latin America

By Rebecca Ray - Common Dreams

President Obama has given little indication of the strategy for his upcoming trip through Chile, Brazil, and El Salvador. Will "the great listener" promote cooperation and understanding, or carry on the Bush administration’s approach of fighting against regional alliances?

Words of Wisdom from Past Leaders

Diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks show that last year Chilean President Bacheleturged the Obama administration to avoid separating South American nations into ideological pigeonholes:

President Bachelet emphasized the need to understand the nuances of Latin America’s leaders and their countries rather than lumping them into populist and pro-western camps … emphasizing that Morales was very different from Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

In prior years, Brazil has urged the US to establish direct dialogue with administrations that have clashed with the US.  In a 2009 visit:

…both [Presidential Foreign Policy Advisor] Garcia and [Foreign Minister] Amorim used the opportunity to encourage the United States to establish 'a direct channel of communication with President Chavez.' Amorim suggested that a good USG-GOV dialogue would have an impact on the domestic situation in Venezuela, as well, because much of the opposition to Chavez has ties to the United States.

And in a 2008 visit Brazil went so far as to offer help in establishing dialogue:

Garcia suggested that, "Maybe it is time (for the United States) to have a frank discussion with Bolivia" … Without wishing to be a mediator, he said, Brazil is willing to help in whatever it can, recalling a similar commitment he made to A/S Shannon two years earlier.

A Legacy of Division

If Obama takes either of these leaders' advice to heart, it will be a dramatic shift from the past.  The Wikileaks cables show us a detailed history of the Bush administration weakening cooperation between Latin American countries.  Not surprisingly, much of these efforts have been focused on separating Venezuela from its regional allies, but they also involved Brazil and Bolivia.

In a 2007 cable entitled "A Southern Cone Perspective on Countering Chavez and Reasserting U.S. Leadership," Santiago embassy staff develop a 6-point strategy to weaken Venezuela’s regional alliances:

1. "Know thy Enemy" (information sharing)
2. "Directly Engage" (more high-level US visits to other Latin American countries)
3. "Change the Political Landscape" (boosting Argentina’s and Brazil’s influence as counterweights)
4. "Play to Our Mil-Mil Advantage" (South American military training and peacekeeping operations)
5. "Stress Our Winning Formula" (aid and corporate social responsibility)
6. "Getting the Message Out" (public diplomacy)

An earlier cable from 2006 shows the US pushing for Brazil to work against Venezuela’s relationships with other countries:

Ambassador reiterated that the USG hopes more engagement by Brazil will serve to counterbalance Chavez' pernicious influence.

But the cables also focused on separating Brazil from the rest of the region.  In 2006, this entailed nipping in the bud a relationship between Lula and then-presidential candidate Evo Morales, as well as other leftist governments.  Embassy staff advised Ambassador Shannon:

… you can focus on the GOB’s outlook for what a Morales presidency means for regional integration, political stability and law enforcement. In particular, you can stress with all interlocutors our concerns about a possible dramatic expansion in cocaine production and export. … it will be interesting to press Garcia for explanations of statements by Lula last year that appeared to welcome Morales’ looming “populist” victory, and of how the GOB sees itself now in relation to the "Axis of Evo" (Morales, Chavez, Castro).

This strategy of division was far from successful for Bush. In spite of the Bush administrations' efforts, Brazil and Venezuela kept their alliance intact.

In 2005:

[Ambassador Danilovich] asked that FM Amorim consider institutionalizing a more intensive political engagement between the USG and GOB on Chavez, and standing up a dedicated intelligence-sharing arrangement. FM Amorim was clear in his response: "We do not see Chavez as a threat."

And later, in 2008:

Ministry of External Relations (MRE) contacts refuse to admit to us even in private that they are worried about Venezuelan interference in other countries.

And Brazilian diplomats insisted that they would continue their policy of cooperation, as Lula is a man who "believes deeply in South American unity."

In 2008:

…the USG encourages the GOB to assume greater leadership responsibilities, but the GOB is reluctant to take the controversial stances that go with leadership. Diaz replied that Brazil cannot assume leadership alone in the region, it must have partners, which would naturally be Argentina and Colombia, just as Germany and France are essential to each other in Europe. As a result, Brazil must continue to act in harmony with them and other regional players.

Has Obama Brought Change?

So far, the Obama State Department seems to have continued on the same path.

In 2009, several years after the US denied the intellectual property transfer necessary for Brazil to sell military aircraft to Venezuela, Brazilian diplomats explained to their US counterparts that it would be inconvenient if something similar blocked their sale to Bolivia.

If Bolivia wants Super Tucanos, Lula needs to be able to sell them. Brazil can’t afford the type of embarrassment caused by not being able to sell Super Tucanos to Venezuela.

The status quo appears to be continuing with isolating Venezuela, as well. For example, during the Venezuela-Colombia tensions of 2010 it chose a side rather than choosing to help ensure peace. While Brazil worked on de-escalating the conflict, the Obama administration reacted by agreeing to share intelligence with Colombia on any troop movements within Venezuela.

They did this even though they recognized Colombia’s concern about Venezuela to be "almost neuralgic." Moreover, they knew that Colombia had intentionally provoked Venezuela into the 2008 border dispute, and that Uribe held that the best reaction to any escalation in tension with Venezuela was "action – including use of the military."

Rebecca Ray is a Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (www.cepr.net).

February 14th 2011

venezuelanalysis

Bahamas Blog International

Should heads of government continue to hand down leadership to their children?

by Oscar Ramjeet



The three-week demonstration and protests in Egypt that claimed the lives of hundreds was due to the fact that President Mubarak wanted to hold on to power in order to pass on his "throne" to his son, Gamal.

However, the demonstrators held their ground, which forced him to resign, but it cost the Egyptian people a lot -- hundreds of lives, pain and suffering and billions of dollars in damage.

It is not unusual for heads of government to hand down leadership to their sons or even daughters, but when it comes to bloodshed it is an entirely different matter. We have seen it in India in the late 1950s and 1960s when Jawaharalall Nerhu passed down to his daughter Indira Gandhi and she subsequently to her son Sanjeev. It was similar in Pakistan when President Bhutto handed over to his daughter Bonazir Bhuttoo, who was also assassinated, and she passed power on to her 19-year-old son Bilawal Bhutto.

In North Korea, young Yang Hyong Sop, known as Kim Jong Un, has been identified to replace his father Kim Jong II, who succeeded his father Kim Sung II, who was the first leader of the country way back in 1948.

In Kenya, East Africa, 41-year-old Uhuru Kenyatta has been handpicked by outgoing President Daniel Arap Moi to replace him because Uhuru, who has no political experience, is the son of his mentor, Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first leader, who Moi succeeded in 1978.

Here in the Caribbean it is not too different. In Jamaica, we saw Norman Manley pass over the mantle to his son Michael. Vere C. Bird in Antigua and Barbuda to his son Lester. In Barbados, Grantley Adams to his son Tom, not to mention in Haiti, dictator Papa Doc, despite the fact that he raped the country of hundreds of millions, he "gave" the country to Baby Doc for him to continue to fleece the nation.

In Guyana, Forbes Burnham had five daughters and they were not interested in politics or else he would have placed one of them in a position to take over, but in any event he died at a relatively young of 62. Cheddi Jagan had a son, but he did not see eye to eye with his father and he was not "under his father's fold", hence his widow Janet took over, although she was a white American-born woman.

In St Vincent and the Grenadines, James Mitchell, who served three and half terms as prime minister did not have a son, and it is said that he changed the country's flag and removed the coat of arm and the breadfruit leaf, and replaced it with three green diamonds, which he said reflected the plural nature of the many islands of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

His critics however say that the three diamonds represented his three daughters. He had only three daughters at the time of the flag change on October 21, 1985.

Apparently his daughters were not interested in politics -- at least at that time -- so he handed over leadership of his New Democratic Party to Arnhim Eustace, who lost the government five months later. Now persons close to Sir James said he regretted the move, but nevertheless campaigned for him and New Democratic Party at the last general elections, when he made a very unfortunate statement that he cannot even trust God, which some critics say costs the NDP a lot of votes and maybe the government.

Now it is said that current St Vincent prime minister, Ralph Gonsalves, wants to hand over the mantle to his son, 38-year-old Camillo , a lawyer, who is now his country's permanent representative to the United Nations and US Ambassador based in New York.

I do not see a problem with that because I was told that Camillo, who is brown skinned, is competent enough to take over. In fact, he is much better than nearly all if not all the ministers in government.

Perhaps I should mention that Ambassador Gonsalves has made a name for himself in Washington. He was chosen as co-facilitator with Ambassador Frank Majoor of the Netherlands as facilitators for the preparatory process of the UN Conference of World Financial and Economic Crisis Impact.

He was in the forefront of making demands for more representation in the Security Council for Small Islands Developing State, which in my view is extremely good for a young diplomat.

I do not like to discuss race, especially in politics, but I mentioned that Camillo is brown skinned because the race card was touted in the November general elections, when it was said that the country, which comprises mainly blacks, has been run and administered by "red men" -- Mitchell and Gonsalves -- for more than 26 years. In the circumstances I feel that young Camillo will be the ideal person to replace his father and to administer the affairs of St Vincent and the Grenadines.

February 14, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

Childhood obesity in The Bahamas

Obesity crisis for Bahamian children
By CELESTE NIXON
Tribune Staff Reporter
cnixon@tribunemedia.net
Nassau, Bahamas



CHILDHOOD obesity is a serious concern in the Bahamas, with more than half the country's children being overweight, according to a local pediatrician.

Although there are no exact statistics available, Dr Jerome Lightbourn said he believes a significant portion of the next generation will not be able to live normal adult lives because of their weight.

Worse still, he said, many already show early signs of developing serious and possibly fatal obesity-related diseases.

The numbers that are available seem less alarming, but Dr Lightbourn is convinced they do not create an accurate picture.

Primary health care monthly reports, and the School Health Services annual report for 2004-2005, revealed that of 3,066 Bahamian 10-year-olds screened, 576 were considered overweight - a number which is still almost double the world average of 10 per cent.

For Dr Lightbourn, obesity as an "imported disease" and we only have to look to what is happening in other places to understand the extent of the danger.

He said: "We have had an influx of the western world, of mass produced foods with steroids, pesticides, hormones and the very popular fast foods."

The source of much of this food is the United States, and according to American Centre for Disease Control, childhood obesity in the US has more than tripled in the past 30 years. The prevalence of obesity among children aged six to 11 increased from 6.5 per cent in 1980 to 19.6 per cent in 2008.

Dr Lightbourn said: "We have grown up on good-tasting foods, for Bahamians that means fried chicken, macaroni and peas and rice, all high fat and high salt."

He said anyone consuming foods with a high salt and carbohydrate content runs the risk of developing diseases such as hypertension, high cholesterol and diabetes.

"It is a cultural and generational problem. We need to address it from a public health perspective just as we address AIDS, cancer and cigarette smoking, obesity is probably killing more people than any of them," said Dr Lightbourn.

Childhood obesity is a serious medical condition which affects children and adolescents. It occurs when a child is well above the normal weight for his or her age and height.

This is called a body mass index (BMI).

When a person's BMI is 25 or greater, they are considered morbidly obese, said Dr Lightbourn.

Childhood obesity is particularly troubling because the extra pounds often start children on the path to health problems which were once confined to adults.

"The issue in the Bahamas, and around the world, is that adult onset life style diseases such as hypertension, diabetes and even cholesterol are now being associated with childhood," said Dr. Lightbourn.

"We are seeing these diseases in younger and younger people. Heart disease in no longer a 70-year-old issue, it is a 30-year-old disease."

Dr Lightbourn, an advisor at the Princess Margaret Hospital, revealed there are at least four children under the age of 12 in the children's ward who are not only obese but diabetic - a condition which can lead to kidney failure, heart disease, or blindness among other illnesses.

He said: "There needs to be a year-long campaign, not just during Heart Month, and should be a united approach by educators, parents and the government."

Dr Lightbourn recommends that children exercise for one hour every day, and that sodas and unhealthy foods be eliminated from cafeterias.

He also stressed the importance of parents and teachers leading by example and making important lifestyle changes themselves.

February 12, 2011

tribune242

Bahamas Blog International

Is Haiti in better shape than a generation ago with the advent of democracy?

Haiti's twenty-five-year flirtation with democracy: A failed experience!
By Jean H Charles


I remember where I was, twenty five years ago, on February 7, 1986. I was leading, along with community leader Wilson Desir, a parade in Brooklyn, New York, celebrating the departure of the dictatorship that had gripped Haiti for thirty five years under Duvalier pere and fils governance.

In the jubilation that engulfed the Haitian community, joy and good wishes were shared by the whole New York citizenry with the Haitian people.

A nurse from the Philippines wanted to see Marcos and his Jezebel wife Imelda thrown out of her country.

“The people power” born in Haiti would spread like wildfire in the Philippines to chase Marcos out of power in September 1986.

An old man from Poland, tears in his eyes, dreamed with me of a motherland without the militarism under Russian leadership. Lech Walesa would come some years later (1989) to deliver Poland from the grip of the Russian army.

As if on cue, twenty-five years later, another wave of people power, this time born in Tunisia, is shaking the entire Arab world. It is demanding the departure of Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt with an iron hand during the last thirty years. He was grooming his son to become the next chief of state, as the people say enough is enough!

Jordan, Syria, Yemen all have their political and social convulsions demanding the advent of a nation that shall become hospitable to all. In this age when the internet, Twitter, texting and other means of fast communication are becoming an effective tool of militancy, the era of dictatorship is fading away at great speed.

The Haitian Constitution promulgated one year after the departure of Jean Claude Duvalier, as well as the successive elections, did not safeguard the nation against the culture of illiberal governance.

Twenty-five year later, to the question whether Haiti is in better shape than a generation ago with the advent of democracy, the answer is a clear and unequivocal no.

There are improvements in the area of freedom of expression, yet there is a deep deceleration in the area of environmental, food, personal, and public health security in spite of massive foreign intervention.

The western style of democracy, with recurrent elections, has been in Haiti a bad vehicle for dispatching essential services and efficient institutions. The concept of nation-building has not been in the lexicon of governmental praxis.

Haiti is still the land of a wide schism between the vast majority (87%) of the population living in a fragile environment, in extreme poverty, without education and formation, versus a minority (13%) highly sophisticated in full control of the political, financial and social level of the society.

A brief vignette of the governments after the departure of Jean Claude Duvalier reveals a pattern of corruption, foreign interference with bad faith, inadequate leadership, and complete indifference to the fate of the population.

I rushed to Haiti after February 7, 1986, to help the military government establish a Haiti hospitable to all. In spite of my personal relationship with the military leader, I was not received as a friend because I came to reconcile Henry Namphy (the military leader) with Gerard Gourgue (the civilian leader) for the sake of the nation, instead of getting into the gossip of the day. Namphy led by a gang of venal military officers would be chased out of office a year later after the burning of a church packed with worshippers.

The transitional government of Ertha Trouillot introduced in Haiti the complete stronghold of the international community into the Haitian res publica, leading to the UN occupation, the advent of the mobster style government of Jean Bertrand Aristide, followed by his nemesis Rene Preval, who wears a velvet glove while presiding over a nation sliding at great speed into an abyss without end.

In contrast to Haiti over the past twenty-five years, the experience of Singapore, Malaysia, China, Vietnam and even next door Dominican Republic, based on the Renan doctrine, with no foreign intervention in following their own footprint has achieved within a generation the building of a nation with a growing middle class, delivering good services with essential infrastructure.

Haiti, at the dawn of a new generation in its experience of democracy, is engulfed profusely with a foreign intervention that seems to sustain the old culture of squalor for the majority and enlightenment for the minority.

Edmond Mulet, the chief UN resident with its machine of deterrence (MINUSTHA), has sided with Rene Preval, the decried president, to sustain a legislature bent on keeping Haiti in a failed democratic mode, postponing the advent of the emergence of true democracy in the nation.

The timing of the transition from one regime to another, the link that could break the chain of injustice, is once again hijacked by a foreign hand with a strong grip, this time with international glove.

At age 25, the Haitian democracy must take a new turn. It cannot be continued nor replicated beyond Haiti’s borders. The complete absence of governmental leadership, supplemented by the so called force of stabilization, has been a recipe for disaster.

Haiti democracy will grow in age gracefully when it takes charge of building its own army (replacing the MINUSTHA) that will protect its environment and its people; when it will root its population in their localities with ethical institutions and adequate infrastructure and when, last but not least, she will take the national determination to leave no one behind!

This is the formula for a successful democracy. So far, the western democracies, the international institutions have prevented these steps from taking root in the underdeveloped countries like Haiti, while they are the staple policy in Europe and in the United States.

The exceptional models of Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam that rely on their own culture, the strength of their people united as one to defend and to enhance the motherland, while treating each citizen as a potential jewel that should be polished for the glory of the nation will soon become the international canvas copied all over the world!

Thomas Friedman, in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, put it best: “Tharir Square (the site of the protest in Cairo Egypt) will be for now on the wave of the future.” The generation in waiting is fighting for a better standard of living, not for a cause but for Egypt or Haiti, starting with each one of them.

Once again, as two hundred years ago, the failure of the international institutions in the last twenty-five years to incubate on their watch, true democracy in Haiti is a lesson for all nations to learn from.

Note:
A test of the maturity of the Haitian democratic process: In the tradition of Justice John Marshall, the issue of removing or retaining the Haitian president, who remains in power after its mandate can and should be solved not by street demonstrations or a dicta by the UN resident Edmond Mulet but by the judiciary, the Haitian Supreme Court (Cour de Cassation) that will decide whether Rene Preval can remain into power beyond February 7.

February 12, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

National self-interest and the absence of vision among CARICOM leaders are pulling the Caribbean apart

CARICOM: It's leadership that's needed
By Sir Ronald Sanders



There should be no doubt that the people of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are well aware that failure of the regional integration project to contribute to solving the urgent problems, which now beset their countries, is a really a failure of leadership.

In a thoughtful – almost despairing - column last week entitled “A new commitment to regionalism”, my friend and colleague, David Jessop, recorded his troubling conversations with “a wide range of Caribbean visitors on where the regional integration process is going”. He reported that “to a person, all were concerned that national self-interest and the absence of vision among leaders were pulling the Caribbean apart and removing any ambition for taking the regional project forwards”.

As I was about to write this commentary, I received an email from a distinguished and learned Caribbean person who has held ministerial office in the region and whose regional contacts are wide and diverse. The email said: ”The real problem is that there is no one among the reigning political class of vision and intellect sufficient to provide the leadership. There is, too, no technician of the calibre of (William) Demas or (Sir Alister) McIntyre. Additionally, the impact of the recession has left the politicians with no time for the integration movement. They are really pushed onto a survival path struggling as they all do with growing unemployment and serious financial problems both on their current and foreign accounts. The virtual abandonment of the integration movement is unfortunate, for a fully functioning, expanded and enriched integration will in the end be the buffer against some of the very problems which we are currently experiencing”.

And, therein lies the rub – there is a lack of understanding that a fully functioning, expanded and enriched integration could help to solve many of the problems that now confront CARICOM countries.

What the region needs now is more not less integration, for not one of its member countries – not even Trinidad and Tobago with its oil and gas resources – can hope to maintain its autonomy in a globalized world in which the rich and powerful are intent upon a new kind of dominance; one which marginalizes small countries whose concerns become important only when they coincide with the interests of the powerful.

The leaders of CARICOM, therefore, should be strengthening and sharpening the regional integration process as a vital instrument in improving the conditions of their countries individually and collectively.

But, the process has to start with a willingness by leaders to talk with each other frankly, openly and with empathy, and it has to be infused with an acknowledgment that they have side tracked the regional integration process, and must put it back on a main track because their countries need it. The conversation has to be underlined by a desire to reach collective decisions which take account of the circumstances of each in trying to achieve benefits for all.

The present media squabble over an announcement by those in Trinidad and Tobago who own and control Caribbean Airlines Limited (CAL) that it will compete with LIAT in some Eastern Caribbean destinations, and the response of the Prime Minister of St Vincent & the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, epitomizes the absence of dialogue at appropriate levels in the region.

One would hope that if the region now had a strong Secretary-General as the Chief Executive Officer of the regional movement, he or she would have stepped-in long ago not only to diffuse this issue, but to steer the leaders involved to a path of cooperation that could realize mutually beneficial objectives.

But the truth is that the regional movement now needs more than a strong Secretary-General, it requires a complete overhaul of the entire CARICOM machinery, beginning with a renewed commitment to regionalism by leaders. New priorities have to be set for CARICOM and many of its dead-weight issues dropped; both sufficient financial resources and appropriate skills have to employed to accomplish the priorities which must include strategic partnerships with the private sector and with international partners including China, India and Brazil to help crank-up economic growth through investment and employment.

All is not well in CARICOM. Indeed, much of it is ailing, and while the regional project weakens, all of its member countries are being left behind in the global race for betterment.

There are also some stark realities that should be confronted, not to jab accusatory fingers but to see how best these realities can be used to improve national economies and the region as a whole.

Here are some of the realities. Trinidad and Tobago has consistently maintained the smallest percentage of intra-regional imports, as a percentage of total imports, averaging less than 2 percent each year between 2004 and 2009 and valued at its highest point in 2008 at US$121 million. On the flip side, Trinidad and Tobago has enjoyed the largest increase in intra-regional exports from US$859 million in 2004 to US$3.2 billion in 2008 (source: Caricom Secretariat Trade and Investment report 2010). That surplus alone – which many regional producers ascribe to “unfair advantage” due to cheaper sources of energy – should encourage Trinidad and Tobago to work with its CARICOM partners to invest some of that trade surplus not in “give-aways” but in bankable projects that would bring mutual benefits to all.

A further reality is that Jamaica is the largest intra-regional importer, due in part to its larger population size. Jamaican manufacturers cry out about the unfair advantage of Trinidad manufacturers, but the CARICOM treaty allows Jamaican manufacturers to establish a manufacturing presence in Trinidad and to also take advantage of cheaper energy.

There are myriad ways in which CARICOM can benefit all its members, if there is a resolve to approach the regional project with a “can do” and not “will not do” attitude. And, there is much that CARICOM should be doing collectively. Tourism – the engine of economic growth for the majority of countries – is struggling and desperately needs combined regional action that it is not getting.

Here again are some facts: Between 1998 and 2008, tourist arrivals in CARICOM grew at an average rate of 2 percent per year while the world average was 6.5 percent per year. Arrivals in CARICOM fell to 5.96 million in 2008 from all time high of 6.16 million in 2007. The years 2009 and 2010 showed no improvement and introduced many new challenges. To revitalize the industry and to make it globally competitive requires regional creativity and regional action.

CARICOM needs strong leadership, a new vision and new and relevant priorities in a more dynamic structure. Only the leaders can begin the process of overhauling it for the benefit of the region’s people.

February 11, 2011

caribbeannewsnow

Bahamas Blog International

50th Anniversary of the Bay of Pigs: Eisenhower tramples right to travel to Cuba

• Granma International is publishing a series of articles on the events leading up to the April, 1961 battle of the Bay of Pigs. As we approach the 50th Anniversary of this heroic feat, we will attempt to recreate chronologically the developments which occurred during this period and ultimately led to the invasion. The series will be a kind of comparative history, relating what was taking place more or less simultaneously in revolutionary Cuba, in the United States, in Latin America, within the socialist camp and in other places in some way connected to the history of these first years of the Cuban Revolution

By Gabriel Molina

• THE unprecedented prohibition of January 17, 1961 – three days before the presidential inauguration of John F. Kennedy – was an attempt to close off a source of income to the island and force its surrender through hunger. The plan to launch an invasion during the 1960 electoral campaign so that Vice President Nixon could take advantage of the result was postponed when it was realized it needed to be further developed. Up until that point there was confidence that a repetition of the successful 1954 CIA operation against President Arbenz of Guatemala would be enough for Nixon to beat the charismatic Senator Kennedy.

But Kennedy’s victory in November 1960 made it more urgent to activate the operation before Cuba’s rapid military strengthening progressed any farther. Hence the measure breaking off diplomatic relations signed by Eisenhower on January 3, 1961, less than three weeks before his presidential term ended.

A meeting at CIA headquarters attended by Tracy Barnes, assistant deputy director for plans under Richard Bissell, and J.C. King, chief of the Latin America Division, had approved the idea of infiltrating an agent into Havana’s military leadership to provoke an accident leading to the death of Raúl Castro, the second leader of the Revolution. According to the U.S. Senate Church Committee, the order was given in a cable datelined July 21, 1960 to the CIA center in Cuba. (2)

The attack on freedom of movement represented by the travel ban was concealed under the pretext that normal security services could not be provided to U.S. citizens after the breaking off of diplomatic relations. Prior to this a series of measures, both secret and public had led to virtually eliminating U.S. tourism to Cuba. But the government feared visits by groups traveling to the island despite the adverse propaganda.

Having seen that Cuban realities were did not match what was being said in the United States, these groups of liberal and progressive Americans condemned the anti-Cuban campaigns and made statements of solidarity with Cuba.

Meanwhile, it was announced that U.S. National Airlines was suspending flights to Cuba.

Fidel clarified the underlying reason for the measure: the Revolution constituted an example, not only for the peoples of Latin America, but also for the U.S. people.

When the measure came into effect, The New York Times published a letter on the ban from Alice Hussey Balassa, an American citizen who had returned to her country after a short vacation in Cuba. Her letter referred to signs of material progress among the many benefits achieved by the population: ending extreme poverty in the barrios, reducing illiteracy, increasing housing for workers and campesinos and building schools and campesino cooperatives.

Official documents declassified by the National Security Archive revealed that on December 12, 1963, less than one month after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, still U.S. Attorney General at the time, sent a communiqué to Secretary of State Dean Rusk urging him to withdraw the regulations on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba. On that occasion, Robert Kennedy described the limitations on travel to the island as a violation of American liberties. In those same documents, found in the Congressional library and in that of President John F. Kennedy and declassified June 29, 2005, the Attorney General added that it was impractical to arrest, bring charges and commit to prosecutions in bad taste against citizens wishing to travel to Cuba.

Kennedy’s initiative was supported by McGeorge Bundy, National Security adviser, who also described them in another memo as inconsistent with traditional American liberties.

However, on December 13, 1963, the day after Robert Kennedy’s appeal, George Ball, under secretary in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, discounted any relaxation in the restrictions. The decree was maintained by President Lyndon Johnson, who alleged that a decision on Cuba during the 1964 elections would hurt him. Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy after his assassination, also rejected subsequent action by the Attorney General to normalize relations.

A meeting about the measures did not include any representative of Robert Kennedy, although he had initiated the proposal to withdraw them. Instead, Ball proposed to warn people considering a trip to the island that, if they did so, their passports would be invalidated and they could face prosecution.

Despite Robert Kennedy’s continuing attempts to rescind them, the measures were upheld by President Johnson, until they were left without effect by James Carter during his 1976-80 presidential term. But the restrictions were re-imposed by President Reagan, who succeeded Carter in January 1981. At the beginning of his second term in office (1996-2000), Clinton allowed travel endorsed by licenses for religious, academic and other purposes. After that, Bush Jr. reinstituted the ban during the 2004 electoral campaign. This year, the Obama administration reversed the measures returning to the situation established by Clinton in the context of his Track II policy: granting licenses for person to person contact. In essence, they make no dent whatsoever in the blockade.

On the same afternoon following the assassination of the President, Robert Kennedy asked John McCone, who replaced Allen Dulles as CIA director, if the agency was responsible for the crime against his brother. Robert knew that the CIA was controlled by Richard Helms, an intelligence professional appointed as its Deputy Director and Director of Plans, who always regarded Robert’s activities with scorn.

In the following months, still as Attorney General in the Johnson administration, Robert was quietly investigating groups of CIA officers and Cuban gangs, whom he got to know and to suspect of involvement in his brother’s death.

Five years later, at the point of contesting the presidency against Richard Nixon, he was even more convinced that attempts to blame Cuba for the assassination were part of a CIA-Cuban gang conspiracy.

When Robert stated for the first time during an electoral meeting, in response to a question on the issue, that if he won the presidency he would reopen an investigation into the assassination, he was endangering the CIA’s well-guarded secret.

The conclusions of the Congressional Special Committee which investigated the assassination of the president from 1976-1978 included a demand that the Justice Department reopen the investigation. But the CIA refused to open the files on the case, which it concealed from the House Select Committee chaired by Democrat Louis Stokes.

In the spring of 2007 it was announced that members of a group of CIA officers suspected of having participated in the assassination of the President, including George Joannides, chief of Psychological Warfare at the JM/WAVE station, were present, outside of their functions, in the hotel where Robert Kennedy was assassinated, after his bid for the presidency was secured. Since then, new evidence revealed by investigators points to reopening the case, but the CIA has remitted files on the tragic events to a period of 50 years before they can be opened.

According to the book Brothers… by researcher David Talbot, diplomat and journalist William Attwood, a participant in the negotiations authorized by the President a few days before the assassination and some close friends of Robert Kennedy, revealed that "Helms put an intercept on [eminent journalist] Lisa Howard’s telephones." (3) For this reason, the Attorney General also suspected that the CIA group and the Cuban mafiosi with whom they were working in relation to conspiracies against Fidel, were also conspiring to perpetrate the assassination.

Given that Robert was John’s right-hand man and the actor of his ideas and actions, "some close Democrat friends of the Attorney General nicknamed Bobby ‘Raúl’ (4) joking about a certain similarity to Fidel and Raúl in his missions. •

(1)Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI (Cuba)

(2) Church Committee Report. Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders. B-Cuba, Pp 71.

(3) David Talbot. Brothers. The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. Simon & Schuster. 2007, P. 233.

(4) Ibid. Pp. 92.

Havana. February 10 , 2011

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Is The West Indies West Indian? (Part 3)

By Sir Shridath Ramphal


There is another major respect in which the West Indies, in not being West Indian in the Marryshow manner, is not being true to itself. We are failing to fulfill the promise we once held out of being a light in the darkness of the developing world. Small as we are, our regionalism, our West Indian synonymy, inspired many in the South who also aspired to strength through unity. Solidarity has been lost not only amongst ourselves, but also collectively with the developing world.

And, perhaps, therein lies the ‘rub’. Were we making a reality of our own regional unity we would not be false to ourselves and we would have inspired others who, in the past, had looked to us as a beacon of a worthy future. Instead, we are losing our way both at home and abroad.

Have we forgotten the days when as West Indians we were the first to daringly bring the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ to the Western Hemisphere, when we pioneered rejection of the ‘two China’ policy at the United Nations and recognized the People’s Republic; when, together, we broke the Western diplomatic embargo of Cuba; when we forced withdrawal of the Kissinger plan for a ‘Community of the Western Hemisphere’; when we were in the front rank (both intellectual and diplomatic) of the effort for a New International Economic Order; when from this region, bending iron wills, we gave leadership in the struggle against ‘apartheid’ in Southern Africa; when we inspired the creation of the ACP and kept the fallacy of ‘reciprocity’ in trade at bay for 25 years; when we forced grudging acceptance in the United Nations and in the Commonwealth that ‘small states’ required special and differential treatment? In all this, and more, for all our size we stood tall; we commanded respect, if not always endearment. We were West Indians being West Indian.

For what do we stand today, united and respected as one West Indies? We break ranks among ourselves (Grenada, I acknowledge, no longer) so that some can bask in Japanese favour for helping to exterminate endangered species of the world’s whales. We eviscerate any common foreign policy in CARICOM when some of us cohabit with Taiwan. Deserting our African and Pacific partners, we yield to Europe -- and take pride in being first to roll over.

What do these inglorious lapses do for our honor and standing in the world? How do they square with our earlier record of small states standing for principles that commanded respect and buttressed self-esteem? The answers are all negative. And, inevitably, what they do in due measure is require us to disown each other and display our discordance to the world. This is where ‘local control’ has led us in the 21st Century. We call it now ‘sovereignty’. In reality, it is sovereignty we deploy principally against each other; because against most others that sovereignty is a hollow vessel.

It is easy, perhaps natural, for us as West Indian people to shift blame to our governments; and governments, of course, are not blameless. But, in our democracies, governments do what we allow them to do: they themselves say: ‘we are doing what our people want us to do’. It is not always true; but who can deny it, when we accept their excesses with equanimity, certainly in silence.

No! There is fault within us also. We have each been touched with the glow of ‘local control’; each moved by the siren song of ‘sovereignty’; have each allowed the stigma of otherness, even foreignness, to degrade our West Indian kinship. The fault lies not only in our political stars but also in ourselves that we are what and where we are; and what and where we will be in a global society that demands of us the very best we can be. When the West Indies is not West Indian, it is we, at least in part, who let it be so. And what irony: Marryshow and his peers demanded that we be West Indian to be free together. We were; but in our freedom we are ceasing to be West Indian and in the process are foregoing the strengths that togetherness brings.

When are we at our best? Surely, when the West Indies is West Indian; when we are as one; with one identity; acting with the strength and courage that oneness gives us. Does anyone doubt that whatever we undertake, we do it better when we do it together?

Thirty-five years ago, in 1975, on the shores of Montego Bay, as I took leave of Caribbean leaders before assuming new roles at the Commonwealth, my parting message was a plea TO CARE FOR CARICOM. Among the things I said then was this:

Each generation of West Indians has an obligation to advance the process of regional development and the evolution of an ethos of unity. Ours is endeavoring to do so; but we shall fail utterly if we ignore these fundamental attributes of our West Indian condition and, assuming without warrant the inevitability of our oneness, become casual, neglectful, indifferent or undisciplined in sustaining that process and that evolution.

The burden of my message is that we have become ‘casual, neglectful, indifferent and undisciplined’ in sustaining and advancing Caribbean integration: that we have failed to ensure that the West indies is West Indian, and are falling into a state of disunity, which by now we should have made unnatural. The process will occasion a slow and gradual descent – from which a passing wind may offer occasional respite; but, ineluctably, it will produce an ending.

In Derek Walcott’s recently published collection of poems, White Egrets-- for which he has just won the prestigious T.S. Elliot Prize -- there are some lines which conjure up that image of slow passing:

With the leisure of a leaf falling in the forest,
Pale yellow spinning against green – my ending.

This must not be a regional epitaph. But, if CARICOM is not to end like a leaf falling in the forest, prevailing apathy and unconcern must cease; reversal from unity must end. The old cult of ‘local control’ must not extinguish hope of regional rescue through collective effort; must not allow a narcissist insularity to deny us larger vision and ennobling roles. We must escape the mental prison of narrow domestic walls and build a West Indies that is West Indian. We must cherish our local identities; but they must enrich the mosaic of regionalism, not withhold from it their separate splendours.

In some ways, it must be allowed; our integration slippage is less evident among the smallest of us. The OECS islands have set out a course for more ambitious and deeper economic integration among themselves, which would be worthy of all, if it could subsist for all. The Treaty establishing the OECS Economic Union is now in force. But, it is early days; it remains to be seen at the level of action, at the level of implementation, whether, even for them, the earlier ‘agony’ (of which Sir Arthur Lewis wrote so ruefully in 1962) lingers still. Meanwhile, however, congratulations are in order, and I extend them heartily.

In moving closer to ‘freedom of movement’ among the OECS countries they have set a vital example to the rest of CARICOM. The OECS West Indies is being West Indian. May it translate into an ethos among them, and in time infuse the wider Community with an end to ‘foreignness’ among all West Indians. The OECS islands have taken the first steps in a long journey whose ultimate goal must be a larger union.

Collectively, we must recover our resolve to survive as one West Indies -- as one people, one region, one whole region. Imbued by such resolve there is a future that can be better than the best we have ever had. Neither complacency nor resignation nor empty words will suffice. What we need is rescue – by ourselves, from ourselves and for ourselves. We cannot be careless with our oneness, which is our lifeline. As it was in St Georges in 1915, so it is now: The West Indies must be Westindian!

The foregoing is an extract from the Eleventh Sir Archibald Nedd Memorial Lecture delivered by Sir Shridath Ramphal in Grenada on 28 January 2011.

February 10, 2011

Is The West Indies West Indian? (Part 1)

Is The West Indies West Indian? (Part 2)

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