Poster of Fidel Castro and Camilo Cienfuego
Cuba and US debate costs of the Revolution, 50 years on
WASHINGTON
(AFP)
Dec. 31, 2008
– Fifty years after the Cuban Revolution, the US government still accuses the Americas' only communist regime of doing irreparable harm, while Havana blames US trade sanctions for its economic ills.
Cuba's government has put its price-tag on allegedly crippling US sanctions: more than 92 billion dollars since 1962, when then president John F. Kennedy approved the full trade embargo in effect on Cuba, according to official Cuban data out in October.
But "the Cuban number is questionable because they don't release their methodology," Daniel Erikson, author of the book "Cuba Wars," told AFP.
"While it is arguable that the communist economic system has wrought more damage on the island than the US sanctions, the cost of the embargo is likely to be substantial," he says.
Still, in Cuba, the government blames US sanctions morning, noon and night for Cuba's economic ills -- even as the United States -- since a gaping 2001 humanitarian loophole was established -- emerged as its main supplier of food.
The United States has no official data on what its sanctions on Cuba might cost economically.
But what is known is that since President George W. Bush allowed cash-only food and medical sales to Cuba after a 2001 hurricane, US farmers have been making big sales they were missing for decades.
And US sanctions serve as a useful political symbol in both countries, whether or not they deliver much economic bite.
To be sure, if no US sanctions were in place and Cuba had access to credit,
the Caribbean nation likely would buy much more food and services from its neighbor to the north. If travel ties were normal, US tourists would earn more for Cuba's industry.
Even many US conservatives don't care for US sanctions on Cuba; Washington does not treat other countries like it does Cuba just because they have communist regimes.
"It is an insult to Americans who are barred from travelling there or doing business in Cuba," argued Daniel Griswold of the Cato Institute.
"By increasing our commercial ties to Cuba, America will be in a stronger position to influence events there. After almost half a century, the embargo has failed to change the Cuban regime or benefit the people of Cuba in any way," he said.
Some people closer to the US administration's policy point out that under the Fidel Castro and Raul Castro regime, Cubans' caloric intake has gone down sharply. The World Food Program has fed many in hardscrabble eastern Cuba, it says.
"Though some would blame Cuba's food problems on the US embargo, facts suggests the food shortages are a function of an inefficient collectivized agricultural system and a scarcity of foreign exchange resulting from Castro's unwillingness to liberalize Cuba's economy," a University of Miami Cuba Transition Project study found.
Cuba argues that among the Revolution's crowning achievements are socialism, universal access to education, and health care.
A common joke among Cuban emigrants, however, is that the Revolution's failures are breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Indeed a major export of the Revolution has been Cubans, voting with their feet. Cuba has 11 million people; the United States alone has more than 1.25 million Cuban Americans.
