As is customary every year, the sitting U.S. president issued the official statement because of the date on which Cuba was formally constituted as an “independent” republic. “Today, we commemorate Cuban Independence Day—the 124th anniversary of a once free nation’s birth, forged through sacrifice, courage, and an unbreakable desire for liberty,” reads Trump’s statement. “Across generations, the Cuban people have demonstrated an unyielding devotion to the cause of freedom and a resilience of spirit that no regime—past or present—has been able to extinguish. On May 20, 1902, that defiant vision was realized when the Republic of Cuba was established, marking the beginning of self-government for our island neighbors,” it further states.
May 20, 1902, was, without question, a great day in Cuban history. In this regard, the near-total negation of that date imposed by the Cuban Revolution —for the reasons I explain below, as every victorious historical process reconstructs and resignifies the past— is just as misguided as its uncritical exaltation. From the Cuban side, I believe there is undoubtedly a need to find a better way to deal with May 20, 1902 —perhaps, who knows, by declaring it a public holiday, but not a festive celebration. From the other side, one must never forget that what was born that day was a republic critically limited in its autonomy, supervised by Washington through a provision—the Platt Amendment—embedded like an infamous appendix in the Cuban constitution of 1901.
That the government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the government of Cuba.
The naval base that the United States continues to maintain in Cuba at Guantánamo—against the popular will—originated from this formulation of the amendment:
That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its own defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States.
From the Congressional Record of February 27, 1901, I quote three senators who, regardless of their positions on other highly sensitive issues such as racial relations, expressed with great clarity what the Platt Amendment actually meant.
Henry M. Teller: “I greatly fear that it will wound the sensibilities of those people down there and that it may get us into trouble. I wish [Cubans] would accept it, for it would be infinitely better for them to accept it than it would to have other terms, infinitely harder and more drastic, applied to them, as I am sure they will be applied if this bill fails.”
Augustus Octavius Bacon: “I do not think that the amendment is in harmony with the pledge which we made when we went to war with Spain. I think that we are bound by that pledge, Mr. President [of the Senate]. That pledge is not consistent with the pronunciation by us of an ultimatum to the people of Cuba, saying that we will not release them from military control until they comply with that ultimatum... [The] amendment is not consistent with the obligation which we then solemnly took in the presence of the world. Cuba can not be free and independent if we can enforce these restraints upon her. If we are determined to violate our pledge, why stop half way? In that case we should go the whole way and take the island without reservation.”
James Kimbrough Jones: “[It] seems to reserve the right to the United States to judge at all times what sort of a government the Republic of Cuba has, and to intervene whenever the government does not suit the purposes of the Government of the United States. In other words, it seems that there is an intention to reserve to the Government of the United States a supervision and control of the government of Cuba, which is directly in the face of our pledge that Cuba should have an independent government.”
The extraordinary pressure that the U.S. government is currently exerting against Cuba —in violation of all principles of international law— has much to do with the kind of coercion to which the early twentieth-century imperial pioneers subjected us after thirty years of hard and bloody struggle against Spain. Many Cuban constitutional delegates ultimately accepted the amendment because they understood that, although it compromised independence, it was the best framework possible, in line with Senator Teller’s position. Better that than dealing indefinitely with the presence of U.S. troops, or accepting the possibility of entering into another long conflict.
Today we face a crossroads with different nuances, but within the same political register: either accept that the United States dictates to the authorities on the Island —whatever one’s assessment of them may be— how they should conduct themselves domestically and internationally —that is, how to organize the economy and democracy, and with whom they should or should not relate—, or confront the possibility —more real than at any other time in the last 63 years since the Missile Crisis— of direct military confrontation.
The indictment introduced today against Raúl Castro for events that occurred in February 1996 forms part of this strategy of economic, diplomatic, and military pressure. Beyond constituting a highly symbolic development for the so-called Cuban exile community in Florida —which now has Marco Rubio heading Foggy Bottom— it opens the possibility of repeating in Cuba an extraction operation like the one carried out in Venezuela last January 3.
I have spoken elsewhere about the events that took place thirty years ago, very near to, or within, Cuban airspace. As with May 20 itself, public debate sees only the extremes—for instance, look at Rubio today, distancing himself from even the slightest responsibility for the current state of affairs on the Island. Thus, from Miami, people see only the two planes shot down and the four fatalities, but nobody wants to examine and clear away the much more complicated history of repeated incursions and blatant, disrespectful violations of Cuban airspace, about which the Clinton administration possessed ample and sound knowledge.
Trump said this Wednesday —in yet another of his reversals— that there would be no further escalation. Still, I insist that the stances are irreconcilable if the United States continues pushing Cuba toward capitulation. As I have also said, my position in this regard does not mean that I do not believe —and, in fact, I strongly believe— that this country must undertake comprehensive political and economic reforms, which in many respects could correspond to things Washington wants to see here. But any development in that direction can only emerge from the decision and will of Cubans themselves—that is, as the resultant vector of that dialectical and geographically dispersed social structure that we are.
Source for the cover image.
