The Special Period

Abstract

For three and a half decades the United States (today’s population 240 million) has striven to overthrow the Castro regime in Cuba (population 11 million). Many different tactics have been used: industrial sabotage, agricultural arson, assassination, threat of assassination, military invasion, manipulation of regional bodies, intimidation of domestic and foreign companies, black propaganda, threats to trading nations, economic embargo — all have been deployed in the attempt to subvert, pressure and terrorise a small sovereign state into subservience to Washington. The various measures — violations of both international law and natural justice — signal at one level a psychopathic mind-set, an obsessional disorder born of megalomania; at another, the clear perception that Cuba stands as an alarming demonstration that human society need not be rooted in money-grubbing exploitation.

This action [cancelling US imports of Cuban sugar] amounts to economic sanctions against Cuba. Now we must look ahead to other moves — economic, diplomatic and strategic.

President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 6 July 1960

No State may use or encourage the use of economic, political, or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights…

Charter (Article 16) of the Organisation of American States, adopted 1948

No State may use or encourage the use of economic, political, or any other type of measures to coerce another State in order to obtain from it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights…

Declaration of the United Nations, adopted in 1970 without dissent

Whether Castro leaves Cuba in a vertical or horizontal position is up to him and the Cuban people. But he must and will leave Cuba.

Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 12 February 1995