NATO FAILED STATE

'Catastrophic' pollution plagues Libya beaches


Issued on: 25/08/2021 - 

Libyans swim in the Mediterranean at the capital Tripoli's waterfront. Libya's infrastructure has been devastated by a decade of conflict, state collapse and neglect since the 2011 overthrow and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi Mahmud TURKIA AFP


Tripoli (AFP)

With untreated sewage in the water and rubbish piled on the sand, pollution on Tripoli's Mediterranean coast is denying residents of the war-torn Libyan capital a much-needed escape.

The environment ministry last month ordered the closure of a number of beaches along the 30-kilometre (18-mile) Greater Tripoli coastline, despite the roasting summer heat.

"The situation is catastrophic," said Abdelbasset al-Miri, the ministry official in charge of monitoring the coast.

"We need quick solutions for this problem because it harms the environment just as much as it harms people."

Daily discharges of untreated sewage from the capital's two million population make this the most polluted section of the North African country's 1,770-kilometre coastline.

Cans, plastic bags and bottles plague the water and shore.

On one beach, near a large hotel, open-air rivulets channel untreated wastewater into the sea, where a few young men brave the contaminated waters in search of cool.

Libya's infrastructure has been devastated by a decade of conflict, state collapse and neglect since the 2011 overthrow and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a NATO-backed rebellion.

For a country of seven million where leisure facilities are almost non-existent, swimming is a much-needed way to relax and cool down 

Mahmud TURKIA AFP

But Tripoli's only sewage works closed years before that, like many industrial facilities shuttered for lack of maintenance or funding.

As a result, all of Tripoli's wastewater goes directly into the Mediterranean.

"Huge amounts of sewage gets dumped in the sea every day," said Sara al-Naami of Tripoli city council.

- 'Summer prison' -

Laboratory tests have found "a high concentration of bacteria, 500 percent more than normal," including E. Coli, at five sites along the capital's coastline, she added.

"We have raised the issue of pollution in Tripoli's seawater with the former and current governments, and emphasised the urgent need for a sanitation facility," Naami said.

Daily discharges of untreated sewage from the capital's two million population make the Tripoli shore the most polluted section of the North African country's 1,770-kilometre coastline 

Mahmud TURKIA AFP

But, she said, in the absence of such infrastructure, "temporary solutions" are needed such as settling tanks to filter wastewater before it reaches the sea.

A hard-won ceasefire last year led to a UN-backed government being installed several months ago, with elections set for December.

But day to day, Libyans continue to face power cuts, a liquidity crisis and biting inflation.

And for a country of seven million where leisure facilities are almost non-existent, swimming is a much-needed way to relax and cool down.

Some take to the water despite the risks.

But shop owner Walid al-Muldi doesn't want to risk getting sick.

The environment ministry has ordered the closure of a number of beaches along the Greater Tripoli coastline, despite the roasting summer heat 

Mahmud TURKIA AFP

"It's become worse over the years. During heatwaves, the smell gets disgusting," the 39-year-old said, sitting on a plastic seat a few paces from the shoreline.

"You have to go more than 100 kilometres east of Tripoli to find water that's a bit cleaner."

His friend, Mohammed al-Kabir, agreed.

Because of coronavirus restrictions and the unhealthy sea water, "Libyans live in a summer prison," he said.

© 2021 AFP

ECOCIDE THIRD WORLD USA

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' reeling in the time of Covid

Issued on: 25/08/2021 -

The Denka chemical plant in Reserve, Louisiana is the only US site that produces neoprene, a material used for wetsuits, gloves and electrical insulators Emily Kask 00059360A/AFP

Reserve (United States) (AFP)

Silos, smokestacks and brown pools of water line the banks of the Mississippi River in Louisiana, where scores of refineries and petrochemical plants have metastasized over a few decades. Welcome to "Cancer Alley."

Industrial pollution on this ribbon of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge puts the mostly African-American residents at nearly 50 times the risk of developing cancer than the national average, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

For years activists, who gave the 87-mile (140-kilometer) stretch its sinister nickname, have been fighting to clean up the area.

Then, last spring, it began making headlines for a different reason: one of its parishes -- Louisiana's equivalent of US counties -- was hit with the highest rate of Covid-19 related deaths in the country.

"It ran through this community. People were terrified here," says Robert Taylor, 79, a resident of the parish of St John's the Baptist.

Robert Taylor, seen in front of his home in Reserve, Louisiana, has seen his mother, sister, wife and nephews all suffer from cancer Emily Kask 00059360A/AFP

In April 2020, at the height of the first wave, three residents were dying every day in the community of 43,000.

"It changed our way of life," says Angelo Bernard, 64, who works for the Marathon refinery.

"In Reserve, we all used to get together all the time," he remembers. "We don't anymore. I go out as little as possible."

Since then nearly one in eight parishioners has been infected.

The Delta variant has made the situation even worse: infections have exploded in the last three weeks.

- 'We jumped on it' -

Deaths, however, have slowed in recent months -- eight this summer, perhaps thanks to a vaccination rate that is among the highest in Louisiana.

The Reserve, Louisiana neighborhood where Robert Taylor, Angelo Bernard and Robert Moore live is near the Denka chloroprene plant Emily Kask 00059360A/AFP

After the trauma of 2020 parishioners rushed to get their shots, and St John's the Baptist now has 44.3 percent of its residents fully vaccinated, compared to 39.4 percent in the rest of the state.

"When it first came up that vaccination, you know, would help people, well we jumped on it," smiles another resident, Robert Moore.

That reaction is perhaps not surprising in a community that has already dealt with so much tragedy.

Like many of the residents of his neighborhood in the small town of Reserve, Moore devoted his life to the nearby plant formerly owned by US chemical company DuPont.

Set up in 1968 on a former plantation, the plant -- some of whose pipes reach into the opaque waters of the Mississippi -- was purchased in 2015 by the Japanese company Denka.

It is the only site in the United States that produces neoprene, a material used to make wetsuits, gloves or electrical insulators.

To produce neoprene the plant emits chloroprene, a chemical classified as a probable carcinogen by the EPA in 2010.

Astronomical amounts of the chemical were detected in Reserve's air in the early 2010s, prompting the environmental agency to set a recommended limit of 0.2 micrograms of chloroprene per cubic meter.

Across the road from the plant, an air quality monitoring station serves as a grim reminder.

- 'Vulnerable' -

When Taylor got wind of the scandal, he was only half-surprised: the former construction worker had long wondered why cancer -- which struck his mother, and his sister, and his wife, and his nephews -- was so prevalent in his town.

Angelo Bernard (R) in front of his home with his brother Byron in Reserve

 Emily Kask 00059360A/AFP

Chloroprene is not the only factor affecting the health of Cancer Alley residents.

In Reserve, where more than 60 percent of the 9,000 residents are Black, the poverty rate is two and a half times the national average.

It is a population with "lots of comorbidities, lots of social challenges, socio-economic factors that contribute to poor health outcomes," notes Julio Figueroa, an infectious disease specialist at Louisiana State University.

"They are going to be a vulnerable population," he said.

President Joe Biden acknowledged the challenges facing "Cancer Alley" shortly after his arrival in the White House.

He said he aimed to address "the disproportionate health and environmental and economic impacts on communities of color... especially... the hard-hit areas like Cancer Alley in Louisiana."

The United Nations has also drawn attention to the area's plight, releasing a report earlier this year denouncing "environmental racism" in the area.

For resident Angelo Bernard, the spotlight placed on his community in recent months is an opportunity for the country to overcome some of its divisions -- whether they be race, or the intensely partisan divide over vaccinations and other Covid measures.

"God is allowing all this to happen for a reason, you know," he told AFP.

"We got to find the right way to come together and get people vaccinated."

© 2021 AFP

 

Iran: Prison official confirms leaked abuse video

Following leaked footage of the abuse of prisoners in Iran's Evin prison, an official has given a rare apology. The video was released by a hacker group.

    

The Edalat-e Ali hacker group released security footage from inside the Evin prison

The head of Iran's prison system apologized on Tuesday, in a rare admission of guilt, for the "unacceptable behavior" that was revealed in leaked video footage from the notorious Evin prison.

"Regarding the pictures from Evin prison, I accept the responsibility for this unacceptable behavior and commit to try and prevent a repeat of these bitter events and deal seriously with the perpetrators," Mohammad Mehdi Hajmohammadi wrote on Twitter.

"I ask for forgiveness from God almighty, our dear leader, the noble nation and the honorable prison guards whose efforts will not be ignored because of these mistakes," he added.

Why is Evin prison significant?

The apology comes a day after a hacker group calling itself Edalat-e Ali (Ali's Justice) released video footage that appears to show guards beating and dragging prisoners inside Evin prison.

Located in the north of the capital, Tehran, Evin has long been criticized by Western human rights groups for its rights abuses. The Iranian government has often rejected the accusations.

The prison was first built by the Shah in 1971, but has continued operations under the Islamic Republic and is frequently used to hold political prisoners. Detainees with connections to the West are also held there as bargaining chips.

Human rights groups have slammed the Iranian government for the conditions at Evin prison

"The (Evin) authorities use threats of torture, threats of indefinite imprisonment and torture of family members, deception and humiliation, multiple daily interrogations lasting up to five or six hours, denial of medical care, and denial of family visits," Human Rights Watch said in its description of the prison.

Situation under investigation

Mohammad Mosaddegh, first deputy of the judiciary, responded to a question from reporters about the footage saying that the situation is being investigated, according to media reports.

The websites of Iran's Transport Ministry and the state railway company came under attack in July of this year. Cyberattacks have also been used to disrupt the country's nuclear enrichment program.

Iran's new president, Ebrahim Raisi, was recently sworn into office following an election that was widely seen as manipulated by the Islamic Republic's ultraconservative elite.

It comes at a low point for relations between Iran and the US. The US government blacklisted Evin prison in 2018 for "serious human rights abuses."

ab/nm (Reuters, AP)

Protecting rare gorillas in Cameroon

Villagers and scientists are working together to protect rare primates in the Ebo rainforest.

The Ebo forest in the Congo Basin is the second largest tropical rainforest in the world, after the Amazon Basin. It covers about 1,500 square kilometers (580 square miles) in Cameroon, and is home to rare primates, including chimpanzees and gorillas that are targeted by poachers.

The Ebo Forest Research Project was launched eight years ago by scientists from Cameroon and the United States. They are working in close cooperation with three comnunities in the forest to protect these endangered animals. By joining the Gorilla Friends Club, villagers can participate in monitoring the forest, where a new subspecies of gorilla has been found. They follow the animals' movement based on their droppings, tracks and nests and using camera traps.

A gorilla at San Diego Zoo, which is implementing the Ebo Forest Research Project

At the same time, the club members receive training on animal husbandry and agriculture, so that those who used to rely on poaching can make a living without coming into conflict with their gorilla neighbors.

Project goal: The Ebo Forest Research Project is campaigning for the Ebo Rainforest to become a community-managed area, with a no-entry zone protecting the gorillas' habitat.

Project implementation: By raising awareness among locals and involving them in conservation through the Gorilla Friends Club, the project aims "to become a Cameroonian-run, self-sufficient research and conservation project with long-term, sustainable goals at its core."

Project partners: The project is implemented by San Diego Zoo

Project duration: Ongoing

A film by Julia Mielke and Serges Aime Tatchemo

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Chicago Inspector General: Police Use ShotSpotter to Justify Illegal Stop-and-Frisks

BY MATTHEW GUARIGLIA AND ADAM SCHWARTZ
AUGUST 24, 2021



ˀThe Chicago Office of the Inspector General (OIG) has released a highly critical report on the Chicago Police Department’s use of ShotSpotter, a surveillance technology that relies on a combination of artificial intelligence and human “acoustic experts” to purportedly identify and locate gunshots based on a network of high-powered microphones located on some of the city’s streets. The OIG report finds that “police responses to ShotSpotter alerts rarely produce evidence of a gun-related crime, rarely give rise to investigatory stops, and even less frequently lead to the recovery of gun crime-related evidence during an investigatory stop.” This indicates that the technology is ineffective at fighting gun crime and inaccurate. This finding is based on the OIG’s quantitative analysis of more than 50,000 records over a 17-month period from the Chicago Police Department (CPD) and the city’s 911 dispatch center.

Even worse, the OIG report finds a pattern of CPD officers detaining and frisking civilians—a dangerous and humiliating intrusion on bodily autonomy and freedom of movement—based at least in part on “aggregate results of the ShotSpotter system.” This is police harassment of Chicago’s already over-policed Black community, and the erosion of the presumption of innocence for people who live in areas where ShotSpotter sensors are active. This finding is based on the OIG’s qualitative analysis of a random sample of officer-written investigatory stop reports (ISRs).

The scathing report comes just days after the AP reported that a 65-year-old Chicago man named Michael Williams was held for 11 months in pre-trial detention based on scant evidence produced by ShotSpotter. Williams’ case was dismissed two months after his defense attorney subpoenaed ShotSpotter. This and another recent report also show how ShotSpotter company officials have changed the projected location and designation of supposed gun shots in a way that makes them more consistent with police narratives.

There are more reasons why EFF opposes police use of ShotSpotter. The technology is all too often over-deployed in majority Black and Latinx neighborhoods. Also, people in public places—for example, having a quiet conversation on a deserted street—are often entitled to a reasonable expectation of privacy, without microphones unexpectedly recording their conversations. But in at least two criminal trials, one in Massachusetts and one in California, prosecutors tried to introduce audio of voices from these high-powered microphones. In the California case, People v. Johnson, the court admitted it into evidence. In the Massachusetts case, Commonwealth v. Denison, the court did not, ruling that a recording of “oral communication” is prohibited “interception” under the Massachusetts Wiretap Act.

Most disturbingly, ShotSpotter endangers the lives and physical safety of people who live in the neighborhoods to which police are dispatched based on false reports of a gunshot. Because of the uneven deployment of ShotSpotter sensors, these residents are disproportionately Black and Latinx. An officer expecting a civilian with a gun is more likely to draw and fire their own gun, even if there was in fact no gunshot. In the words of the Chicago OIG: “there are real and potential costs associated with use of the system, including … the risk that CPD members dispatched as a result of a ShotSpotter alert may respond to incidents with little contextual information about what they will find there—raising the specter of poorly informed decision-making by responding members.”

The Chicago OIG report is also significant because it signals growing municipal skepticism of ShotSpotter technology. We hope more cities will join Charlotte, North Carolina, and San Antonio, Texas, in canceling their contracts with ShotSpotter—which is currently deployed in over 100 U.S. cities. Chicago itself has just renewed its ShotSpotter contract, which cost the city $33 million between August 20, 2018 and August 19, 2021.


According to EFF's Atlas of Surveillance, at least 100 cities in the United States use some kind of acoustic gunshot detection, including ShotSpotter.


The Technology Is Not Effective at Fighting Gun Violence

The OIG report’s findings are very clear. Despite what the ShotSpotter marketing team would have you believe about their technology’s effectiveness, the vast majority of ShotSpotter alerts cannot be connected with any verifiable shooting incident. According to the OIG, just 9% of ShotSpotter alerts with a reported disposition (4,556 of 41,830) indicate evidence of a gun-related criminal offense. Similarly, just 2% of all Shotspotter alerts (1,056 of 50,176) correlate to an officer-written ISR.

Likewise, a 2021 report by the MacArthur Justice Center, quoted by the OIG, found that 86% of incidents in which CPD officers responded to a ShotSpotter alert did not result in the completion of a case report. In only 9% of CPD responses to ShotSpotter alerts is there any indication that a gun-related criminal offense occurred.

As Deputy Inspector General for Public Safety Deborah Witzburg said about this report, “It’s not about technological accuracy, it’s about operational value.” She added:

“If the Department is to continue to invest in technology which sends CPD members into potentially dangerous situations with little information––and about which there are important community concerns–– it should be able to demonstrate the benefit of its use in combatting violent crime. The data we analyzed plainly doesn’t do that. Meanwhile, the very presence of this technology is changing the way CPD members interact with members of Chicago’s communities. We hope that this analysis will equip stakeholders to make well-informed decisions about the ongoing use of ShotSpotter technology.”

The Technology Is Used to Justify Illegal Police Harassment and Erode the Presumption of Innocence

Cross referencing the officer-written ISRs with ShotSpotter alerts, the OIG found a pattern of police conducting stop-and-frisks of civilians based at least in part on aggregate ShotSpotter data. This means police are deciding who to stop based on their supposed proximity to large numbers of alerts. Even when there are no specific alerts the police are responding to, the concentration of previous alerts in a specific area often works its way into police justification for stopping and searching a person.

The Fourth Amendment limits police stop-and-frisks. In Terry v. Ohio (1968), the Supreme Court held that police need “reasonable suspicion” of crime to initiate a brief investigative detention of a suspect, and need reasonable suspicion of weapon possession to conduct a pat-down frisk of that suspect. One judicially-approved factor that can give rise to reasonable suspicion, in conjunction with other factors, is a suspect’s presence in a so-called “high crime area.”

In light of the OIG and MacArthur reports, which show that the overwhelming majority of ShotSpotter “alerts” do not lead to any evidence of a gun, aggregate ShotSpotter data cannot reasonably be used as evidence that an area is high in crime. Therefore, courts should hold that it violates the Fourth Amendment for police to stop or frisk a civilian based on any consideration of aggregate ShotSpotter alerts in the area.

Specific cases highlighted in the OIG report demonstrate the way that aggregate ShotSpotter data, used as a blank check for stops and searches, erodes civil liberties and the presumption of innocence. In one case, for example, police wrongly used the prevalence of ShotSpotter alerts in the area, plus a bulge in a person’s hoodie pocket, to stop and pat them down, after they practiced their First Amendment right to give police the middle finger.

Cities Should Stop Using ShotSpotter

Far too often, police departments spend tens of millions of dollars on surveillance technologies that endanger civilians, disparately burden BIPOC, and invade everyone’s privacy. Some departments hope to look proactive and innovative when assuaging public fears of crime. Others seek to justify the way they are already policing, by “tech washing” practices and deployments that result in racial discrimination. Like predictive policing, police departments use ShotSpotter and its aura as a “cutting-edge” Silicon Valley company to claim their failed age-old tactics are actually new and innovative. All the while, no one is getting any safer.


The Chicago OIG report demonstrates that ShotSpotter “alerts” are unreliable and contribute to wrongful stop-and-frisks. It may not recommend that cities stop using ShotSpotter—but EFF certainly will, and we think that is the ultimate lesson that can be learned from this report.

 

Cuba: Searching for Nature’s Cure

 August 16, 2021

Fotos: Natalia Favre

Text/Photos by Natalia Favre  (El Toque)

HAVANA TIMES – Enma is 77 years old and is an herbalist. She lives in Naranjal, Matanzas, a province that had one of the highest COVID-19 infection rates by the end of June 2021. Enma leaves her home early in the morning and heads to the countryside in search of medicinal plants to help alleviate her neighbor’s ailments. The plants she picks have different properties and she knows them all; there are antibiotics, painkillers, sedatives, to help itching, colds…

Enma suffers from different chronic diseases and needs to take vitamins to strengthen her immune system. Her daughter used to get them from people who traveled abroad, but she hasn’t had access to them in a good while so she tries to get by with herbs.

Her house leaks if it rains and she doesn’t have running water. Last year, the Government gave her a housing benefit to fix it. By the time Enma realized that the builder given the job was stealing the materials and selling them on the illicit market, it was too late; the man had sold everything.

The builder is now in prison and she is still waiting for somebody in the Havana office to recognize what happened and give her back her benefit so she can finally fix her house.

In addition to her walks looking for medicinal plants, Enma has another routine. She awaits her brother Francisco’s daily visit. She makes him coffee and gives him a bunch of flowers so that he can place them under a photo of Obdulia, their mother, who passed away last year at 102 years old.

With a record number of infections, hospitals collapsing and empty drugstores, many people like Enma are seeking alternatives for their ailments in herbal medicine, especially in phytotherapy. Some people plant medicinal plants in their backyards; others, like Enma, go to the mountains to look for them or go to herbal medicine stores and specialized dispensaries.

Cuba’s Essential Medicines List comprises 619 products: 351 for hospitals and 268 for drugstores. Out of these, 263 (42%) are imported and 356 (58% are nationally produced: 350 products by BioCubaFarma, 5 by the food industry and 1 by the National Center of Agricultural Health.

An average of 85 medicines manufactured by BioCubaFarma were missing in 2020. As well as imported medicines that were unable to enter the country in recent months, and which are mainy used for secondary health care.

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.

The Best Way to Support Cubans Is to End the US Blockade

The Left’s approach to Cuba should be simple: oppose US attempts to devastate the country’s economy through the blockade.

A mural in Havana, Cuba. (The Carol M. Highsmith Archive / Library of Congress)

BY AVIVA CHOMSKY

JACOBIN
08.21.2021

COVID-19 has brought economic and social crises to much of the world, and nowhere more than the Third World, where poor infrastructure, poverty, resource export dependence, inequality, and lack of accountability are endemic. Protests against scarcity, structural violence, police brutality, and corruption erupted everywhere from the United States to Colombia, Haiti, Brazil, Guatemala, Ecuador, Chile, and Argentina, just to mention a few. That unrest in Latin America rarely merited notice in the US news media — until it happened in Cuba.

In some ways, the protests in Cuba were similar to those elsewhere in the region. But in some ways, they were different. Cubans were protesting a government that the United States has officially declared an enemy and has been actively trying to overturn for more than sixty years. And the United States has actively promoted anti-government activity in Cuba with words, money, and arms. It’s not surprising that President Joe Biden, who had little to say about the dozens killed and hundreds injured by police during the protests in Colombia, other than to express his backing for Colombia’s right-wing president Iván Duque, gushed repeatedly about his support for Cuban protesters, with the obligatory denunciation of “Cuba’s authoritarian regime.”

Biden’s words were mirrored across the entire spectrum of mainstream US voices, the few exceptions being academics who actually know something about Cuba, like Louis Pérez and William LeoGrande. Regarding Latin American revolutions, liberal politicians and pundits have fallen right in line with the far right and Donald Trump, whose administration famously dubbed Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba a “troika of tyranny” and vowed to “end the glamorization of socialism and communism.” The New York Times obediently chimed in with Trump at the time, denouncing Bernie Sanders for his visit to Nicaragua in 1985. Even left media outlets joined the chorus.
A Legacy of US Subversion

After the July 26, 1959, revolutionary victory in Cuba, US officials pondered how to respond. Could they control this revolution in the interests of US corporations, as they managed to do in Bolivia in 1954? They worried especially about the larger impacts of a successful revolution. One State Department official wrote that “there are indications that if the Cuban revolution is successful, other countries in Latin America and perhaps elsewhere will use it as a model. We should decide if we wish to have the Cuban Revolution succeed.” Another, a few months later, warned that “our attitude to date [could] be considered a sign of weakness and thus give encouragement to communist-nationalist elements elsewhere in Latin America who are trying to advance programs similar to those of Castro.”The United States has actively promoted anti-government activity in Cuba with words, money, and arms.

They evinced much less concern for “the Cuban people,” who, the US ambassador at the time said, “appeared united in idolizing” the revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. “This is one-man rule with full approval of ‘masses,’” the ambassador concluded. Another, while committing the United States to establishing a “successor government” in Cuba, begrudgingly acknowledged “the impact that real honesty, especially at the working level, has made on the people” and “the fact that a great bulk of the Cubans . . . have awakened enthusiastically to the need for social and economic reform.”

One tool was the embargo. The goal, according to a State Department briefing paper, was to undermine Cuba’s economy, to “promote internal dissension; erode its internal political support . . . [and] seek to create conditions conducive to incipient rebellion.” The “only foreseeable means of alienating internal support,” the State Department offered, “is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. . . . Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba . . . [to deny] money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” While internal documents from recent administrations have not been declassified, the embargo continues to stand as a pillar of US policy, and it has been repeatedly strengthened and tightened.

Another tool, what the Clinton administration called “Track Two,” has been the cultivation and funding of potential opposition movements in Cuba. Even the notorious Helms-Burton Act, or “Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act,” of 1996, best known for its strengthening of the embargo, included plans to assist organizations that could form a potential “transition government” on the island. USAID continues to funnel millions every year to “democracy building” and “independent civil society organizations” on the island and convince them to oppose the Cuban government.

When Fidel Castro stepped down in 2008, the United States bemoaned the state of the Cuban opposition it was funding and supporting. “The traditional dissident movement is not likely to supplant the Cuban government. . . . We will need to look elsewhere, including within the government itself, to spot the most likely successors to the Castro regime,” read a leaked 2009 diplomatic cable signed by US Interests Section chief Jonathan Farrar. “We see little evidence that the mainline dissident organizations have much resonance among ordinary Cubans.” Instead, the cable looked hopefully toward “younger individuals, including bloggers, musicians, and performing and plastic artists” as potential leaders of an anti-government movement. “We believe we must try to expand our contacts within Cuban society . . . to facilitate and encourage the younger generations of Cubans seeking greater freedom and opportunity.”When Fidel Castro stepped down in 2008, the United States bemoaned the state of the Cuban opposition it was funding and supporting.

Money continued to flow, much of it to unnamed NGOs and “civil society” organizations promoting these ends. Organizations claiming to support women, Afro-Cuban, and LGBTQ communities increased their prominence. Grant recipients like Development Alternatives Incorporated and Creative Associates International sent staff covertly into Cuba to “search for networking opportunities.” In 2010, Creative reported: “Our program assisted in the formation and development of an initiative seeking to establish bonds of collaboration and identity among cultural and community leaders. The project was created by a core of cultural promoters with a vision for a more participative society. A large number of cultural figures were enlisted to support the project.” Yet Creative still struggled to “counter apathy and stimulate civic engagement.” Creative Associates projects included “Stirring Afro Cuban Communities Into Action,” “Mapping Young Community Leaders,” and “Building Capacity for Peaceful Social Mobilization.”

On June 30, 2021, USAID published a new call for grant applicants, noting approvingly:

The past several months have served as a watershed moment for Cubans demanding greater democratic freedoms and respect for human rights. Artists and musicians have taken to the streets to protest government repression, producing anthems such as “Patria y Vida,” which has not only brought greater global awareness to the plight of the Cuban people but also served as a rallying cry for change on the island.

The objective of this round of grants was to “advance the effectiveness of independent civil society groups to advocate for greater human rights and freedoms.” The call noted that:

Many Cubans shy away from traditional forms of advocacy. Nonetheless, recent efforts by faith-based organizations, artists and other marginalized groups demonstrate the Cuban people’s burgeoning willingness to demand accountability, and greater respect for human rights. By incorporating a wider pool of groups as part of citizens’ demands, civil society can effectively expand its ranks, while also raising awareness of the Cuban government’s failings, which span both political and social rights. USAID seeks to support these groups in their demands for greater democratic rights and freedoms. [emphasis added]

In other words, the program urged Cubans to mobilize against the government, while also tacitly acknowledging that much of the population still lacked “awareness” of the government’s failings.

I do not believe that the Cubans who took to the streets on July 11 were simply responding to US government manipulation or hoping to obtain funding. They were motivated by real grievances, and they have every right to demand a government response.

How Should the Left Respond?

Hilda Landrove recently wrote a piece entitled “With Cubans Speaking Out, How Will the Left Respond?” Landrove lauded the protests against what she called the “long-standing totalitarian Cuban government” and accused the international left of “voluntary blindness” in its support for Cuba. She even, remarkably, claimed that the news media failed to question the Left’s false vision of Cuba as a socialist paradise. Since she does not cite a single source for any of this, readers have no way of knowing which “leftists” or “news media” she is referring to. But supposedly these unnamed leftists continually inform her that “Cuban’s lack of freedoms is the price that they pay for their sovereignty.”

I know a lot of leftists, but I don’t know any who correspond to Landrove’s caricature. A more common, and principled, response from the Left supports Cubans’ right to protest while also opposing US attempts to interfere in Cuba’s domestic affairs. We oppose US attempts to provoke Cuban dissent by devastating the country’s economy with the embargo, and we oppose US meddling that attempts to manipulate Cuban organizations into pushing for regime change.

While we oppose the Cuban government’s crackdown on the protesters, we also believe that the Cuban government’s alleged “paranoia” that sees the malevolent hand of the United States in every challenge to its policies is not really that far-fetched. The best way to promote space for Cubans to debate, protest, and seek solutions to their country’s crisis is for the United States to acknowledge Cuban sovereignty, cease its covert activities, end the embargo, and allow the pandemic and humanitarian aid that Cubans desperately need to overcome the pandemic and economic emergency afflicting the island.

Republished from NACLA.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Aviva Chomsky is professor of history and coordinator of Latin American studies at Salem State University in Massachusetts. She is the author of Central America’s Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration (April 2021).