JAMES EARLY, early1947@aol.com
Early has visited Cuba many times over 45 years. He is the former Smithsonian Institution assistant secretary for education and public service and was director of its Cultural Heritage Policy Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage.
He said today: “The widely propagated U.S. media reports and images in support of public demonstrations in Cuba and criticism of the Cuban government have invited proposals to punish the Cuban government by continuing and expanding draconian Trump administration policies. This would lead to further deterioration of the already suffering national economy, heighten frustrations of Cubans across the ideological and political spectrum, and plummet the material quality of life for all Cubans caused mainly by the global pandemic and U.S. economic warfare called the ‘Cuban Embargo’ by the U.S. government, and ‘Blockade’ by Cubans. …
Early called for scrutiny of “blame pronounced in U.S. mainstream media and the threadbare standard propaganda of Democratic and Republican Party administrations” against Cuba.
He stressed that there has been more open, internal criticism within Cuba: “Contrary to President Biden’s uninformed or intentional mischaracterization of recent protests in Cuba that the Cuban government is denying the needs of its citizens to ‘enrich themselves,’ Cuban President Diaz Canal Bermudez has proactively convened government officials and Cuban citizens to assert national sovereignty and assume responsibility for informing the nation of the causes of their economic predicament, including inefficiencies in government economic plans, and explained proposals for resolving the crisis and public conflicts without external intervention. …
“We urgently call upon all U.S. citizens to demand that the Biden-Harris administration implement its campaign promise to drop Trump Cuba policy, which he said has ‘inflicted harm on the Cuban people and done nothing to advance democracy and human rights,’ to restart normal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States crafted by former presidents Barak Obama and Raul Castro, and take immediate steps to dismantle the inhumane and illegal embargo economic warfare against the Cuban people and the Cuban government.”
See in-depth pieces and interviews with Early on The Real News, including on Cuba.
Last month, UN News reported: “A total of 184 countries … voted in favour of a resolution to demand the end of the U.S. economic blockade on Cuba, for the 29th year in a row, with the United States and Israel voting against.”
