[NYTr] US-Cuba Conflict: Who threw the first stone?

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Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN)
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US-Cuba Conflict:  Who threw the first stone?

By Angel Rodriguez Alvarez
AIN Special Service
September 25, 2007

Many who visit Cuba ask themselves that. When and who initiated the 
current US Cuba dispute?

It seems to many that all this began with Washington's response to the 
measures against US properties adopted after the triumph of the 
Revolution in 1959. First, we must make it clear that the White House 
began its hostilities against the island long before the approval of 
the first Agrarian Reform law in May of 1959. But there is much more.
 
Before the triumph of the Rebel Army headed by Fidel Castro, the 
Eisenhower administration did all it could to stop the popular victory 
on the island. We must point out that the dispute between both sides 
has its origins over two centuries ago, when in 1767 President Benjamin 
Franklin expressed interest in the annexation of Cuba through 
negotiations with Spain. In 1805, Thomas Jefferson was more explicit 
when expressing: "In the case of war between Britain and Spain, the 
United States would take control of Cuba for strategic reasons to 
defend Louisiana and Florida."

Later these desires would take shape in the Ripe Fruit Doctrine, 
formulated in 1823 by the then US Secretary of State and later 
president John Quincy Adams who thought that later on the island would 
fall into the hands of the United States by means of gravity. Almost at 
the end of the 19th century, 1898, the words were put into practice.  
As a defensive response to the mysterious and suspicious blowing up of 
the vessel Maine in the Bay of Havana, the US intervened in the war 
that the Cuban people were carrying out against the already weakened 
Spanish army. After the Spanish defeat on December 1st, 1898, the 
occupying force signed the Treaty of Paris with Spain without any 
participation of the Cuban people.  Madrid then resigned to its rights 
over the island and the United States occupied it as a so-called 
temporary measure. 

The Republic was born on May 20th, 1902, with the  Platt Amendment,
imposed by the US Congress in to the island's Constitution, by which
the US would dispose of, among other prerogatives, the right to
intervene in Cuba's internal affairs whenever it deemed necessary. In a
letter addressed to Theodore Roosevelt dated October 28th, 1901,
Leonard Wood recognized: "There is, of course, little or no
independence left Cuba under the Platt Amendment.  The only consistent
thing to do now is to seek annexation."
 
At that time, American big business controlled the sugar production, 
the principal and almost only source of national income for the island, 
owned the best lands, had their hands on the basic public services, as 
well as mines, banks, foreign trade and all of the island's economy. 
Cuba's total dependency on the US was such that in 1934, Washington 
took the luxury of abolishing the Platt Amendment.  That control still 
lasted for 57 years, 1902-1959, without any setbacks.

On January 1st, 1959, the US embassy in Havana, in agreement with high 
ranking officials of the Batista dictatorship, attempted a coup to 
smother the triumph of the Revolution and stop the creation of a 
revolutionary government. During the early days of January 1959, dozens 
of assassins and thieves fled justice and were welcomed with open arms 
in Miami.  None of them were returned to Cuba, nor was the 424 million 
dollars stolen from the public treasury by the Batista gang. On January 
28th, 1959, barely four weeks after the victory, those fugitives would 
make public, without any hindrance, the creation of the first 
subversive organization against Cuba. 

During the first five months of that same year, the United States
adopted the initial measures of its economic war: 

* In February they denied a modest credit requested by the National
Bank to sustain the Cuban national currency affected by the stolen
millions of dollars from the public treasury. 

* For the first time, in March, they reduced the sugar quota due to
official pressure from the American Foreign Power; they cancelled a
financing of 15 million dollars applied for by the national electric
company.

* US pressured Britain into stopping the sale of 15 planes and other
weapons to the island.

* The Agriculture Department withdrew all officials that inspected the
root vegetables, fruits and green vegetables for the US market from
Cuba and prohibited the entry of mangos to the country.

* The license to sell helicopters destined for Cuban agriculture was
revoked.

* Considerably reduced the entry of US vessels to the island. 

* On June 29th, 1960, months before the nationalization (which
occurred in August and October of that year) the oil firms, Texaco,
Esso and Shell were pressured by the White House not to supply oil, and
prohibit the use of their refineries to process Soviet oil. 

* Only two weeks later, on July
6th, Washington reduced the quota of Cuban sugar by 700,000 tons.  

* On December 16th, the quota was totally abolished. 

An explanation of this early hostile conduct against the young
Revolution can be found in the memoirs of the then President
Eisenhower: "Just weeks after Castro entered Havana, we, the
government, began to examine ways that would be effective to crush
Castro." A confession that, in a way, provides the proof.