The Foreign Service Journal, October 2008

this issue, Cuba has essentially been offstage. But the atmosphere is still ran- corous. Illness may have silenced Fidel, but not his anti-Americanism, transmitted via newspaper columns these days. Last spring, he wrote that the U.S. embargo policy is tantamount to “genocide” against Cuba and said that the Bush administration routinely engages in torture and terrorism. Ridicule of American policy, while articulated less frequently at senior lev- els, is a common theme of a five-night- per-week TV program called “Mesa Redonda” (Round Table). The regime says U.S. consumer spending takes away from investment in basic needs, contributing to human suffering in poor countries. Amid this continuing animus, it is hard to imagine how any American president could push for an end to the embargo without any prospect of reciprocity. Cubans refer to the embargo as a “bloqueo” (blockade), a term that sug- gests that the United States has quar- antined Cuba, preventing all goods from going in or out, regardless of ori- gin. Such is not the case, of course, because the embargo applies only to the United States. Whatever its name, the American policy has virtually no backing from the outside world. For 16 straight years through November 2007, the U.N. General Assembly approved by overwhelming margins a Cuban-sponsored resolution demand- ing an end to the embargo. As of 2007, according to the regime, “the direct economic damage suffered by the Cuban people from the imposi- tion of Washington’s economic, trade and financial blockade is estimated at $89 billion.” America’s aim, it says, is to cause “hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government in Cuba” and the restoration of the country’s pre-revolutionary “neo-colonial sta- tus.” There is little doubt that many Cubans harbor ill will toward the United States for the long years of eco- nomic warfare it has waged against the island. The embargo has provided a handy excuse to explain away Cuba’s econom- ic problems, so in that sense it has been politically useful for the Castros. The regime is dismissive of those who complain, insisting that the country is doing well: “Vamos bien.” n O C T O B E R 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 59 Raul Castro has embraced some reforms that could, over time, make life somewhat less burdensome.