To the People of Cuba: Is Washington Preparing a “Soft Coup”? The Co-optation of Cuban Intellectuals

by Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research:

To the People of Cuba,

The Cuban Revolution constitutes a fundamental landmark in the history of humanity, which challenges the legitimacy of global capitalism. In all major regions of the World, the Cuban revolution has been a source of inspiration in the relentless struggle against neo-colonial domination and US imperialism.

The World is at a critical crossroads. At this juncture of our history, most “real” progressive movements towards socialism have been destroyed and defeated through US-NATO led wars, military interventions, destabilization campaigns, regime change, coups d’etat, “soft coups”.

Progressive movements as well as “The Left” in Western Europe and the U.S. have largely been coopted, often financed by elite corporate foundations.

The socialist project in Cuba nonetheless prevails despite the US economic blockade, CIA intelligence ops and dirty politics.

While the legacy of Fidel Castro lives, let us be under no illusions, Washington’s intent not only consists in destroying the Cuban Revolution, it also seeks to erase the history of socialism.

Washington’s Diabolical Design

There are indications that a “regime change” in Cuba is currently contemplated by Washington policy makers. The Trump administration has been categorical in this regard. The repercussions will be felt throughout Latin America.

During the election campaign “he committed himself to reversing Obama’s Presidential Policy Directive titled “United States-Cuba Normalization,”(a 12-page directive—referred to officially as “PPD-43”). (The Nation, October 2017). No subsequent statement following Trump’s inauguration has as yet been forthcoming.

Of significance is Trump’s appointment of Dr. Judy Shelton to head the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a think tank and funding agency geared towards regime change. As a former Vice-President of the NED, Shelton was ”directly involved in lending legitimacy to US-backed subversion in Cuba as part of a decades-long attempt to overthrow the government in Havana and expand US hegemony over the Caribbean.”

Whatever US- Cuba “normalization” is contemplated by the Trump Administration, it would be geared towards the restoration of capitalism through acts of sedition, infiltration, etc. combined with the imposition of neoliberal economic reforms, including the IMF’s “strong economic medicine”. The fundamental question is how Cuba and the Cuban people will, in the current context, respond to these ongoing threats.

How does Washington plan to carry out this plan. Fundamentally through:

1) Measures which contribute to destabilizing the Cuban economy and its monetary system.

2) Procedures which are conducive to the eventual integration of the Cuban economy into the nexus of the IMF-World Bank-WTO, including the imposition of policy conditionalities geared towards dismantling Cuba’s social programs, its rationing of essential consumer goods, etc.

3) To reach their objectives, Washington and its European allies have over the years devised various covert mechanisms of infiltration and cooptation with a view to influencing government policy makers, managers of public sector enterprises as well as intellectuals. In this regard Washington has also relied on its European partners which have established bilateral relations with Cuba.

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