U.S Continues Bullying Cuba
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
Bank ditches UK firms trading with Cuba
The Guardian
Monday June 16 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/16/lloydstsbgroup.banking
'A Somerset health shop selling Cuban sugar and a London tobacconist dealing in Habanos cigars are among British businesses told by a bank to cut their ties with the island or move their accounts.
Lloyds TSB has written to customers who have dealings with Cuba saying they will have take their accounts elsewhere, apparently in the wake of threats by the US government, which operates an embargo against Cuba.
The US has said it will prosecute any businesses that have any dealings with Cuba and also have a branch in the US.
The Queenswood Natural Foods company, of Bridgwater in Somerset, started buying sugar from Cuba last year and has found it to be a popular line.
Last month, the company received a letter from Lloyds TSB saying that the bank had "recently reviewed its approach to dealing with countries and entities that are subject to government and international sanctions across the globe in order to best protect its customers, its businesses, its people and its reputation". It was no longer prepared to authorise payments from the company to buy sugar from Cuba.
Lloyds TSB has told a tobacco importer trading with the island for more than a century, dealing in the famous Habanos cigars, that it must also make alternative arrangements.
Spelling out the new policy, Phil Markey, relationship director at Lloyds TSB, is apologetic. "I would like to find a way to continue to make these payments for you - the decision however is down to a full risk assessment process within Lloyds TSB," he wrote in a letter at the end of May. "I must advise you to find alternative ways of making payments to your suppliers with Cuban connections."
The Cuban embassy was critical of the bank's move, saying the Bush administration, in continuing the US's "illegal, worldwide economic warfare against Cuba", had been increasingly resorting to pressure through business and finance.
Businesses affected are angered by the decision, but some are reluctant to go public as they try and find other banks. "It is mystifying," said one businessman. "We are able to trade with China and Vietnam but apparently not Cuba. It seems a nonsense."
Lloyds TSB declined to answer questions on its policy over Cuba and whether it had been subjected to threats of legal action in the US. "We would not disclose details of our relationships or discussions with individual customers," said a spokesman.
The Labour MP Ian Gibson, chairman of the all-party Cuba group, condemned Lloyds TSB's action. "We will be taking action against this vindictive political campaign," he said yesterday.
The Guardian
Monday June 16 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/jun/16/lloydstsbgroup.banking
'A Somerset health shop selling Cuban sugar and a London tobacconist dealing in Habanos cigars are among British businesses told by a bank to cut their ties with the island or move their accounts.
Lloyds TSB has written to customers who have dealings with Cuba saying they will have take their accounts elsewhere, apparently in the wake of threats by the US government, which operates an embargo against Cuba.
The US has said it will prosecute any businesses that have any dealings with Cuba and also have a branch in the US.
The Queenswood Natural Foods company, of Bridgwater in Somerset, started buying sugar from Cuba last year and has found it to be a popular line.
Last month, the company received a letter from Lloyds TSB saying that the bank had "recently reviewed its approach to dealing with countries and entities that are subject to government and international sanctions across the globe in order to best protect its customers, its businesses, its people and its reputation". It was no longer prepared to authorise payments from the company to buy sugar from Cuba.
Lloyds TSB has told a tobacco importer trading with the island for more than a century, dealing in the famous Habanos cigars, that it must also make alternative arrangements.
Spelling out the new policy, Phil Markey, relationship director at Lloyds TSB, is apologetic. "I would like to find a way to continue to make these payments for you - the decision however is down to a full risk assessment process within Lloyds TSB," he wrote in a letter at the end of May. "I must advise you to find alternative ways of making payments to your suppliers with Cuban connections."
The Cuban embassy was critical of the bank's move, saying the Bush administration, in continuing the US's "illegal, worldwide economic warfare against Cuba", had been increasingly resorting to pressure through business and finance.
Businesses affected are angered by the decision, but some are reluctant to go public as they try and find other banks. "It is mystifying," said one businessman. "We are able to trade with China and Vietnam but apparently not Cuba. It seems a nonsense."
Lloyds TSB declined to answer questions on its policy over Cuba and whether it had been subjected to threats of legal action in the US. "We would not disclose details of our relationships or discussions with individual customers," said a spokesman.
The Labour MP Ian Gibson, chairman of the all-party Cuba group, condemned Lloyds TSB's action. "We will be taking action against this vindictive political campaign," he said yesterday.
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
The US's actions against Cuba are simply pathetic. I can't honestly believe that in this day and age our government still refuses to deal with Cuba simply because 40+ years ago they stood up to US hegemony.
Honestly... at this point. The next president needs to take a stand to end this ridiculousness... The cold war is freaking over. This is just assinine.
US Sugar and Tobacco like a lot of other US companies who don't like the idea of actually having to compete in thier business... like using the government to thier advantage.... this is where I find it laughable when our US officials espouse the free market... really? Where is there free competition?
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
Cuba was on the other side in the Cold War ... It wasn't really about U.S. hegemony at that time, although it certainly bothered people to have a Communist state right at the doorstep. One with enough protection that the U.S. couldn't stamp it out.
10-8-00 Alpine Valley
10-9-00 All State Arena, Chicago
4-23-03 Assembly Hall, Champaign
5-16-06 United Center, Chicago
6-30-06 Marcus Amphitheater, Milwaukee
8-05-07 Grant Park, Chicago
8-21-08 EV, Auditorium Theater, Chicago
8-22-08 EV, Auditorium Theater, Chicago
The Castro government turned to the Soviets for aid after the US started carrying out acts of aggression towards Cuba. Originally the Eisenhower administration welcomed Castro's take over of Cuba and even helped his revolution by refusing to provide Batista with more military aid to combat Castro's growing army.
I found heaven on earth one one particular isolated beach. Just as Hemingway described it, and said the exact same.
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
Which beach?
I'm not telling, It's starts with a P though.
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
Ever beach in Cuba starts with a P. Playa is spanish for beach. Did you go to Varadero?
Yes playa means beach...the name comes after playa. Not Varadero, too crowded. This is well off the beaten path
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
Was is Pescador, Paraiso, or Pesquero?
In Cuba's case its understandable why they still have the embargo-Cuba is succeeding.
It as poor as any country on the planet yet you see footage of Cubans constantly smiling. They have a strip of beach, maybe 10 miles or so, that is a constant party. Moral is very high, and they have a very strong sense of community, almost anywhere you go. Cuba, as poor as it is, is succeeding.
I have a lot of family that still lives there and I wouldn't say that they are succeeding or even smiling all the time. there is a lot of hardship there because their economy is basically in ruins. What our government fails to see, as well as many of the Cuban ex-pats living in this country, is that total isolation is not going to produce any results.
But why do you think the US gov't is failing to see the result of the policy they've chosen?
Let me correct myself. I believe that Washington does know that their policy towards Cuba is a complete failure, but lobbying groups and the large and well organized Cuban-American constituents in what is usually a swing state, are absolutely blind to it's effectiveness. And you know both parties will bow to pressure from these groups because they need their support to get into office.
Well as far as the Cuban_American constituents are conserned change is coming. My generation, the first American born, for the most part view the embargo and the US foreign policy towards Cuba as a complete and utter failure. As the older generation passes on and the younger generations mature and start voting you will see the stance change.
You and me both. While I do not approve of Castro's regime I don't want the US to get it's hands on Cuba and basically re-establish the control they had over the island pre-Castro. Cuba belongs to the Cuban people not US corporations and this countries determination to bring democracy to that country is simply a veiled attempt to re-establish the control they had over the island prior to 1960. I long for the day when I can return to my parent's homeland and see free Cubans.
Cuba's been at the top of my list of places to visit for a few years now. I'll get there eventualy.
Rum, cigars, 50's style cars, golden beaches, salsa music, bronzed buxom women.... :rolleyes:
Cuba in the Cross-Hairs: A Near Half-Century of Terror
Noam Chomsky
Excerpted from Hegemony or Survival, Metropolitan Books, 2003
'...Economic warfare
Cuban offers to cooperate in intelligence-sharing to prevent terrorist attacks have been rejected by Washington, though some did lead to US actions. "Senior members of the FBI visited Cuba in 1998 to meet their Cuban counterparts, who gave [the FBI] dossiers about what they suggested was a Miami-based terrorist network: information which had been compiled in part by Cubans who had infiltrated exile groups." Three months later the FBI arrested Cubans who had infiltrated the US-based terrorist groups. Five were sentenced to long terms in prison.
The national security pretext lost whatever shreds of credibility it might have had after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, though it was not until 1998 that US intelligence officially informed the country that Cuba no longer posed a threat to US national security. The Clinton administration, however, insisted that the military threat posed by Cuba be reduced to "negligible," but not completely removed. Even with this qualification, the intelligence assessment eliminated a danger that had been identified by the Mexican ambassador in 1961, when he rejected JFK's attempt to organize collective action against Cuba on the grounds that "if we publicly declare that Cuba is a threat to our security, forty million Mexicans will die laughing."
In fairness, however, it should be recognized that missiles in Cuba did pose a threat. In private discussions the Kennedy brothers expressed their fears that the presence of Russian missiles in Cuba might deter a US invasion of Venezuela. So "the Bay of Pigs was really right," JFK concluded.
The Bush I administration reacted to the elimination of the security pretext by making the embargo much harsher, under pressure from Clinton, who outflanked Bush from the right during the 1992 election campaign. Economic warfare was made still more stringent in 1996, causing a furor even among the closest US allies. The embargo came under considerable domestic criticism as well, on the grounds that it harms US exporters and investors -- the embargo's only victims, according to the standard picture in the US; Cubans are unaffected. Investigations by US specialists tell a different story. Thus, a detailed study by the American Association for World Health concluded that the embargo had severe health effects, and only Cuba's remarkable health care system had prevented a "humanitarian catastrophe"; this has received virtually no mention in the US.
The embargo has effectively barred even food and medicine. In 1999 the Clinton administration eased such sanctions for all countries on the official list of "terrorist states," apart from Cuba, singled out for unique punishment. Nevertheless, Cuba is not entirely alone in this regard. After a hurricane devastated West Indian islands in August 1980, President Carter refused to allow any aid unless Grenada was excluded, as punishment for some unspecified initiatives of the reformist Maurice Bishop government. When the stricken countries refused to agree to Grenada's exclusion, having failed to perceive the threat to survival posed by the nutmeg capital of the world, Carter withheld all aid. Similarly, when Nicaragua was struck by a hurricane in October 1988, bringing starvation and causing severe ecological damage, the current incumbents in Washington recognized that their terrorist war could benefit from the disaster, and therefore refused aid, even to the Atlantic Coast area with close links to the US and deep resentment against the Sandinistas. They followed suit when a tidal wave wiped out Nicaraguan fishing villages, leaving hundreds dead and missing in September 1992. In this case, there was a show of aid, but hidden in the small print was the fact that apart from an impressive donation of $25,000, the aid was deducted from assistance already scheduled. Congress was assured, however, that the pittance of aid would not affect the administration's suspension of over $100 million of aid because the US-backed Nicaraguan government had failed to demonstrate a sufficient degree of subservience.
US economic warfare against Cuba has been strongly condemned in virtually every relevant international forum, even declared illegal by the Judicial Commission of the normally compliant Organization of American States. The European Union called on the World Trade Organization to condemn the embargo. The response of the Clinton administration was that "Europe is challenging 'three decades of American Cuba policy that goes back to the Kennedy Administration,' and is aimed entirely at forcing a change of government in Havana." The administration also declared that the WTO has no competence to rule on US national security or to compel the US to change its laws. Washington then withdrew from the proceedings, rendering the matter moot.
Successful defiance
The reasons for the international terrorist attacks against Cuba and the illegal economic embargo are spelled out in the internal record. And no one should be surprised to discover that they fit a familiar pattern -- that of Guatemala a few years earlier, for example.
From the timing alone, it is clear that concern over a Russian threat could not have been a major factor. The plans for forceful regime change were drawn up and implemented before there was any significant Russian connection, and punishment was intensified after the Russians disappeared from the scene. True, a Russian threat did develop, but that was more a consequence than a cause of US terrorism and economic warfare.
In July 1961 the CIA warned that "the extensive influence of 'Castroism' is not a function of Cuban power. . . . Castro's shadow looms large because social and economic conditions throughout Latin America invite opposition to ruling authority and encourage agitation for radical change," for which Castro's Cuba provided a model. Earlier, Arthur Schlesinger had transmitted to the incoming President Kennedy his Latin American Mission report, which warned of the susceptibility of Latin Americans to "the Castro idea of taking matters into one's own hands." The report did identify a Kremlin connection: the Soviet Union "hovers in the wings, flourishing large development loans and presenting itself as the model for achieving modernization in a single generation." The dangers of the "Castro idea" are particularly grave, Schlesinger later elaborated, when "the distribution of land and other forms of national wealth greatly favors the propertied classes" and "the poor and underprivileged, stimulated by the example of the Cuban revolution, are now demanding opportunities for a decent living." Kennedy feared that Russian aid might make Cuba a "showcase" for development, giving the Soviets the upper hand throughout Latin America.
In early 1964, the State Department Policy Planning Council expanded on these concerns: "The primary danger we face in Castro is . . . in the impact the very existence of his regime has upon the leftist movement in many Latin American countries. . . . The simple fact is that Castro represents a successful defiance of the US, a negation of our whole hemispheric policy of almost a century and a half." To put it simply, Thomas Paterson writes, "Cuba, as symbol and reality, challenged U.S. hegemony in Latin America." International terrorism and economic warfare to bring about regime change are justified not by what Cuba does, but by its "very existence," its "successful defiance" of the proper master of the hemisphere. Defiance may justify even more violent actions, as in Serbia, as quietly conceded after the fact; or Iraq, as also recognized when pretexts had collapsed.
Outrage over defiance goes far back in American history. Two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson bitterly condemned France for its "attitude of defiance" in holding New Orleans, which he coveted. Jefferson warned that France's "character [is] placed in a point of eternal friction with our character, which though loving peace and the pursuit of wealth, is high-minded." France's "defiance [requires us to] marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation," Jefferson advised, reversing his earlier attitudes, which reflected France's crucial contribution to the liberation of the colonies from British rule. Thanks to Haiti's liberation struggle, unaided and almost universally opposed, France's defiance soon ended, but the guiding principles remain in force, determining friend and foe.'
EU to lift sanctions against Cuba
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7463803.stm
'The European Union is to lift sanctions imposed on Cuba in 2003 in protest at the imprisonment of more than 70 Cuban dissidents by the Castro government.
"Cuban sanctions will be lifted," EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said at the end of the first day of an EU summit in Brussels.
The sanctions were suspended in 2005 but not completely removed.
Their definitive removal is largely symbolic but still a success for Raul Castro's new government, analysts say.
The Cubans will see this move as a vindication of their hardball diplomacy, the BBC's Michael Voss in Havana says.
The EU has been trying to re-establish a full political dialogue with Havana ever since Fidel Castro in effect stepped down due to ill healthy almost two years ago, our correspondent says.
But the communist authorities had insisted there could be no progress until the EU officially removed sanctions.
The decades-old US trade embargo against Cuba remains in place.
Earlier, the US state department said it hoped the EU sanctions would not be lifted because there had not been "any kind of fundamental break" with communism as practiced under Fidel Castro.
The original sanctions imposed by the EU five years ago included a limit on high-level government visits and the participation of EU diplomats in cultural events in Cuba.
Most European embassies also invited prominent Cuban dissidents to receptions as a protest against the country's human rights record.
This triggered the so-called "cocktail wars" where Cuban officials refused to attend, our correspondent says.
Relations improved in 2005, but the measures were not completely removed.
Since Raul Castro in effect took over from his brother, Fidel, Spain in particular has pressed hard for a complete removal of the sanctions in the light of what it sees as important reforms in Cuba.
Other countries like Sweden, and in particular the Czech Republic, believe the changes are mainly cosmetic, especially in the area of human rights.
In practice, the EU sanctions are largely symbolic. Unlike the US embargo which has been in force since 1962, they do not amount to any restriction on trade or investment.
Moreover, in recent years, and particularly under Raul Castro, who officially became president in February, the Cuban government has diversified its international relations.
Venezuela, which supplies billions of dollars worth of oil in exchange for Cuban doctors, and China, which buys considerable amounts of Cuba's nickel, are much more important trading partners than Europe.
Cuban government sources told the BBC the decision to lift sanctions would benefit the EU more than Cuba since it showed that Brussels could have a foreign policy independent of the US, our correspondent says.'