The Cartoon Villain Washington Invented

The State Department wants Americans to believe that an island of roughly ten million people—struggling with severe shortages of food, medicine, fuel, and electricity and going more than 100 days without a single imported shipment of oil because of escalating U.S. sanctions—is secretly running American politics. That is the claim at the center of Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism, a 100-page report released last week by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s department. It names 43 Americans and organizations—mayors, congresswomen, a Ben & Jerry’s co-founder, a podcaster, and even Global Exchange—as evidence of a Cuban “influence network” supposedly powerful enough to have shaped the George Floyd protests, Antifa, and campus activism nationwide. The report goes further still, casting Black liberation movements as foreign-directed rather than what they are: the legitimate response of communities fighting racism and police violence.

We know this playbook. It is the one that jailed American writers and union organizers under McCarthy in the 1950s. It is also the one Washington exported: in Indonesia in 1965, a U.S.-endorsed anti-communist purge killed roughly half a million people in five months, many of them identified through nothing more rigorous than a list like this one. The report even praises the “effectiveness” of “blacklists, McCarthy-era investigations and prosecutions” at breaking the Communist Party USA.

Nobody is fooled, and nobody here is guilty of anything but believing that Americans and Cubans have a right to know each other.

That belief is the actual target. For decades, Global Exchange has organized people-to-people exchanges between Americans and Cubans—delegations, dialogue, and ordinary human connection—on the conviction that understanding, not blockade, is what opens the way to a more peaceful and respectful relationship between our two countries. That is precisely what this report seeks to criminalize: not espionage or violence, but dialogue itself. 

Rather than reckon with the devastating human toll of the U.S. blockade, the Trump administration has chosen to portray those who advocate for dialogue, exchange, and humanitarian solidarity as threats to national security. There is nothing strong about that. It is smash-and-grab foreign policy dressed up as national security, and it is Washington, not Havana, that has turned a fragile but real thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations back into a nightmare.

That is the level of seriousness behind this “war on Cuban subversion”: manufacture a villain, then manufacture the crime to match. It would be funny if the people on that 43-name list weren’t real Americans now facing real exposure for holding an opinion. It would be funny if ten million Cubans weren’t living the life-threatening shortages this report never mentions.

We are not intimidated, and we are not stopping. Next week, Global Exchange returns to Cuba with a delegation, bringing humanitarian aid and carrying cancer medicine, building people-to-people connections, and standing in solidarity with the Cuban people as they endure the collective punishment of this horrific blockade. We will keep building the human ties between the United States and Cuba that no report—however cartoonish—will persuade us to abandon.

None of this happens without resources, and we’re asking you directly for help. For over three decades we’ve taken principled positions — on Cuba, on Iraq, on Iran, on Palestine — that plenty of people with deep pockets found inconvenient enough to walk away from. We don’t have corporate sponsors or a billionaire benefactor bankrolling this work. We have each other. That means when the State Department tries to make dissent expensive and frightening, the people who keep it possible are the ones reading this.

We return angrier every single time. Angrier at the deliberateness of it. Angrier at the cruelty of policies that target our island neighbors with the cold precision of a siege.

And we are going back.

For the next 8 days, Global Exchange returns to Havana. This trip, we are bringing cancer medicine to Cuban hospitals in partnership with the Hatuey Project. When we traveled in May, doctors told us that every shipment from our previous visit had already been used. They had received no new supplies since we’d last been there.

The numbers tell you what kind of war this is:

This is deliberate. This is collective punishment. This is what a siege looks like when it is designed to be invisible.

The United States administration has now sanctioned the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) and AMISTUR, our longtime friends and the Cuban institutions that have facilitated people-to-people engagements between Cuba and international solidarity for many decades. This is a clear effort to silence the international movement of solidarity and bring maximum economic harm to the Cuban people. 

By targeting the very institutions that keep Cubans and Americans in relationship with one another, this administration is trying to destroy the avenues through which global citizens connect and through which the truth gets out, through which solidarity is made real. Isolate Cuba

Strategy: Criminalize anyone willing to stand with the Cuban people. 

We refuse to be silent. We refuse to be criminalized out of our conscience.

During our days in Havana, we will sit with the people living inside this war. We will meet with doctors delivering care through blackouts and medicine shortages, with elders bearing the sharpest edge of this manufactured crisis. We will hear from CENESEX on LGBTQ+ rights and how sanctions undermine the expanded Family Code, from the community of the Literacy Museum and Centro Martin Luther King and the organic urban gardens,  people who are building life under siege. We will meet with Belly of the Beast, the independent journalists breaking through the blockade of information. 

Cuba has not been broken. Not by sixty-seven years of blockade, not by engineered blackouts, not by medicine shortages, not by being strangled from every direction by the most powerful empire in modern history.

We are going because the Cuban people, under blackouts, under shortages, under a siege designed to grind them into submission, continue to build and to resist. Their decades-long battle for self-determination demands our urgent solidarity.

We are going back to say: not in our name. Not then. Not now. Not ever.
The Cuban people will not surrender. Neither will we.

Please join Global Exchange and our partners in this battle of resistance, human rights, and survival. Contribute what you can in material and financial support. You will hear from us again as we, along with others, plan medical and support delegations as often as possible. 

Adelante, and thank you.  

Global Exchange arrives in Havana today as movements from across the hemisphere come together by air, land, and sea with the Nuestra América Convoy, delivering humanitarian aid while challenging the U.S. blockade of Cuba.

On March 21, international delegations and solidarity movements from across the Americas and around the world will converge in Cuba as part of the convoy, bringing more than 20 tons of humanitarian aid and standing together against the policies that are deepening this humanitarian crisis.

The ongoing blockade has plunged the island nation into a severe energy crisis, with many parts of Cuba experiencing up to 16 hours without power each day. United States President Donald Trump has also suggested the possibility of military action and regime change, and has publicly expressed a desire for the United States to “own” Cuba.

Yesterday, Global Exchange co-director Corina Nolet and Board Chair Walter Turner spoke with Hard Knock Radio on KPFA about the current crisis in Cuba, the tightening U.S. blockade, and why this humanitarian convoy is so urgent. Read / listen here.

“We stand in solidarity with the people of Cuba. People around the world are coming together to make clear that Cuba is not alone, and that the inhumane blockade will not stop us from carrying out this vital people-to-people mission,” said Corina Nolet, co-director of Global Exchange

For nearly four decades, Global Exchange has organized people-to-people delegations to Cuba and led grassroots advocacy efforts to end the blockade and normalize relations between Cuba and the United States. Thanks to supporters like you, Global Exchange and our international partners have already secured nearly $23,000 worth of urgently needed cancer medicines. These treatments are critically needed as shortages of basic medicines continue to affect patients across the island.

This effort brings together participants from more than a dozen countries. At a time when the Trump administration is escalating the economic war against Cuba, tightening sanctions, and deepening shortages across the island, people across the Americas are stepping forward in solidarity. Together, we refuse to stand by while an entire nation is punished.

Members of our delegation are also carrying 34 large suitcases filled with humanitarian supplies — more than 1,700 pounds of aid. These bags are packed with over-the-counter medicines, medical supplies, and essential items that Cuban families are increasingly unable to obtain because of the tightening economic blockade.

And this is just the beginning.

In April, Global Exchange will launch a Bay Area Humanitarian Aid Hub in San Francisco to continue this work, organizing regular shipments of medical supplies, food, and essential goods to the people of Cuba.

Humanitarian aid alone cannot end the blockade. But it can save lives. Donate to support our effort.

We will share updates, photos, and stories from Cuba as the convoy arrives and the aid begins reaching communities. For up-to-the-moment updates, follow us on social media.

Thank you for making this work possible.

Solidarity With Cuba in the Face of Economic Warfare

We are writing at a moment of grave urgency.

On January 29, the U.S. government took a dangerous step toward open economic warfare against the people of Cuba. President Trump declared Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” and authorized sweeping new measures designed to cut the island off from fuel — the lifeblood of electricity, water, transportation, food systems, and hospitals.

This is an emergency.

It is now widely reported that Cuba has as little as 15–20 days of oil remaining. As a result of direct U.S. threats and economic coercion, Venezuelan shipments have been halted, Mexico’s state oil company has suspended deliveries, and other countries are being threatened with punitive tariffs if they continue fuel transfers. The consequences are already unfolding: prolonged blackouts, fuel rationing, stalled transportation, and deepening hardship across the island.

This is economic warfare waged through hunger, darkness, and the collapse of life-sustaining systems.

For more than six decades, the U.S. blockade has sought to break Cuba through economic strangulation. What we are witnessing now is not a departure from that strategy, but its most dangerous escalation yet, deliberately leveraging systemic breakdown in the hope that desperation will succeed where decades of coercion have failed.

Since 1990, Global Exchange has been at the forefront of the movement to normalize U.S.–Cuba relations and end the blockade (bloqueo). That same year, we launched our first travel challenge to Cuba under the Freedom to Travel campaign, demanding that the U.S. government: End the U.S. blockade on Cuba; End travel restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba; Remove Cuba from the U.S. list of terrorist countries

Through education, publications, speaking tours, campaigns, and our Cuba Reality Tours program, we have accompanied thousands of people to Cuba, breaking the blockade of information and building people-to-people solidarity grounded in truth, dignity, and mutual respect.

And yet, more than thirty years later, most of these demands remain unmet. Instead of normalization, we are witnessing renewed escalation. Instead of dialogue, coercion and the deliberate manufacture of crisis.

Global Exchange stands in unwavering solidarity with the people of Cuba. No nation should be starved into submission for refusing U.S. domination. Cuba is not a threat. What threatens peace and stability is the use of economic warfare as foreign policy.

Secondary sanctions criminalize trade and cooperation, using force and threat to bring the entire international community into line and making solidarity itself a punishable act. At the same time, the U.S. government is intensifying violence at home — against immigrants, workers, and communities demanding dignity and democracy. These are not separate struggles. They are rooted in the same system of militarism and coercion.

Cuba’s people know this reality intimately. And still, they organize, sustaining systems of collective care that have ensured universal health care, near-universal literacy, and strong community networks even under relentless pressure. Neighborhoods share resources, doctors continue to serve without basic supplies, educators keep schools open, and communities care for one another under conditions the U.S. government is actively trying to make unbearable. This is organized, collective resistance.

Year after year, the overwhelming majority of the world condemns the U.S. blockade at the United Nations. Washington persists — not because this policy brings peace, but because diplomacy has been replaced with economic war.

Ending the blockade is a legal and moral obligation. Solidarity with Cuba is inseparable from the fight against militarism, racism, and economic violence everywhere.

As the U.S. escalates economic war, we must deepen solidarity.

Cuba Under Siege: Voices and Analysis — This Thursday

Join us this Thursday at 2 PM PT / 5 PM ET for La Encrucijada, featuring Elena Gutiérrez, Global Exchange’s Mexico–U.S. Program Director, who recently returned from Cuba after meeting with delegation partners and community organizers.

Elena will share reflections from her trip, what she witnessed firsthand, and voices from Cuban people navigating the deepening impacts of the blockade. Join here.

Travel in solidarity: Join a Global Exchange delegation to Cuba

Another powerful way to act in solidarity is to travel with Global Exchange on one of our upcoming Cuba Reality Tours. Participants bring life-saving donations, meet directly with community organizers, health workers, and cultural leaders, and help strengthen the people-to-people ties the U.S. government has worked for decades to sever. Traveling to Cuba is a way to break the blockade of information, bear witness to what communities are facing, and return with deeper relationships and responsibility.

Learn more about upcoming delegations here.

Act now: Support life-saving medical care

Cuba’s surgeons are facing severe shortages of basic medical supplies. Without a steady supply of sutures, doctors are unable to perform critical, life-saving surgeries.

One immediate way to act in solidarity is to support efforts to get surgical sutures to Cuban hospitals:
https://ghpartners.org/sutures/

Cuba is not alone.
And we will not be silent.

Global Exchange launched our first travel challenge to Cuba in 1990 under the Freedom to Travel campaign with the following three demands of the U.S. Government:

  • End the U.S. Blockade on Cuba;
  • End Travel Restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba;
  • Remove Cuba from the U.S. list of terrorist countries.

As you know all too well, after thirty years most of these demands remain in place. Tell Biden the time is now to end the blockade!

Recent protests over widespread food and medicine shortages in Cuba have drawn world attention, but the narrative we are hearing turns a blind eye to the brutal 60 year economic war waged by the US against the island. And as the news on these protests flood social media channels and public airwaves, Biden tweets his concern for the Cuban people and their suffering, all while continuing Trump’s strategy of economic warfare. The U.S. blockade against Cuba is designed precisely to create the shortages Cubans are now experiencing and to encourage social unrest on the island.

As the pandemic magnifies the devastation of the U.S. blockade, the blockade has in turn made it harder for Cuba to grapple with the pandemic. In July 2020, a UN special rapporteur concluded the blockade was “obstructing humanitarian responses to help the country’s health-care system fight the COVID-19 pandemic.” Among other things, the blockade stopped medical aid and money transfers from overseas companies and humanitarian organizations, denied Cubans the ability to use Zoom, prevented the country’s purchase of ventilators, and caused a shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE).

If Biden truly cares about the Cuban people, ending severe shortages in food and medicine must be his top priority. Biden needs to end this erroneous blockade. 

Now is the time for U.S. citizens to ensure that the next many years of Cuba/U.S. relations will benefit the people of both countries and be free from the Cold War ideology which clouded our mutual self interests.

Cuba and the Cuban people have suffered too long. It is time to end the blockade and fully normalize relations with our neighbor! Take action with us today. 

54 years ago, the Cuban flag flying above the Cuban embassy in Washington D.C. was abruptly taken down, as the United States cut official ties with Cuba approaching the height of the Cold War. For the next half century the flag remained that way, and a relationship of isolation and hostility prevailed between the two neighboring countries.

Today, July 20th, 2015, the Cuban flag is once again flying above that embassy building in Washington D.C. after being hoisted in a dramatic morning ceremony symbolizing the restoration of U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations for the first time since 1961.

It’s a momentous day, especially for those like Global Exchange who have been working to restore ties between the U.S. and Cuba for the past few decades. Without a doubt, it is a major milestone in de-thawing a relationship that has remained frozen far too long past the end of the Cold War.

But while a welcome announcement, and certainly cause for celebration, we should remember that it’s just the first step towards normalization, as the restoration of official diplomatic ties in no way means that relations are now normal. Indeed, the economic blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba in 1962 remains firmly in place, and requires several difficult hurdles to be overcome in Congress in order to be lifted. Meanwhile, the blockade continues to cost Cuba (and the U.S.) billions of dollars annually, and remains the single largest obstacle to mended US-Cuba relations.

Also important is the return of the Guantanamo Naval Base to Cuba, its rightful owner, as well as an end to USAID-funded regime change programs that are still in place. Washington should also immediately lift the senseless restrictions on travel to Cuba by U.S. citizens and residents.

There is still a long road ahead to mending the US-Cuba relationship. While restoring diplomatic relations is a start, issues like the blockade, travel ban and Guantanamo still require our vigilant attention and may take much more time to overcome. But for now, let’s celebrate the importance of today’s step, while keeping an eye on the many more steps that still need to be made.

…….

Click here for more information on traveling to Cuba with Global Exchange!

IMG_3649Last week, the United States and Cuba formally announced they will restore full diplomatic relations and re-open embassies in Havana and Washington respectively on July 20th. Without a doubt, it is a momentous milestone in de-thawing a relationship that has remained frozen far too long past the end of the Cold War.

While a welcome announcement, it is also long overdue, and there still remains much to be done to end to the economic blockade and travel restrictions that continue to harm both Cuba and the United States.

Just a week prior to this historic announcement of re-opening embassies, Global Exchange sent Princeton University’s track and field team on an 8-day trip to Cuba that included stops in Havana, Mantanzas, Varadero and Santa Clara, as well as two international competitions with Cuban teams. In addition to the track meets, the itinerary included a meeting at ICAP (Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos – “The Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples”) for a discussion on US-Cuba relations, a CDR block party with a local neighborhood, and visits to various organizations, community leaders and artists.

IMG_3491

Princeton Track and Field at Estadio Panamericano, site of the 1991 Pan American Games

I was lucky enough to go along with the Princeton group for this trip, my first such trip to Cuba. Having traveled quite a bit through other Latin American countries, nothing could really prepare me for the reality of Cuba. While holding a lot of similarities to other Latin American countries, there are also many other aspects of Cuba that simply cannot be compared. Cuba is distinctly Cuba, largely because of its history. For example, its music and dance may bear resemblance to other parts of Latin America, but its 1955 Chevys and large Soviet-style public squares certainly do not.

While traversing the Cuban countryside, walking the narrow streets of Old Havana and mingling with Cubans of many walks of life, I continually reminded myself and others that we were experiencing truly historic times. It was, and still is, very recent that Presidents Obama and Castro dramatically announced that the U.S. and Cuba would be taking steps to normalizing relations, something that has not existed since 1961 when formal ties were abruptly cut approaching the height of the Cold War. And it was only a few months ago, in April, that Presidents Obama and Castro met for the first formal talks between the two countries’ leaders in more than half a century. While we were on Cuban soil we were witnessing, living and breathing history. We will look back at this period of time 30, 40, 50 years from now as nothing short of groundbreaking, and for those of us on the trip, we can say that we were there.

The Cubans we talked with knew this for sure. Almost everyone we spoke with on our trip mentioned the thaw, young and old. It is so clearly on the forefront of Cuban consciousness. And it is certainly now on the mind of many Princeton student-athletes, as it should be for Americans in general. To better understand US-Cuba relations is to better understand US-Latin America relations as a whole, both of present day and the past half century.

IMG_3693A highlight of the trip was watching the intermingling of students and students, coaches and coaches, athletes and athletes. Broken Spanish and English was attempted, and many smiles, handshakes, high fives and hugs were exchanged. It epitomized the essence of a People-to-People exchange and Citizen Diplomacy – the idea that, even if our governments haven’t always liked or talked with each other, that doesn’t mean the people cannot.

I also continually reminded myself, and others, that Cuba has the potential to change more in the next 5-10 years than it has in the previous half-century. The changes that will come to the island, as a result of not just normalized diplomatic relations but an eventual end to the economic blockade and travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. government, are sure to be swift and transformative. The changes are yet to be fully seen, and it’s hard to tell how things will unfold. But to be sure, an eventual lifting of the blockade and travel restrictions will bring major changes to the island. Time will tell what those changes will look like. But for now, it’s important to realize that anyone traveling to Cuba during this historic time will be witnessing a Cuba that may not exist as it currently does a decade from now.

We knew more news regarding US-Cuba relations would be coming soon, but little did we know that it would be just one week after our return to the States that the embassy openings would be formally announced, nor that it would be just three more weeks from then that the U.S. embassy would actually open in Havana, the first time one has officially operated in Cuba since 1961.

There is still a long road ahead to mending the US-Cuba relationship. While restoring diplomatic relations is a start, the economic blockade and travel ban still face tough hurdles in Congress that may take much more time to overcome. But nonetheless, we are experiencing historic times in US-Cuba relations. Luckily for the Princeton track and field team, and myself, we were able to witness some of these changes in person, walking (and running) the very ground that Che Guevara traversed, while the present day attempts to mend the divisions and hostility of the past.

…….

Click here for more information on opportunities to travel with Global Exchange to Cuba!

IMG_3329

 

IMG_3649Last week, the United States and Cuba formally announced they will restore full diplomatic relations and re-open embassies in Havana and Washington respectively on July 20th. Without a doubt, it is a momentous milestone in de-thawing a relationship that has remained frozen far too long past the end of the Cold War.

While a welcome announcement, it is also long overdue, and there still remains much to be done to end to the economic blockade and travel restrictions that continue to harm both Cuba and the United States.

Just a week prior to this historic announcement of re-opening embassies, Global Exchange sent Princeton University’s track and field team on an 8-day trip to Cuba that included stops in Havana, Mantanzas, Varadero and Santa Clara, as well as two international competitions with Cuban teams. In addition to the track meets, the itinerary included a meeting at ICAP (Instituto Cubano de Amistad con los Pueblos – “The Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples”) for a discussion on US-Cuba relations, a CDR block party with a local neighborhood, and visits to various organizations, community leaders and artists.

IMG_3491

Princeton Track and Field at Estadio Panamericano, site of the 1991 Pan American Games

I was lucky enough to go along with the Princeton group for this trip, my first such trip to Cuba. Having traveled quite a bit through other Latin American countries, nothing could really prepare me for the reality of Cuba. While holding a lot of similarities to other Latin American countries, there are also many other aspects of Cuba that simply cannot be compared. Cuba is distinctly Cuba, largely because of its history. For example, its music and dance may bear resemblance to other parts of Latin America, but its 1955 Chevys and large Soviet-style public squares certainly do not.

While traversing the Cuban countryside, walking the narrow streets of Old Havana and mingling with Cubans of many walks of life, I continually reminded myself and others that we were experiencing truly historic times. It was, and still is, very recent that Presidents Obama and Castro dramatically announced that the U.S. and Cuba would be taking steps to normalizing relations, something that has not existed since 1961 when formal ties were abruptly cut approaching the height of the Cold War. And it was only a few months ago, in April, that Presidents Obama and Castro met for the first formal talks between the two countries’ leaders in more than half a century. While we were on Cuban soil we were witnessing, living and breathing history. We will look back at this period of time 30, 40, 50 years from now as nothing short of groundbreaking, and for those of us on the trip, we can say that we were there.

The Cubans we talked with knew this for sure. Almost everyone we spoke with on our trip mentioned the thaw, young and old. It is so clearly on the forefront of Cuban consciousness. And it is certainly now on the mind of many Princeton student-athletes, as it should be for Americans in general. To better understand US-Cuba relations is to better understand US-Latin America relations as a whole, both of present day and the past half century.

IMG_3693A highlight of the trip was watching the intermingling of students and students, coaches and coaches, athletes and athletes. Broken Spanish and English was attempted, and many smiles, handshakes, high fives and hugs were exchanged. It epitomized the essence of a People-to-People exchange and Citizen Diplomacy – the idea that, even if our governments haven’t always liked or talked with each other, that doesn’t mean the people cannot.

I also continually reminded myself, and others, that Cuba has the potential to change more in the next 5-10 years than it has in the previous half-century. The changes that will come to the island, as a result of not just normalized diplomatic relations but an eventual end to the economic blockade and travel restrictions imposed by the U.S. government, are sure to be swift and transformative. The changes are yet to be fully seen, and it’s hard to tell how things will unfold. But to be sure, an eventual lifting of the blockade and travel restrictions will bring major changes to the island. Time will tell what those changes will look like. But for now, it’s important to realize that anyone traveling to Cuba during this historic time will be witnessing a Cuba that may not exist as it currently does a decade from now.

We knew more news regarding US-Cuba relations would be coming soon, but little did we know that it would be just one week after our return to the States that the embassy openings would be formally announced, nor that it would be just three more weeks from then that the U.S. embassy would actually open in Havana, the first time one has officially operated in Cuba since 1961.

There is still a long road ahead to mending the US-Cuba relationship. While restoring diplomatic relations is a start, the economic blockade and travel ban still face tough hurdles in Congress that may take much more time to overcome. But nonetheless, we are experiencing historic times in US-Cuba relations. Luckily for the Princeton track and field team, and myself, we were able to witness some of these changes in person, walking (and running) the very ground that Che Guevara traversed, while the present day attempts to mend the divisions and hostility of the past.

…….

Click here for more information on opportunities to travel with Global Exchange to Cuba!

IMG_3329

 

The following post is written by Reality Tours Summer Intern Bryan Weiner. Bryan traveled to Cuba with Global Exchange and the Monterey Institute of International Studies for a graduate studies class.

San Francisco Pride Celebrations. Photo by Cary Bass.

San Francisco Pride Celebrations. Photo by Cary Bass.

Last week was marked by landmark Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States. These decisions have been celebrated around the United States during the gay pride marches that typically occur in the month of June. But what is the state of the LGBT rights movement in the rest of the world? Through a Global Exchange Reality Tour to Cuba with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, I had the unique opportunity to look at the complicated situation of gay rights in this complex Caribbean nation.

Bryan Weiner in Cuba

Bryan Weiner in Cuba

When I was preparing for my trip to Cuba, I heard many different, contrasting viewpoints on the status of the LGBT community, which seemed to fall in line with the very diverse opinions that I heard about every other segment of Cuban society after the Revolution. Many, both within and outside of Cuba, have held up the LGBT movement in Cuba as an example for the rest of Latin America to follow, while others have claimed that homosexuals are still facing extreme levels of discrimination and abuse. I knew that, like everything else that I had heard and read about Cuba, the truth of the matter probably fell somewhere in the middle of the highly polemical rhetoric.

The persecution of homosexuals began immediately after the Revolution and lasted for a number of decades. The revolution came in to restore the dignity of the Cuban population, including the excesses they were subjected to from brash Americans coming down to the island looking for a good time often in gambling casinos and houses of prostitution.  Gay and lesbian people were seen as tied to loose morals and the anti-revolutionary spirit of this period prompting an immediate crackdown on this community by the Castro regime. Many Cuban homosexuals were sent to re-education camps, in a period that was described in detail by famous gay Cuban exile author, Reinaldo Arenas in his groundbreaking work, Before Night Falls. This period however, was also a time where homosexuals all over the world, including in the United States, were experiencing active persecution on the basis of their sexual identity. As attitudes began changing around the world, they did so in Cuba as well.

gaycubaflag copyHomosexuality was officially decriminalized in Cuba in 1979 and gay liberation attitudes started to emerge in the 1980s. This began the process that was to end with Cuba being one of the countries at the forefront of the LGBT rights movement in Latin America. One of the most significant advances was the 1993 release of the extremely popular movie, Fresa y Chocolate. This movie dealt with the relationship between a gay Cuban and a straight young revolutionary. While its take on homosexuality seems dated when looked at from a modern perspective, it was historical not only because the socialist Cuban government allowed its production, but because the film argued that the LGBT community was an important part of revolutionary Cuban society.

Now, Fidel Castro has officially apologized for the abuses that the LGBT population faced during the early decades of the Revolution and there is an active gay community and LGBT rights movement on the island. Cuba signed on to the historic 2011 United Nations Resolution calling for the declaration that LGBT rights are human rights. The most well-known leader of the Cuban LGBT movement is Mariela Castro, the daughter of President Raúl Castro and niece of Fidel Castro. She  is also the director of CENESEX (Centro Nacional de Educación Sexual). She has been a gay rights activist who has received awards and acclaim in Cuba as well as in the international community. Among her notable accomplishments is the fruition of a state sponsored sex reassignment surgery program for those who want the procedure. She has also been advocating for the legalization of  same-sex marriage in Cuba, but the government claims to be waiting for ”the right time.”

While Cuba has had a mixed history with regards of its treatment of sexual minorities, it has in many ways gone much farther much faster than many other countries. Cuba is constantly looking for ways to demonstrate that the government is a progressive regime that respects the basic rights of the Cuban population, thereby making the US embargo/blockade of the island  even more ridiculous and outdated. Perhaps now that so many other Latin American countries have legalized or are moving towards same-sex marriage, the time is finally right and Cuba can use same-sex marriage as another stab at US oppression?

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Dear Global Exchange Cuba supporters,

Yesterday afternoon the much-awaited mark-up and vote on HR 4645 in the House Committee on Foreign Affairs was postponed. Here is the statement from Chairman Howard Berman, upon announcing the postponement:

Statement of Chairman Howard L. Berman on H.R. 4645

Washington, DC – Congressman Howard L. Berman (D-CA), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, released the following statement regarding the markup of H.R. 4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act:

“For a very long time, I have either led or supported efforts to repeal restrictions on the freedom of Americans to travel. The current prohibition on Americans traveling to Cuba is the last obstacle to the full enjoyment of this right. I strongly support H.R.4645, the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, which would eliminate the Cuba travel restrictions.

“The Committee had been scheduled to consider this legislation tomorrow, but it now appears that Wednesday will be the last day that Congress is in session before an extended district work period. That makes it increasingly likely that our discussion of the bill will be disrupted or cut short by votes or other activity on the House floor. Accordingly, I am postponing consideration of H.R. 4645 until a time when the Committee will be able to hold the robust and uninterrupted debate this important issue deserves. I firmly believe that when we debate and vote on the merits of this legislation, and I intend for it to be soon, the right to travel will be restored to all Americans.”

We’d be kidding you if we said we were only a little disappointed that the committee postponed consideration of HR 4645, which, if passed, would have allowed all of us to travel to Cuba whenever we want. We are disappointed big time. Big time.

We felt so good about the direction in which the committee’s vote commitments were going, and we were so impressed and grateful for the tremendous effort you all put into this campaign. Democracy was really working; citizens were expressing their views to their elected officials; members of Congress were listening. While only the Chairman knew the hard-clad, private commitments he had received, we expected to win. But the reality of action on the last day of the session before recess for campaigning took its toll. Members wanted to leave town; we needed ALL of them to show up to cast their votes in order to be successful.

The bottom line right now is:  you did GREAT and valiant work on this campaign to restore our right to travel to Cuba. You made significant progress, and we feel very good about that. Neither Congress nor the President has responded to this opportunity; nor have they reacted appropriately to what is currently happening in Cuba.

We aren’t finished yet in calling them to act on our behalf!

We are delayed, but we are not defeated.

We’ll be back to you in October. Don’t hang up your hats yet.

Sincerely,
Kirsten, Malia, Drea, Leslie and Pam
The Global Exchange Cuba Team, San Francisco, CA
and
Mavis, Paulo, and Emily
The Latin America Working Group Cuba Team, Washington, DC