Of course Cubans can't use the internet. They can't afford such basics as
soap, never mind computers, because-
"Cuba has been subjected to an illegal blockade by the U.S. government for
40 years. This blockade applies to all goods including food, medicine, books
and information.
In 1998, at the United Nations, 157 countries, including Britain, voted
against the blockade. Only 2 countries, USA and Israel, voted to support it!
Cuba has started legal proceedings to reclaim over L1 billion in damages
from Washington for deaths and injuries the socialist island has suffered
during 40 years of U.S. hostility.
The compensation claim demands damages for 3,478 Cubans killed and 2,099
disabled as a result of "sabotage, bombings and other hostile terrorist
acts" caused by hostile U.S. government policy toward Cuba following the
1959 revolution.
Lawyers will present declassified U.S. intelligence documents from the
period registering plans by the U.S. security services to destabilize the
government and overthrow President Fidel Castro.
This strategy was intensified by the Helms-Burton and Torricelli Acts. Track
1 of the Torricelli Act strengthened the illegal blockade. Track 2 funds
"non governmental organizations" such as the so-called "Friends of Cuban
Libraries" (sic) formed by Robert Kent and Jorge Sanguinetty." (see
http://www.libr.org/CLSG/blockade.html)
For the benefit of anyone who is still interested, another strand of this
policy was US support (food, guns and money supplied through camps in
Thailand after the Vietnamese-led liberation) for the genocidal maniacs of
the Khmer Rouge, because although unquestionably monstrous they were hostile
to the wicked commie Vietnamese. The American-backed Khmer Rouge turned the
National Library of Cambodia "into a pigsty after killing its librarians and
burning and mutilating 90 per cent of the books)." (Heroes, John Pilger.
Vintage, 2001. p457).
If, as he claims, Mr Kent's campaign is not political (the standard
declaimer of the right), will he call upon his government to end the
blockade and lead an international relief effort for Cuba, so that Cuban
libraries and citizens can afford to buy the books and computers he purports
to wish them to have? I think not.
Aran Lewis
|