Cuba Libre! Mark Carney: we need you now!
Ignoring a stinging rebuke from the UN, the USA is pressing ahead with its illegal siege and equally illegal secondary sanctions to crush Cuba and take control of one of the last truly sovereign nations in the Caribbean. Cuba Libre was the rallying cry of patriots in the 19th Century as they sought to end Spanish rule. Cuba Libre – Free Cuba – is again the cry today in the face of Washington’s determination to force capitulation and impose US hegemony.
I think one of the most ludicrous and self-demeaning things I’ve seen this year was the attendees at the Munich Security Conference giving US Secretary of State Marco Rubio a standing ovation after he literally celebrated 500 years of Western imperialism and called for Europe and the US to unite to resume its expansionism. The hypocrisy of the Europeans was deafening, coming as it did less than a month after many of the same people gave a standing ovation to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos calling for a return to international law and the need to stand united against powerful bullies.
New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is a typical Western leader. Silent even in the face of the US threats to Canadian sovereignty (I’m told the Canadians were very disappointed with New Zealand), silent in the face of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, Luxon nonetheless is full of high pronouncements on the glory of international law:
“We consistently advocate for a rules-based international order,” Luxon told an Investor Summit, “that allows small countries like New Zealand to thrive. Free trade isn’t just an idea in New Zealand; it’s the bedrock of our prosperity.”
Cuba would love some of that. It is a small country but gets scant love from New Zealand, Australia or the “middle powers” who felt momentarily threatened by the US over Greenland. True, New Zealand and Australia joined 163 other countries to vote to end the sanctions on Cuba in a session of the UN General Assembly at the end of last year.
Leaders like those of New Zealand, Australia and the UK, however, are hollowing out international law by refusing to enforce the Genocide Convention in the case of Palestine. It is being further eroded by the refusal to unite effectively to break a medieval siege of Cuba which, if successful, will have devastating humanitarian consequences.
Since 1992, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has held an annual vote on a resolution titled:
"Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba."
For each of those 33 years the world has voted in favour of the motion by a crushing margin. For each of those 33 years, the US, that shining light upon the hill, ignores the will of the people of the earth. That shining light, by the way, is the bonfire the US has made of the sacred tomes of international law.
Executive Order 14380
Small, weak, vulnerable Cuba (population 10 million) apparently represents what the US President calls “an unusual and extraordinary threat” necessitating subjecting Cuba to a starvation siege. “The Government of Cuba has taken extraordinary actions that harm and threaten the United States,” says the President as the United States gathers forces for its latest war of aggression, on Iran. Of course Trump is being typically cowardly, criminal and mendacious but the US Congress has gone along with him. It further reduces words coming out of American mouths to meaningless babble.
Geopolitical Epsteinism
The centrepiece of the attack on Cuba is the imposition of tariffs on any “other country that directly or indirectly sells or otherwise provides any oil to Cuba.” These secondary sanctions are enforced by the equally illegal air and sea blockade that is trying to put a chokehold on 10 million men, women, children and babies.
As I pointed out in recent articles on the sanction regime that has killed tens of thousands of North Koreans (with the help of Australia, New Zealand and other “middle powers”): economies that are starved of diesel and other petrochemicals end up having starving populations as their agricultural sectors collapse. Oil imports have crashed by 90% in Cuba partly due to the US attack on Venezuela but largely because countries like Mexico have been bullied into compliance. The US is a gangster state, a powerful but rogue agent that, like a rapist, imposes its will without consent and frightens others into inaction. Geopolitical Epsteinism. Countries which impose such sieges should face Nuremberg type tribunals for Crimes of Aggression and Crimes Against Humanity.
In the case of Cuba, conditions have become so cruel that over 1 million Cubans, mostly young people, have fled to where they can get food, medicine and the chance of a paying job. The US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent calls this US-inflicted mayhem “economic statecraft”. Marco Rubio, of Cuban descent, is at the forefront of this latest assault on Cuba, a relentless campaign that has never really stopped since the overthrow of the dictator and US ally Fulgencio Batista in 1959.
The United Nations condemns the attack
The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) issued a stinging rebuke to the US in February for what it said was a serious violation of international law and a grave threat to a democratic and equitable international order. It also said the US “lacked credibility” in its claim that Cuba represented a threat to the US.
“It is an extreme form of unilateral economic coercion with extraterritorial effects, through which the United States seeks to exert coercion on the sovereign state of Cuba and compel other sovereign third States to alter their lawful commercial relations, under threat of punitive trade measures,” a panel of UN human rights experts said.
As UN reports go, this is a thrilling read. Just the titles of some of the members of the panel give you a sense of the quality of thinking that went into it. Four of its members were George Katrougalos, Independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order; Ben Saul, an Australian international law expert and Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism; Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food; and Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights.
The report makes an important point that Western countries should heed.
“In the absence of authorisation from the United Nations Security Council, the executive order has no basis in collective security and constitutes a unilateral act that is incompatible with international law.”
They warned that “the U.S. executive order directly violates the principles of sovereign equality, non-intervention and self-determination, which are essential pillars of a democratic and equitable international order as reflected in the UN Charter Article 2(1). They also circumvent multilateral frameworks governing international trade and security, including the World Trade Organization.” No wonder the mainstream media gave it so little coverage.
Sovereign equality of nations
Sovereign equality is one of the most important concepts in international law. At its core, it means that powerful countries do not have the right to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. If you pair that with the foundational concept that international law should be equally enforced (no exemptions for powerful countries) and independently adjudicated (for example by the ICC, ICJ, WTO, etc) then we get close to a system that would make the world a more peaceful and far less dangerous place.
We don’t need to like or support governments – for example those of North Korea, Iran or Cuba (or, better still, the US, Germany and UK) – to respect their sovereign equality. As the great British jurist Lord Bingham argued: exceptions based on political distaste are the first step toward tyranny. Welcome to Pax Americana.
Eugene Doyle
