Why Cuba is a democracy and the US is not

The US State Department - a fierce ideological opponent of Cuba - was forced to acknowledge in 2004 that Cuba had “no political killings ... or politically motivated disappearances", no religious repression, little discrimination, compulsory and free schooling, a universal health system, substantial artistic freedom, and no reports of torture. This contrasts strongly with the death squads and torture of dictatorial regimes trained and supported by the US throughout Latin America, for example in Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador and Colombia.

Cuban moves against homophobia and in support of gay rights have been more effective than those in the US. There is greater tolerance of sexual diversity in Cuba than in most Latin American countries and Churches which sustain such discrimination have less political influence in Cuba than in the US.

Cuba’s Centre for National Sex Education (CENESEX) since 1989 has pushed sexual tolerance, including acceptance of and support for trans-sexuals. Effective education campaigns and testing has meant that Cuba has the lowest HIV infection rate in the Caribbean region, lower than the US. Since 2001 every HIV positive Cuban has had free access to highly active anti retroviral treatment (HAART). The US has developed strong HIV-AIDS programs, as a result of pressure group lobbying, but access to health services is not guaranteed.

US backed, Cuban exile “pro-democracy” activists are mostly terrorists, as far as Cubans are concerned. For example in March 2007 the Madrid Municipal Government awarded Cuban exile Carlos Alberto Montaner the “Tolerance Prize” for his writings on Cuba. Yet Montaner is a European-resident fugitive from Cuban justice who has been on the CIA payroll for many years. He is wanted in Cuba for bombings carried out in Cuba, many years ago, and has close links to the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), which openly backs terrorist attacks on Cuba.

The Cuban Government has not moved against the celebrated “pro democracy” activist Osvaldo Payá, who was awarded the Andrei Sakharov Prize in 2002 for “Freedom of Thought” following his creation of the “Varela Project”, essentially a petition for small business rights. However Cuban television in December 2005 pointed out that Payá was receiving $1,000 a session for his classes on managing a US-backed “transition” in Cuba, held at the US Office of Interests in Havana. This is a clear breach of Cuban law, but Payá has not been arrested.

In 2005 Australian journalist Paul McGeough feted another CANF and Miami-backed “pro-democracy” activist, Raul Rivero. McGeough asserted that Rivero’s arrest in 2003 “revived memories of the worst Soviet human rights abuses” and claimed that “Rivero's crime was twofold - possession of a typewriter, and a will to dream”. McGeough did not point out that Rivero was convicted of receiving money from the US Office of Interests and the CANF, as part of quite explicit plans to overthrow the constitution and install a foreign-backed regime. Such activity is a crime in every country.

The most notorious US-backed “pro democracy activist” is Luis Posada Carriles, currently held in the US on immigration offences. The US refuses to extradite Posada to Venezuela, where he is wanted for the 1976 bombing of a Cuba passenger plane, which killed 73 civilians. Posada publicly confessed (in the US) to the bombings of Cuban tourist hotels in 1997, but was never charged. He was arrested and convicted over an assassination attempt on Fidel Castro in Panama in 2000, but was pardoned and released in 2004 by outgoing Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, a US ally. The US government, in the middle of its self-proclaimed “war on terrorism”, refuses to consider Posada a terrorist. Such is the US support for democracy in Cuba.

The US government funds a number of “civil society”, “pro-democracy” and human rights groups, to support the US image of the world. For example, the France-based group Reporters without Borders, backed by the US National Endowment for Democracy, portrays Cuba as the single worst violator of “press freedom” in the Americas. However the International News Safety Institute notes that while no journalists were killed carrying out their work in Cuba over 1996-2006, 21 were killed in the USA, most of them murdered. (Let’s put to one side the 72 others killed in Colombia, 31 in Mexico, 27 in Brazil, 16 in Peru, 13 in Guatemala, and so on.)

On participatory democracy, the US has very poor credentials. Economic policy is regarded either as “technical”, to be managed by experts, or a province of the private corporations that dominate US social and political life. Consequently there are few debates or participatory initiatives on issues of major public concern, such as health care, access to education and military spending.

In Cuba, by contrast, there are substantial debates on public policy issues, through the elected assemblies and social organisations. For example, in Cuba’s economic crisis of the 1990s, 18 months were spent debating the introduction of major economic changes such as introducing regulated foreign investment, the development of mass tourism, adjustments to services and taxes, preservation of free health care and education.

In the US, “structural adjustment” was a formula developed by the private banks, adopted at home and enforced in debtor countries. This “technical” formula, comprising privatisation, high interest rates, cuts to social services, user pays regimes, privileges for private investors and exporters, is presented as a “fait accompli”. There is no public inclusion in a policy debate, so communities are forced to react defensively to this “technical” economic policy.

There is one final, important reason why the US cannot be a democracy. An imperial ambition drives it to dominate, invade and exploit the resources of other countries. US “defence forces” are almost exclusively deployed abroad and current US “national security” policy contemplates pre-emptive military strikes on more than sixty countries.

Like other imperial ventures, US ambitions are pursued on behalf of a small clique of private investors, at the expense of millions of poor and marginalised people within the US. Yet as the US writer Gore Vidal has pointed out, no imperial project can be mounted in a genuine democracy, or a genuine republic.

Cuba, on the other hand, has never invaded another country. It has only used its defence forces to defend its own people or to support others under attack, such as defending the Angolan and Namibian people from the apartheid South African army, in the 1980s.

Cuba has used its world class health sector to assist other countries. While the US sends thousands of troops to other countries, Cuba sends thousands of doctors. Further, more than 20,000 foreign students are studying medicine in Cuba, on fully-funded Cuban scholarships. This includes nearly 100 US students. This is one more reason why, if the word is to have any meaning, Cuba is a democracy and the US is not.