Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba

"[The US] State Department advocates maintain that the additional suffering that Cubans are forced to endure under the U.S. embargo is part of a greater plan for democratization from which the island population will ultimately benefit. In keeping with this theory, Washington has chosen to release its new strategy to guide Cubans down the ‘right' path to democracy. The July 7 Report to President Bush is the second by the Com- mission for Assistance to Free Cuba (CAFC) since it was established in 2003. The Commission, which is entirely made up of high level bureaucrats, sanitized Cuban-Americans close to the White House and Cold War apostles, like Caleb McCarry, espouses a monochromatic tabloid ideology when it comes to Cuba, inspired by a clutch of ultras like Otto Reich, John Negroponte, John Bolton and Roger Noriega.

"The body has the specific purpose of designing and implementing a rightwing capitalistic democracy in Cuba. CAFC is currently co-chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, and its members include officials from over 24 departments of the federal government. McCarry, a longtime activist and a former employee of the CIA-surrogate agency, the National Endowment for Democracy, has been designated the “Transition Coordinator,” in charge of the daily operations of the Commission. It should be noted that his new position hardly marked an abrupt departure from his tough anti-Castro role, since he previously held a staff position with such an arch Castro basher, former as Sen. Jesse Helms(R-SC)."
Emily Kirksey Council on Hemispheric Affairs COHA 17 August, 2006

Read the two reports from the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba here: http://www.cafc.gov/

Cuba's response to the second report of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba

"On May 20, 2004, with all pomp and ceremony, George W. Bush announced his Plan for the annexation of Cuba. The interminable monster – of more than 450 pages – provoked a volley of criticism from all sides. Above all, from the Cuban people, who are threatened with extermination and with the liquidation of their nation. As the sinister Plan states in plain language, Cuba would simply disap- pear, would cease to exist. Let us quickly review what would happen here if what Bush has approved was to be applied:

• The return to their former owners of all properties, including all homes from which millions of families would be evicted, in less than one year and under the supervision and control of the U.S. government via the U.S. government Commission for the Return of Properties.

• All aspects of the economy would be completely privatized including education and health services; all cooperatives would be dissolved and the old latifundia restored; social security and assistance would be eliminated, including all pensions and retirement plans, and a special program of public works would be organized for senior citizens which would employ them as long as their state of health allows it; the guidelines of the crudest neoliberalism would be rigorously applied. Another Yankee government appara- tus, the U.S. Standing Committee for Economic Reconstruction, would be in charge of all that.

• In order to carry out what is perceived as meeting the tenacious and invincible resistance of the people (“It will not be easy,” Bush acknowledges in the abovementioned document), they would give maximum priority to mass and generalized repression: of all Party members, all members of social and mass organizations and “other government sympathizers,” according to the text, which warns (is there any Ricardo Alarcon need?) that the list of the victims of repression will be a long one.” The U.S. government would also directly supervise this with a repressive apparatus “organized and directed by the State Department.”

• The leadership of this program would be in the hands of a bureaucrat appointed by Bush with the pomp- ous title of “Coordinator for the transition and reconstruction of Cuba,” a species of administrator and governor general for the island, as was General Leonard Wood more than one century ago. He would have the same function – including the same title – as that carried out by Mr. Brenner in invaded and destroyed Iraq. Only in the case of Cuba, the coordinator has already been appointed, a Mr. Caleb Mc Carry, who has visited certain European countries to receive shameful complicity. His anticipated ap- pointment was presented by Bush himself as evidence that his Plan against Cuba and Cubans is a serious matter and not just words.

• The Plan Bush also included specific measures against Cuban Americans, whose links with their fami- lies on the island were drastically reduced. Their general licenses to visit them were eliminated and the discriminatory limitation of only being able to do so every three years if granted a special permit to do so was imposed on them, and all of that within a cruel and arbitrary redefinition of the concept of the family, from which uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, cousins and other relatives were excluded. In order to achieve its goal, the U.S. government would intensify its actions to do away with the Cuban Revolution by following three basic lines: a constantly more rigorous economic blockade, an increase in funding and material support for internal mercenary grouplets and an ever-growing campaign of propaganda and disinformation. Anyone knows that undertaking to defeat the government of another country; change its political, economic and social regime; and subject it to its domination is a scandalous outrage to international law only conceivable in people with a fascist mentality.

The illegal and aggressive nature of the Plan Bush is so evident, such its delirious lack of moderation, that it was overtly objected to even by agencies and individuals opposed to the Cuban Revolution and defenders of imperialist policies and interests. That was the case of various members of the so-called Inter-American Dialogue – including known enemies of Cuba – who sent out a public letter rejecting that Plan because they see in it a call to warfare and violence. One individual described it as “terrifying” and “the most explosive in relations between the United States and Latin America for the last 50 years.” Bush obtained something that is the dream of any U.S. politician: to unite the broadest front, from the left to the right. Only this time they came together to criticize him and his devilish Plan. But he did have something in his favor.

The media itself, the famous media that accompanied him in May 2004 and echoed his publicity show, knew how to keep a hermetic, disciplined silence from that point up until the end of that year and afterwards. Something that was “the most explosive” thing in half a century, simply disappeared from the attention of the “information networks.” The subject simply ceased to exist. And that was the situation for a year and a half. Up until December 2005. Suddenly, out of the blue, when everybody had forgotten about it, it was announced from Washington that there was to be another report on Cuba in May 2006. Speculation abounded. Among the politicians and academics who criticized the simplistic barbarities from the right, there were even those who imagined the possibility of a rectification. May 20, 2006 arrived. The media became edgy and asked questions. But nothing happened that day or in the following days and months. Official spokespersons responded with evasions to inquiries from journalists.

Until, once again, they forgot about the matter. The third week of June arrived and strangely, stealthily, it appeared on the State Department website datelined 06/20/2006. But it would appear that nobody saw it. A week went by while spokespersons and informers maintained a total silence. Until some of the Miami media and certain news agencies “discov- ered” what they decided to baptize a “draft.” Curiously, the discovery was simultaneous. And not at any moment, but precisely coinciding with the most prolonged U.S. holiday in the United States, which goes on up until Tuesday, July 4. As if the information was to be buried in the midst of firework displays, patri- otic rhetoric and special sales in commercial centers, which is how people over there recall the anniversary of Independence. The text that has now been published does not stray one millimeter from the Plan Bush. On the contrary. It begins by noting its ratification, greeting the supposed successes that its application has had and, on that “solid base,” announces “additional measures” to “accelerate” the end of the Cuban Revolution.

Those measures are worthy of analysis and I propose to do that later. But there is something that demands the most energetic and urgent condemnation. Something totally unusual. Before detailing the “additional measures,” those that have been made public, the Report states that there are others contained in an appendix that is to remain secret for “reasons of national security” and to ensure their “effective realization.” After having divulged everything that they have divulged – tens of millions of dollars more for their mercenaries, new economic restrictions and illegal actions against international trade and the sovereignty of Cuba and other nations, additional punishments for Cubans and for citizens of other countries – and having made public more than two years ago their Plan that describes to the finest detail their intention to re-colonize Cuba; after all that, what is there at this height to conceal with maximum secrecy? What are they hiding for reasons of “national security and effective realization?” More terrorist attacks? New assassination attempts on Fidel? Military aggression? In the case of Bush and his buddies anything is possible."
Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada - President of the National Assembly of People's Power