What is Cuba’s position on Venezuela’s claim on Guyana?

OCTOBER 14, 2015 | BY KNEWS | FILED UNDER FEATURES / COLUMNISTS, FREDDIE KISSOON

Fidel Castro became a global icon not so much for his 1959 overthrow of the Cuban dictatorial president, Fulgensio Baptista, but because of his challenge to the United States influence in the world. Young people the world over saw Cuba as a symbol of the courage of a small state trying to survive against the unimaginable might of a superpower. In his 40-odd years as the Cuban president, Castro has sought to protect the sovereignty of many Third World countries from what Castro would inflexibly denounce as big power domination. Perhaps his greatest success was in Angola. While earning a global image for himself worldwide, Castro didn’t have much success in his own backyard – the Caribbean Sea. In this context, the President of Guyana, Forbes Burnham threw a life-line to Castro when he engineered Caricom’s diplomatic recognition of Cuba with subsequent exchange of resident ambassadors from both sides. Since then, Guyana has been one of the countries Cuba has had an enduring friendship with, a bond that has survived the break-up of friendships with countries Cuba once regarded as deep brothers. Every president in Guyana after Forbes Burnham, from whichever party they came from, maintained a firm bond of friendship Cuba. With the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Castro got the largest friendship he ever received from a Regional country. Castro regarded Venezuela as special for two reasons. Its president, Hugo Chavez, was more ideologically attuned to Castro’s radical communist orthodoxy, something Burnham and other Third World leaders were not interested in. Burnham and Michael Manley were the products of the western philosophy thus they would have had subtle and philosophical differences on Latin-style communism. Manley in particular was not in the least a communist. In Hugo Chavez, Castro found a soul mate he never had after the Sandinistas and the New Jewel Movement lost power in Nicaragua and Grenada respectively. Secondly, Castro wallowed in Chavez’s fraternal links because he now had a country whose economic generosity he could depend on. No sooner had Chavez come to power, than free oil began to flow to Havana. It was free in the sense that Chavez exchanged oil for medial personnel from Cuba but Venezuela never really cared about the Cuban medical bandwagons. The story of Chavez and Fidel Castro against the background of the Venezuela claim exposed the hidden hypocrisy of Fidel Castro and his Government. The story of Venezuela’s claim on Guyana is naked big power aggression against a small country, the type of which Castro spent forty years fighting against. But an aging Castro and his brother, very late in life, discovered realpolitik, the chess board of international politics that a young, charismatic Castro loved to condemn the Americans for possessing and practicing. What Venezuela is doing to Guyana is what big, hegemonic powers have done to the countries of the Third World since the end of WW2. Castro earned an international reputation denouncing what he, Castro, loved to call, “Yankee imperialism.” The Castro Government cannot be that ignorant not to know that the Venezuelan claim on Guyana is pure imperialist hegemony. The Cuban Foreign Ministry’s lawyers and international relations experts either have not read the documents or read them but chose not to lecture Venezuela the way Castro did to the US on what Castro perceived was US aggression. In fact there are two books separated by 55 years, sympathetic to Cuba’s cries against American aggression with the title; “Listen Yankee!” One is the 1960 publication by the world famous American sociologist C. Wright Mills. The other is the 2015 work by Tom Hayden, celebrated US radical and former husband of film star, Jane Fonda. Cuba should tell Venezuela to listen The Cubans have not come out against Venezuelan aggression. They ought to because Cuba has been a victim of bullying tactics by big powers the way Venezuela is now attempting to bully Guyana. There isn’t a border dispute between Guyana and Venezuela that needs extensive research by International lawyers and UN experts. Guyana’s borders are fixed and legally accepted by International laws and the Global community of nations. What Venezuela has done and is doing is in violation of International law. The very American Government that the Cubans so hate, that the Cubans have so condemned as international aggressors is the very first government that came out with unambiguous grammar and supported Guyana’s fixed borders. The Guyanese people and the Guyana Government ought to learn by now who are its friends. Guyana is being threatened with military violence by Venezuela and our traditional friends like India and Brazil have not uttered one word in support of out territorial sovereignty.