Cuba’s support to Pakistan applauded
Staff Report

ISLAMABAD—Cuban resilience is the shining example of the unity of Cuban people against the US imperialism and unjustifiable sanctions.
Pakistan and other smaller countries can learn a lesson from it. It was stated by Dr. Shireen M. Mazari, Director General, Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad (ISSI) in a seminar entitled, “Cuba: Struggle for Justice Through the UN for 6 Years,” held on Friday, 26 November 2007. The Cuban ambassador to Pakistan, Mr. Gustavo Machin Gomez, and Mr. Inam-ul-Haq, former Foreign Minister of Pakistan and presently Chairman ISS also addressed the seminar.
Mr. Inam ul Haq, Chairman of ISSI stated at the occasion that people of Pakistan would never forget Cuban help to Pakistan in the 2005 earthquake which struck Pakistan and killed almost 100,000 people. Cuba was among the first countries to respond to Pakistan in this situation. Cuban sent more than 2500 doctors to provide medical support to the people of Pakistan in far-flung areas. Cuban doctors not only stayed in places which are totally inaccessible and where most of Pakistani people have never set their foot. People of Pakistan would cherish and remember it for a long time. Moreover, Cuba despite its limited resources, has offered scholarships to 1000 Pakistani students to be trained as doctors.
Mr. Inamal ul Haq appreciated the Cuban leader, Federal Castro, whom he called an institution in himself, for his heroic struggle. Since the 1962 Missile Crisis, which almost led the world to a nuclear holocaust, Cuba is under constant US embargo which are continuously intensified. Many people had thought that with the collapse of Soviet Union the Cuban socialist system may also collapse because Cuban had closer economic system with the former Soviet Union. But Cuba has survived all kind of pressures; diplomatic, political and economic that have brought against it. Cuba became an example that it determine to protect its independence of action against the threat and pressures of much larger country. Mr. Inam further stated that Cuba as a member of non-aligned countries have played an important role for the interests of developing countries. Although Cuban embassy was opened in Pakistan recently, bilateral relations between Cuba and Pakistan have enjoyed close relations over a long period to time. The two countries have cooperated with each other particularly in the context of UN and other multilateral forums.
Mr Inam said that for the last 16 years, the UN General Assembly has been adopting a resolution with support of the entire internally community calling upon the US to end financial, commercial and economic embargo against Cuba. Despite the fact that this resolution has been adopted unanimously with the exception of only 3 countries, the US has refused to implement that resolution. In the most recent General Assembly (GA) session, the US President George W Bush in his address to GA chose Cuba for criticism and said that Cuba was passing through the transition referring the illness of Castro and predicted that change was going to happen in Cuba. A few days ago Bush again spoke against Cuba.
Cuban Ambassador to Pakistan, Gustavo Machin Gomez, stated in his address at the talk that his country has heroic history of struggle against imperialism. It remained a Spanish colony for about 410 years and then became a new colony of the United States for about 57. In 1959 as a result of Cuban revolution, the country threw off the yoke of colonialism and Cuban emerged as an independent country on the world map.
Cuban Ambassador stated that despite US pressure, Cuba has survived successfully. The UN and international organizations report that Cuba has reached high grades and level in human development in all spheres of life that are example for the Third World. More recently, Cuba has achieved remarkable progress in its economy which grew at 12.5% annually. Cooperation with other countries particularly with China and Venezuela and opening up of its market have played an important role. The unemployment rate is Cuba is less than 2 percent and Cuba has totally eliminated “blackouts” not only by increasing power generation but also by the introduction of new sources of energy like gas, wind and mills. Similarly, Cuba has improved a lot in social sector, for example Cuba build 113000 new houses which are 3 times that in 2005.
The US policy to isolate Cuba also failed. Cuba has diplomatic relations with 181 out 192 countries. The diplomatic presence of Cuba abroad also increased from 71 countries in 1919 to 121 countries presently. In September 2006 Cuba successfully conducted 14th Summit of Non-aligned in Havana which was attended by 116 out of 118 members of the organization.
In her concluding remarks, the Director General of ISSI, Dr Shireen M Mazari stated that the whole history of Latin America is the history of struggle of assertion of nationalism against the Monroe Doctrine of the US and the US imperialism. In our part of world, she added, we tend to make a noise when we feel we are unable to deal with dictates of the big powers. In case of Latin America throughout history they have a lot of defiance against the imperialism. Cuba is the shining example of it. Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia all are tilting towards the left. It is important for Pakistan to study the history and what is presently happening in Latin America. We can learn from the Latin American experience the impact of unity of nation. Cuban experience of withstanding the might of the US both militarily and economically shows that if a nation is united there is no way that it can succumb to pressures of external powers.
Latin American countries have no large militaries, nuclear weapons, except unity of the nation. Thus they successfully resisted the external pressure, although they have suffered a lot at the hand of the US. In case of Chile, its leader suffered physically torture at the hand of US. Cuba is still occupied by the US. Guantanamo Bay is part of Cuban where the US has kept illegal detentions. Yet Cuba is assertive of its national identity and independence. The Cuban loss of trade as a result of US embargo amounted US$68 billion and US$4 billion only this year.
Cuba symbolizes the power of a people to resist a pressure no matter from where that pressure comes. We need to learn that lesson. Moreover we can draw a lesson that the support a state gets within a region for its stance is very important. Cuba has been very fortunate that it got big support form the Latin American countries for its stance against the US. Latin American people have the feelings like a family. Unfortunately this is a deficit in case of this region. If we had same sense of harmony it could make so much easier for us to assert our nationalism.