The mysterious case of the alleged “acoustic
attacks” against US diplomatic personnel
in Cuba turns out to have been a media
maneuver aimed at damaging tourism as part
of the blockade against the island.
One of Cuba’s greatest attractions for foreign
tourism is the guarantee of security offered
by the island to visitors from any part of the
world. Another is the high level of public
health in Cuba, one of the highest in the
Western Hemisphere with health indicators
comparable to those of the most developed
nations.
In addition to the exceptional conditions
with which the island has been endowed by
nature, the popular revolution of 1959 has
incorporated the social conditions of peace
and harmony that the visitor appreciates from
the first moment of their stay in Cuba. More
than half a century of possessive paranoia,
aggravated by the economic, commercial
and financial blockade, have not been able
to counteract the enormous achievements of
socialism, even if they have postponed or
limited many revolutionary economic and
social advances in the country.
Basque journalist José Manzaneda,
coordinator of the Cubainformación website,
a channel that broadcasts news, reports and
commentaries on the island from Spain, has
denounced the media’s objective against Cuba
over the campaign of alleged sonic attacks.
Manzaneda remembers that it was the
Argentine newspaper “Clarín”, among many
other media, who published a report two years
ago from the Associated Press. Its focus was
on an American traveler who felt “a sudden
loss of feeling in his four extremities, in the
same hotel where some affected diplomats
were staying.”
Then there’s the growing interest among
students, the sector of American visitors
that has grown the most in Cuba –118%
in the first half of the year– given that
conventional tourism is still prohibited by
the US blockade, Diario de Cuba, halffinanced
by the governments of the United
States and Spain, wrote: “There are signs that
students and retirees (from the U.S.) plan to
cancel their trips to the island”, since neither
“Washington nor Havana have been able to
prevent the attacks, which could generate
an uncontrollable crisis”. El Nuevo Herald,
a mouthpiece for the extreme right-wing
Cubans in Miami, assured its readers that
Raúl Castro is turning a diplomatic crisis into
an economic, potentially destabilizing one.
Agencies and media collaborated in this
way with the objective of the White House
that came to life on September 29. That was
when, recognizing that it was “not aware” of
the origin of the supposed acoustic attacks, it
officially recommended not traveling to the
island.
“Coming from the government of a country
where every year 30,000 people die by
firearms, more than a thousand by police,
and 31% of the world’s mass shootings are
recorded, this alarm seems like a joke in bad
taste,” says Manzaneda.
The extreme-right of Cuban origin of the
Republican party, which, in exchange for
its vote on other matters, already manages
Donald Trump’a Cuba policy. It seeks to
reverse the growth experienced through the
trips of Americans to the island and damage
the income from them which it brings to the
Cuban economy.
In line with this campaign, the conservative
Washington Examiner asked the House
of Representatives to demand that Cuba
“evaluate security at its ten international
airports.” This is an inadmissible interference
that seeks to reduce the number of visitors
from the US, in this case by canceling the
regular flights authorized by the Obama
administration.
However, RESPECT, the largest US
association of travel promoters in
Cuba, rejected –as unnecessary and
counterproductive– the “security warning”
issued by the State Department, arguing that
Cuba is a “safe destination.”
The Spanish newspaper El País followed
with an interview with Thomas Shannon,
US Undersecretary of State. He held Cuba
responsible for everything that had happened,
but without clarifying what he was referring
to, and without contributing any element to
such an unusual story. Republican Senator
Marco Rubio, Donald Trump’s current spoiled
scion, seems to be, according to analysts, the
one who is behind the nefarious campaign
about “sonic attacks” in Cuba.
Everything indicates that, now, the tactic
chosen by the right, at the service of
imperialism, is to generate fear more than to
legislate against Cuba. This is because, since
for the former they have the concurrence
–conscious or unconscious– of powerful
international agencies and media, so much
so that, for the second, they run the risk of
increasing the division in the Republican
ranks in Congress.
Let it be known then that all this diabolical
mischief of sonic attacks is nothing more than
another element of the blockade against Cuba
that this past November 1, was condemned
almost unanimously by the world community
in the UN for the 26th consecutive year.
November 2 of 2017.
Manuel Y. Yepe is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He was a professor at the Higher Institute of International Relations in Havana. He was Cuba’s ambassador to Romania, general director of the Prensa Latina agency;vice president of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television; founder and National Director of the Technological Information System (TIPS) of the United Program for Development in Cuba, and secretary of the Cuban Movement for the Peace and Sovereignty of the Peoples
A CubaNews translation
Edited by Walter Lippmann
www.englishmanuelyepe.wordpress.com
www.walterlipmann.com
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