Cuba: We Won the Battle Without the OAS
"With the OAS or without the OAS we will win the battle" was a slogan repeated by revolutionary Cubans in the early 1960s when the United States mobilized millions of dollars and all its influence to stage an aggression against Cuba from within the Organization of American States (OAS). The slogan was a signal that Cubans would not renounce their independence no matter what the pretensions of Washington and its allies.
In those days, the Kennedy Administration was presenting its "hemispheric defense against international communism and its penetration in Cuba," as a continental issue that had to be addressed under the leadership of the United States. On January 15, 1962, Kennedy was already proclaiming that Cuba no longer had a place in the Inter-American system and that the hemisphere would speak out against left-leaning "dictatorships" that he argued were sustained and supported from outside the hemisphere.
In order to decide what to do, foreign ministers from the Americas gathered a week later in Punta del Este, Uruguay, for the Eighth Meeting of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Americas. According to the press at the time, it was one of the falsest and most dramatic conferences ever held. The US representatives were more desperate than ever after failing to persuade participants to act against Cuba. However, they did manage the support of Guatemala and Colombia, whose representatives, in servile fashion, joined the anti-Cuba bandwagon.
The Cuban delegation left for Uruguay headed by President Osvaldo Dorticos Torrado. It also included Foreign Minister Raul Roa and other distinguished diplomats.
As predicted some days before by Fidel Castro, at the meeting Cuba "put the US in the defendant?s chair." US falsehoods would once again be unmasked, despite the fact that debates were overshadowed by private exchanges that led to sudden position changes by several countries. Some were obtained through arm-twisting, blackmail and promises of monetary aid.
Dean Rusk, US Secretary of State heading his country?s delegation, proposed monetary aid through the "Alliance for Progress," sponsored by Washington and implemented in August 1961, as a result of the OAS Economic and Social Inter-American Council, also held in Punta del Este. The Alliance was nothing more than a blackmailing instrument to buy votes against the Cuban government.
Form the onset, Rusk did not hide his intention of applying economic and military sanctions against Cuba, condemning the island?s ties with socialist countries. On January 26, he requested the adoption of some of those measures and asked the OAS Council, based in Washington, to determine the method and date to implement them.
Rusk demanded that Cuba?s activities be considered a common and constant threat to the continent. He asked all nations of the hemisphere to suspend economic relations with the Caribbean Island. He also requested the exclusion of Cuba from the Inter-American system, and the creation of a new "special security commission" subordinated to the Inter-American Defense Council, that would advise OAS member countries on individual or collective measures to be taken against any act of threat or aggression in the region.
But they did not succeed in mustering the support they needed or the approval of several of the sanctions they wanted to impose on Cuba. The Island had the support of several countries like Brazil and Mexico, who backed the precept of self-determination and non-interference in other countries? internal affairs. The United States barely managed to get the illegal exclusion of Cuba from the OAS, with the minimum of votes.
The day before Rusk?s proposal was submitted; Cuban President Dorticos read a formal document stating Cuba?s position:
"If what is being sought is to see Cuba submitted to the determinations of a powerful country [?], if what is being sought is to see Cuba surrender, renounce its aspirations of well-being, progress and peace that lead its socialist revolution, and give up its sovereignty, if what is being pursued is to see Cuba turn its back on those countries who have shown sincere friendship and due respect to her, if ?in a word? what is being attempted is to enslave a country that has won its full liberty after more than a century and a half of sacrifices, let it be known once and for all: Cuba will not surrender."
And on January 30, 1962, during the debate on the resolution proposed to exclude Cuba from the OAS, Dorticos ratified:
"We came here convinced that a decision would be made against Cuba [?] but that will not affect the progress of our Revolution [?] We came here to switch from the accused to the accuser, to accuse the one and only guilty here, which is no other than the imperialist government of the United States."
After listing the achievements of the Revolution, and denouncing the true nature of the OAS as a political and military block under the command of US imperialism, Dorticos affirmed: "The United States did not manage to get all the results it wanted from the meeting," because Cuba, "outside or inside the OAS, will continue having relations with socialist countries."
The resolution passed the following day under the title "Exclusion of the current Cuban government from participating in the Inter-American System." It passed with 14 votes in favor (United States, Guatemala, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Venezuela, Uruguay, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, Peru, Paraguay and Haiti); six abstentions (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Chile, Bolivia and Ecuador); and the opposition of Cuba.
This amounted to a blatant violation of the OAS Charter, which does not include expressed norms for the suspension or exclusion of a member country from the Inter-American system, the main reason why several countries abstained to vote in favor of the resolution. In doing so, they demonstrated that they were taking a path of independent foreign policy.
Despite the US threats and pressure, approval came with only the 14 required votes, barely the needed two thirds that did not include the larger countries of the region. The press called the meeting at Punta del Este a hard blow to the United States.
William L. Ryan, reporter for Associated Press, wrote that even though the United States had obtained two thirds of the vote, the other side had the vote of two thirds of the Latin American population.
Ryan added that it was as if they were fighting against "shadows" and that the force of Castro was such that that the isolated Punta del Este, with only one well protected road leading to it, was the only place in Latin America considered safe to hold the hemispheric conference.
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