Cuban Farmers Oppose US Policy of Divide and Rule

Statement by the National Bureau of the National Association of Small Farmers regarding U.S. government measure

Source:  Granma
May 5 2016

Cuban small farmers do not fear changes, provided they are of our own making. This is the powerful reason why the government of the United States continues in its aim to destroy the unity of the people of Cuba
ANAP, www.telepinar.icrt.cu

US State department announcement April 22

On April 22, the State Department announced the decision to include coffee on the list of Cuban products produced by the non-state sector which could be imported into that country. This as a continuation of a measure adopted by the government of the United States in February 2015, authorizing very limited Cuban exports, which excluded all goods and services produced by state enterprises.

US condition attached

It is striking that in announcing the measure, the State Department clarifies that importers “must obtain documentary evidence that demonstrates the entrepreneur’s independent status,” and notes that “This is another measure intended to support the ability of the Cuban people to gain greater control over their own lives and determine their country’s future.”

Higher Customs Duties on Cuban product

What the State Department fails to say is that having unilaterally stripped Cuba of its previous treatment as the most-favored nation – after decreeing the blockade – a position rightfully ours as a founding state of the World Trade Organization, in order to export any Cuban product to the United States, higher customs duties must be paid, which make their import to this country practically impossible.

Cuban Revolution’s transformation of the rural population

The State Department also ignores the fact that the Agrarian Reform Law, enacted after the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, made more than 200,000 peasant families land owners, and that the Cuban state has since implemented a program for the productive, economic and social development of the rural population of our country and ensured production assistance, access to credit, a secure market for their produce and other social benefits.

No one should believe that a Cuban small farmer can directly export to the United States. For this to be possible, Cuban foreign trade enterprises must participate and financial transactions need to be in U.S. dollars, issues which so far have not been settled.

We are conscious that the objective of these measures is to influence Cuban farmers and separate them from our state

Cuban small farmers do not fear changes, provided they are of our own making. This is the powerful reason why the continued aim of the government of the United States to destroy the unity of the people of Cuba cannot be permitted, as this would destroy a revolutionary process that has provided us with a participatory democracy, freedom, sovereignty and independence.

We face the imperialist policy objective of promoting the division and disintegration of Cuban society

Cuban farmers are members of this socialist civil society and exist as part of the state, which represents the power of the people, and not in opposition to it. Together with the workers and all our people, we face the imperialist policy objective of promoting the division and disintegration of Cuban society, which is what is intended with a measure such as that recently announced.

If the US government is genuine 

If the government of the United States really wants to contribute to the welfare of Cubans, what it must do is definitively lift the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed for more than 50 years, which is the main obstacle to the development of Cuba.

Cuban farmers reaffirm our loyalty to our revolutionary state against all risks and challenges, and will continue to build a prosperous and sustainable socialism, with all and for the good of all, with the patriotic commitment to continue producing for the people.

Cuba: Reduction in food prices of up to 20%

Source: Granma
April 28 2016

Cubans welcomed the measure designed to increase the population’s purchasing power over the short term.

by Redacción Nacional | internet@granma.cu

Cubans welcomed the announcement on April 22 of a reduction of up to 20% in the price of certain products, mainly foodstuffs.

The Ministry of Finance and Prices highlighted in an informative note published the same day in the national press, that the Central Report to the 7th Party Congress, held April 16-19, states that “salaries and pensions are still insufficient to meet the needs of the Cuban family.”

Gradually increasing the population’s purchasing power in the short term

The note adds that although the definitive solution to this complex situation will only be reached through an increase in the productivity and efficiency of the national economy, “the political will of the Party and government leadership to do everything possible to improve the situation of the population in the context of existing limitations, as well as a drop in food prices on the world market,” have led to the adoption of such measures, which aim to gradually increase the population’s purchasing power over the short term.

The announcement had an immediate impact: “Great news, I think the country’s policies should continue along this line, not only with well-deserved wage increases based on greater productivity, but by continuing to reduce prices, above all of basic and essential products,” stated Jorge Luis, one of the many readers who expressed his reaction to the measure on the Granma website.

Building a prosperous and sustainable socialism

Cuba is currently in the process of updating its economic model in order to build a prosperous and sustainable socialism. As President Raúl Castro stated at the close of the recently held 7th Party Congress, this process demands “that the principles of justice and equality, which have served as the Revolution’s foundation, be preserved and strengthened.”

The Communist Party of Cuba First Secretary added, “A Revolution of the humble, by the humble and for the humble, as Fidel defined it, with undeniable social works constructed, will never find solutions to its problems behind the backs of the people, or with the restoration of capitalism, which would imply the application of shock therapies to layers of the population with the least resources, and destroy the unity and confidence of the majority of our citizens in the Revolution and the Party. In Cuba, I reiterate once again, no one will be left to their fate.”

 

The Collapse Of The Western Fiat Monetary System May Have Begun

Source: Global Research 
April 24 2016

By Peter Koenig

The Collapse of the Western Fiat Monetary System may have Begun. China, Russia and the Reemergence of Gold-Backed Currencies

On 19 April 2016, China was rolling out its new gold-backed yuan. Russia’s ruble has been fully supported by gold for the last couple of years. Nobody in the western media talks about it. Why would they? – A western reader may start wondering why he is constantly stressed by a US dollar based fiat monetary systems that is manipulated at will by a small elite of financial oligarchs for their benefit and to the detriment of the common people. 

In a recent Russia Insider article, Sergey Glaziev, one of Russia’s top economists and advisor to President Putin said about Russia’s currency, “The ruble Is the most gold-backed currency in the world”. He went on explaining that the amount of rubles circulating is covered by about twice the amount of gold in Russia’s Treasury.

CIPS replaces SWIFT

In addition to a financial alliance, Russia and China also have developed in the past couple of years their own money transfer system, the China International Payment System, or the CIPS network which replaces the western transfer system, SWIFT, for Russian-Chinese internal trading. SWIFT, stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, a network operating in 215 countries and territories and used by over 10,000 financial institutions.

Up until recently almost every international monetary transaction had to use SWIFT, a private institution, based in Belgium. ‘Private’ like in the US Federal Reserve Bank (FED), Wall Street banks and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS); all are involved in international monetary transfers and heavily influenced by the Rothschild family. No wonder that the ‘independent’ SWIFT plays along with Washington’s sanctions, for example, cutting off Iran from the international transfer system. Similarly, Washington used its arm-twisting with SWIFT to help Paul Singer’s New York Vulture Fund to extort more than 4 billion dollars from Argentina, by withholding Argentina’s regular debt payments as was agreed with 93% of all creditors. Eventually Argentina found other ways of making its payments, not to fall into disrepute and insolvency.

Macri ready to pay Argentina’s illegal debt

All of this changed for Argentina, when Mauricio Macri, the new neoliberal President put in place by Washington, appeared on the scene last December. He reopened the negotiations and is ready to pay a sizable junk of this illegal debt, despite a UN decision that a country that reaches a settlement agreement with the majority of the creditors is not to be pressured by non-conforming creditors. In the case of Argentina, the vulture lord bought the country’s default debt for a pittance and now that the nation’s economy had recovered he wants to make a fortune on the back of the population. This is how our western fraudulent monetary system functions.

CIPS also applied by he remaining BRICS countries, Brazil, India and South Africa

China’s economy has surpassed that of the United States and this new eastern alliance is considered an existential threat to the fake western economy. CIPS, already used for trading and monetary exchange within China and Russia, is also applied by the remaining BRICS, Brazil, India and South Africa; and by the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), plus India, Pakistan and Iran, as well as the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan).

Washington trying hard to destroy BRICS

It is said that CIPS is ready to be launched worldwide as early as September 2016. It would be a formidable alternative to the western dollar based monetary Ponzi scheme.

The new eastern monetary sovereignty is one of the major reasons why Washington tries so hard to destroy the BRICS, mainly China and Russia – and lately with a special effort of false accusations also Brazil through a Latin America type Color Revolution.

The Yuan has become an official reserve currency

In addition, the Yuan late last year was accepted by the IMF in its SDR basket as the fifth reserve currency, the other four being the US dollar, the British pound, the euro and the Japanese yen. The SDR, or Special Drawing Right, functions like a virtual currency. It is made up of the weighted average of the five currencies and can be lent to countries at their request, as a way of reducing exchange risks. Being part of the SDR, the yuan has become an official reserve currency. In fact, in Asia the yuan is already heavily used in many countries’ treasuries, as an alternative to the ever more volatile US dollar.

The western dollar-led fiat monetary system is on its last leg

It is no secret, the western dollar-led fiat monetary system is on its last leg – as eventually any Ponzi scheme will be. What does ‘fiat’ mean? It is money created out of thin air. It has no backing whatsoever; not gold, not even the economic output generated by the country or countries issuing the money, i.e. the United States of America and Europe. It is simply declared “legal tender’’ by Government decree.

No pyramid scheme is sustainable in the long run and eventually will collapse. It was invented and is used by a small invisible upper crest of elite making insane amounts of profit on the back of the 99% of us. Since these elitists are in control of the media with their lie propaganda, as well as the warmongering killing machine, US armed forces, NATO, combined with the international security and spy apparatus, CIA, MI6, Mossad, DGSE, the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and more, we are powerless – but powerless only as long as we ignore what’s really going on behind the curtain.

Read full article here:  The Collapse of the Western Fiat Monetary System may have Begun. China, Russia and the Reemergence of Gold-Backed Currencies  Global Research