“I want to say a few words about the CIA\u2019s long war against Cuba. It\u2019s been going on now for thirty-five years, coinciding with the trade embargo\u2026When we speak of the Cuban revolution today, we\u2019re talking about the development of a process that goes back more than one hundred years. The ideas of the Enlightenment affected the educated elites in Latin America just like they did the founding fathers in the U.S. They had their independence movements, which culminated around 1820-1825 in the independence from Spain or practically all the Spanish colonies in the Western Hemisphere\u2026In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the independence movement in Cuba developed. There was a ten year war which failed. Then along came Jose Marti, who is considered the father of Cuban independence. He was in a Spanish prison cracking stones for his independence activities as a student. He eventually got out and came to the U.S., formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party, and determined, with others, to re-initiate the independence movement, the independence struggle from Spain. That is when [William] McKinley decides to intervene. He sends the Maine to Havana harbor. There is a mysterious explosion. The ship sinks. Hundreds of sailors are killed. McKinley declares war on Spain and intervenes, snatching independence from the hands of the Cuban independence movement. It was followed by four years of military occupation. In 1902 Cuba is given a kind of pseudo-independence by the U.S., on the condition that the so-called Platt Amendment be incorporated into their constitution\u2026The Platt Amendment gave the U.S. the right to unilaterally intervene with military force in Cuba any time at all to protect U.S. lives and property or simply to restore public order. The Cubans lived with this humiliation for more than three decades.\u201d [Con Embargo]<\/p>\n