CUBA, ERITREA AND NORTH KOREA: LESSONS ON DEMOCRACY AND SELF-RELIANCE

CUBA

For centuries Cuba was a part of the Spanish Empire. In the late nineteenth century, Cuban revolutionaries rebelled against Spain. In the wake of the Spanish-American War (1898), the US invaded the island, and in 1902 installed a government to rule the new Republic of Cuba. Cuba in effect became a neo-colony of the United States.

On 1 January 1959, after nearly six years of guerrilla war led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, the Cuban revolutionaries overthrew the US-supported Batista regime and declared Cuba a socialist state. This was followed by a program of nationalization and major social reforms, including access to medical facilities, health, housing, communications, education, and equal rights for women. Beyond Cuba, Castro started a vigorous programme of solidarity and support for liberation struggles in other parts of the Global South, including Algeria, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Yemen, among others.

Fearing that Communist insurgencies would spread throughout the nations of the South, the United States made a number of unsuccessful attempts to overthrow the Cuban government, including the abortive Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. This was followed soon afterwards with the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.  In return for Soviet withdrawal of missiles from Cuba, the United States promised not to invade Cuba in the future.

Even before Bay of Pigs and the missile crisis, the US had imposed sanctions on Cuba. These began on 19 October 1960, and covered a whole range of products, processes and procedures, and continue to this day. One of these – the 1992 ‘Cuban Democracy Act’ – stipulates that all diplomatic and commercial sanctions should be maintained as long as Cuba refuses to move toward “democratization and greater respect for human rights.”  Coming from African neo-colonies we know the hypocritical basis of the 1992 Act.[1] See below for further analysis of “democracy”.

Cuban-American relations are symbolic of the David-Goliath battle; little Cuba, barely a hundred kilometers from American shores, is holding on its own (with solidarity support from outside, including progressive forces within the United States). Cuba is also probably the only ‘Communist’ state in the world with the same political party and movement (for it is more than just a political party) in power as when the sanctions began. On 21 March, 2016 President Obama visited Cuba, and shook hands with Raul. But Fidel was none too happy; he warned Cubans against Obama’s sweet talk. In 2008, Fidel yielded to his brother Raúl.  On 25 November, 2016, Fidel died leaving behind a rich legacy of standing up to the giant next door.

Since 1992, every year, the General Assembly has passed a resolution saying that the US sanctions against Cuba constitute a violation of the UN charter. Trump has rolled back the Obama-era easing of sanctions.  Despite this, the world knows that little Cuba has beaten the American Goliath. The American ambition to cage Cuba after the collapse of the USSR has been defeated. This is indeed quite remarkable. Cuba and Castro’s legacy continue to remain a beacon of hope for the countries and peoples of the South.

ERITREA

Eritrea is a multi-ethnic country, with nine recognized ethnic groups in its population of around five million.

After the defeat of the Italian colonial army in 1942, Eritrea was administered by the British Military Administration until 1952. The UN General Assembly passed a resolution that year saying that Eritrea would govern itself with a local Eritrean parliament, but for foreign affairs and defense it would enter into a federal status with Ethiopia for a period of 10 years. However, in 1962 the government of Ethiopia annulled the Eritrean parliament and formally annexed Eritrea. The Eritreans had anticipated what was coming. In 1960 they created the Eritrean Liberation Front in opposition to Ethiopia. In 1991, after 30 years of continuous armed struggle for independence, the Eritrean liberation fighters entered the capital city, Asmara, in victory.

Eritrea is a one-party state in which the national legislative elections have never been held since independence. According to the Human Rights Watch, the Eritrean government’s human rights record is among the worst in the world. The Eritrean government has dismissed these allegations as politically motivated. The compulsory military service requires long, indefinite conscription periods, to avoid which some Eritreans leave the country. Because all local media is state-owned, Eritrea was also ranked as having the second-least press freedom in the global Press Freedom Index, behind only North Korea.

No national elections have taken place for the 30 years. The People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) is the only legal party in Eritrea. Other political groups are not allowed to organise, although the unimplemented Constitution of 1997 provides for the existence of multi-party politics. The National Assembly has 150 seats. National elections have been periodically scheduled and cancelled; none have ever been held in the country. President Isaias Afwerki has been in office since independence in 1993.

The National Assembly of the State of Eritrea has 150 members – 75 members are appointed, and the other 75 are members representing the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice, the sole legal political party of Eritrea.  President Isaias Afwerki has regularly expressed his disdain for what he refers to as “western-style” democracy. In a 2008 interview with Al Jazeera, for example, the President stated that “Eritrea will wait three or four decades, maybe more, before it holds elections. Who knows?”[2]

I have been to Asmara only once – in the late 1990s. My impressions were generally positive.  Eritrea is “socially flat” – in other words, there are no – or petty – class divisions. I was told that people would see President Isaias Afwerki in a pub, waiting for his turn in queue to be served.  He would share his drinks with fellow Eritreans as if he were one of them – laughing and joking with them. There were, of course, dissenting views – especially from young Eritreans who are forcibly conscripted into the army and have a difficult existence. Many choose to flee the country into neighbouring Ethiopia.

To the question as to why I have chosen Eritrea – among Cuba and North Korea – as a good example from which we can learn about democracy, we’ll have to wait until I come to the end of this paper.

NORTH KOREA

On 19 September 2017, President Trump had threatened to “totally destroy” North Korea. He called Kim Jong-un a “Rocket Man” who was about to commit suicide.  Barely a year later, on 19 June, 2018, Trump and Kim shook hands at a high-stake meeting in Singapore on terms laid out by Kim. The mighty USA officially suspended a key military exercise with its ally, South Korea.  Imagine President Museveni of Uganda summoning President Trump to Entebbe, on terms laid out by Museveni, and shaking hands with him on equal terms![3]

Let’s give a bit of historical background to this remarkable turn of events in North Korea.

At the end of the Second World War, the Korean Peninsula was split into two “zones of occupation” at the 38th parallel – with North Korea occupied by the Soviet Union, and South Korea by U.S. troop with a “demilitarized zone” that separated the two armies.  North Korea, backed by China, tried to unite the two Koreas, but it led to the Korean War (1950-53).  Since then, China withdrew its troops from North Korea. On the other hand, the US under the policy of “containment” of China, retains a heavy military presence in the China Sea. In South Korea alone, there are 28,500 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.  President George W. Bush described North Korea as part of an “axis of evil”. President Obama said that Washington would stand “shoulder to shoulder” with South Korea, and that sanctions were the only way to force North Korea to disarm.

Before President Trump climbed down from his high political pedestal, he had said that North Korea “… will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”   He said Kim is “obviously a mad man”.   Kim matched Trump word for word. He said Trump was “mentally deranged”, and “a rogue and a gangster”. [4]

Who among the African leaders would dare call an American president a mentally deranged rogue and gangster? No one. Our leaders in Africa are too dependent on American aid, trade and investments.

Following this, Kim took the initiative to reach out to South Korea.  On 27 April 2018, Kim and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, met and signed the Panmunjeom Declaration for “Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula”. The two agreed to cooperate on officially ending the Korean War and the Korean conflict, beginning a new era of national reconciliation, peace and prosperity and improvements to inter-Korean communication and relations.[5]

In my view the most important point of agreement is “The principle of determining the destiny of the Korean people on their own accord“.  This is a clear notice that although the Korean leaders are aware of the need to bring the United States and China on board, they are masters of their own destiny. Their objective to bring in the US and China is also clearly stated. They have proposed meetings with them “with a view to declaring an end to the War, turning the armistice into a peace treaty”.  In order to encourage the talks Kim decided unilaterally to shut down nuclear site facilities, saying: “If we maintain frequent meetings and build trust with the United States and receive promises for an end to the war and a non-aggression treaty, then why would be need to live in difficulty by keeping our nuclear weapons?” [6]

As expected, Western political leaders and the media expressed deep skepticism about the Panmunjeom Agreement.  Underlying this is the nearly six decades of criticism of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).  Here is a summary taken from Wikipedia:

“North Korea’s human rights record has been considered the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with groups such as the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the European Union all critical of the country’s record. Indeed, most international human rights organizations consider North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty.” [7]

To Wikipedia’s credit, it also gives space to North Korea’s defence against these criticisms:

“Human-rights discourse in North Korea has a history that predates the establishment of the state in 1948. Based on Marxist theory, Confucian tradition, and the Juche idea, North Korean human-rights theory regards rights as conditional rather than universal, holds that collective rights take priority over individual rights, and that welfare and subsistence rights are important.”

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From the descriptive and analytical, we now come to the prescriptive: I have mainly Africa in mind, but what I say here is also applicable, generally, to the rest of the global South.

1. The Primacy of the domestic over the international

Cuba under Fidel Castro has been an outstanding example of how to sustain a system of social justice and community welfare (education, health, housing, etc.) against the background of over 50 years of relentless sanctions by the most powerful state on earth literally 60 kilometers away. Castro escaped numerous attempts by assassins planted by the US government. When you have the masses behind you, no foreign power can dislodge you.

North Korea has been steadfast and resilient against its almost total isolation since 1950 – nearly 75 years ago. Like in Cuba, its tenacity to stand up to the Empire is that the masses are united in the defence of its sovereignty, and the commitment of its leaders to the Juche ideology of self-reliance all these decades. This concept was developed by Kim Jong-un’s grandfather – Kim Il-sung (1912-1994).  Juche builds on the historical materialist ideas of Marxism-Leninism, and strongly emphasizes the individual, the nation state and its sovereignty. What we learn from North Korea – in its tenacity to stand up to the Empire – is the commitment of its leaders to the Juche ideology of self-reliance for the last over half century. Juche’s three basic principles are: moving the nation towards jaju (“independence”), through the construction of jarip (“national economy”), and an emphasis upon jawi (“self-defence”) on the road towards socialism. These principles have been the backbone of North Korea’s domestic and foreign policies since the 1950s. [8]

2. The Second “Cold War”

Although not recognised – officially or in the media – our present period is caught up in a Second “Cold War” (CWII). This time it is between the West and its military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) on one side, and on the other the alliance between Russia and China, though it is not as structured as NATO.

During CWI (1950-1990), Africa had become a battle ground for ideological and military confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union. The people of South Africa, for example, were fighting not just the apartheid state but also NATO. It was one of the longest wars on the continent. It started soon after the First World War in 1917. South Africa became independent in 1994.  Towards the last 20 years of the war, the people had enormous support from the Soviet Union and China. Without going into details, I should also mention that the people of Angola received huge support in the form of actual fighting troops from the tiny state of Cuba towards the end of the war in 1975 fighting against US-backed Portugal and South Africa.

3. Important lessons learnt during the CWI are:

During CWI much of the global South (then called “the Third World”) maintained a non-aligned position between the West and the USSR. Learning from this, Africa must maintain a non-aligned, independent, position during the CWII.

However, it might become necessary to make temporary alliances, where the allies must be carefully chosen.

There is a third lesson. This is very significant and urgent. During the CWI, Africa was rift apart by the positioning of NATO and Soviet military forces in the continent.  During CWII, so far as I know, Russia has no military bases in Africa, and China has one – in Djibouti since August 2017. By contrast, there is an intricate network that links Africa’s defence forces with the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and African Partner Outbreak Response Alliance (APORA).  This is extremely dangerous for the people of Africa.[9]

Africa must learn from Cuba, Eritrea and North Korea. These countries do not have military presence of either NATO or of the China/Russia alliance. The people of Africa should demand that their governments get rid of all foreign military bases from the African soil within the next five years (by 2025 latest). South Korea has a huge American military presence, but North Korea would not allow even the neighbouring China have a military presence for its dependence.  As I related earlier, it has built its own nuclear capacity having learnt from the disasters in Iraq and Libya.

4. Does this mean that Africa should develop its own nuclear weapons? 

This is a difficult question. Here, a comparison between North Korea and Iran may be useful. North Korea, in my view, has no choice but to develop a minimal deterrence – a nuclear weapon – in order not to become a victim of the Empire like Iraq and Libya.

Iran, on the other hand, is not Iraq or Libya. Unlike Iraq and Libya, Iran was not carved up after the demise of the Ottoman Empire. Iran is home to one of the world’s oldest continuous major civilizations dating over 4,000 years. Since the 1979 revolution, it has successfully fought against the West’s attempt to roll back the revolution. It definitely has the capacity to produce nuclear weapons, but it has decided, in my view wisely, not to provide a pretext for Israel and the US to launch a war, while keeping the nuclear option on the cards.  Iran has played this card well. It managed to get an international agreement – the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – between itself and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and the European Union. It ties Iran’s promise not to produce nuclear weapons in return for lifting of Western countries sanctions against it. On May 8, 2018 Trump withdrew the US from the JCPOA. Iran may now have no choice but to follow the example of Kim Jong-un, and use its nuclear energy to build a nuclear deterrent.

What, then, about Africa? In my view the Iran option might, in general, be the best choice: use the nuclear energy for developmental and peaceful energy, and keep Africa free from nuclear weapons.  Africa may have to review this; it may have to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent against nuclear war. However, it is too early to speculate about the future.

5, National Elections and Democracy

National elections to choose our political leaders are important. In African elections, the people stand in long queues from dawn to dusk in order that they can cast their votes. However, democracy is a bigger concept. Eritrea regularly holds administrative and regional elections, but because it does not hold national elections, it is vilified the world order by judgmental institutions created by the United Nations and the Western Empire.

President Isaias Afwerki and the leaders of the only party in Eritrea – The People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) – argue that the first priority is to develop the economy and provide the basic needs of survival – including food, shelter, fresh water, education and other societal amenities – before a “fair and free” national elections can be held.  Very few countries in Africa have been able to meet with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  Eritrea has met with six out the 8 MDGs – including, for example, adult literacy, and drastic reduction of the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Americans have forgotten the famous definition of democracy by Abraham Lincoln at his 1863 Gettysburg Address. He said: “Democracy is direct self-government, over all the people, for all the people, by all the people.” [10]

By this definition, the present United States is not a democracy. A peer-reviewed study from Princeton and Northwestern Universities concluded that the U.S. is “…not a democracy but an oligarchy in which the government represents not the interests of the majority of citizens but those of the rich and powerful.” [11]

6, Sovereignty and the National Question

In the annals of history, “nations” as we know them are a recent phenomenon – barely 400 years old. Historians trace its origins to the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which ended the 80 years’ war among the European powers. The power of the Holy Roman Emperor was broken, and the nation-states that were born at the end of the war were deemed to be “sovereign”.  Since then, sovereignty has become the central principle in international law, and the United Nations Charter.

The “national question” is different from ‘Sovereignty’, and has more recent origin – coinciding roughly with the First World War. It goes beyond national “sovereignty”.  In a famous article – “Theses on the National Question” – which Lenin wrote in 1913 he argued that the NQ “… cannot be interpreted to mean anything but political self-determination”, as distinct from a legal or cultural aspects of the nation. Lenin strongly argued the case for “national self-determination”, that no nation has a right to oppress another. [12]

Without going too much into details, I would say that in Africa – and indeed in many parts of the global South – the “National Question” has not been resolved. And it will not be as long as our nations are oppressed by Imperialist Western nations.  Legally we are “sovereign” nations, but as long as we are oppressed as nations – on top of our workers being exploited by global capital – we have to liberate our nations from the clutches of the Empire.[13]

I have dealt with the issue of the National Question in my blog “The Trump Phenomenon & Emergence of a New World Order”. [14]

7. The 10:20:70 Formula

Finally we come to assessing the merits of three options we have:

• Internationalising a conflict situation;
• Reaching out to those with whom you have conflict or encounters; and
• Self-reliance

 

The foremost agency of internationalising the conflict is the United Nations. There are regional bodies too – such as the African Union in Africa, the European Union, the Organisation of American States, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership in Asia. Here I focus only on the global organisation – the UN.

The United Nations was founded in 1945 after the end of the Second World War. Its mission is to maintain international peace and security, and develop friendly and cooperative relations among nations. It is, of course, an important organisation. [15]

The UN as it is presently constituted has two serious flaws.

1. One is that it is outdated, and no longer reflects the enormous changes that have taken place since 1945. For example, the United Kingdom is one of the five “permanent” members of the Security Council. They are there forever as long as the UN exists.  By contrast, India – with a much larger population and economy than the UK – is a “non-permanent” member, a status it shares with the remaining 195 members.
2. Second, the permanent members have the power of vetoing any decision on an issue that is brought to the Security Council (SC).  Hence no sanctions can ever be applied to them and their friends. For example, The US has regularly vetoed SC resolutions brought to it on the issue of the Israeli-Palestine dispute – 60 times since I last counted. Israel can bomb Palestine to smithereens – as it often does, especially, Gaza – but no action can be taken against it.
3. Hence, until the UN is replaced by another world body, the non-permanent members have to concentrate their work in the GA. The GA is not the main body of the UN, but it is here that the non-permanent “lesser” members can pass resolutions that they can win by a majority of the members.

The General Assembly (GA) of the UN has 193 members plus the Holy See and Palestine as observer states. How did Palestine manage to get seat as an observer on the GA? The answer is that the US does not have a veto in the GA. Palestine was admitted as an observer on 29 November 2012. As of now, 138 (out of 193) members of the UN have recognised Palestine as a state. The remaining have not – the US, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, and most of the European Union members.

The GA may not have the veto power, but that, ironically, is its strength.  The GA has significant moral authority, as also the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). Since the creation of the Council in 2006, it has passed more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined.[16]

Let me be candid: in the UN system “Might is Right”. Despite resolutions passed by the GA and the UNHRC, the US and its allies will protect Israel even if Israel commits genocide.

While there has been recent criticism of those taking the position that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, there is a long history of human rights scholarship and legal analysis that supports the assertion. Prominent scholars of the international law crime of genocide and human rights authorities take the position that Israel’s policies toward the Palestinian people could constitute a form of genocide. Those policies range from the 1948 mass killing and displacement of Palestinians to a half-century of military occupation and, correspondingly, the discriminatory legal regime governing Palestinians, repeated military assaults on Gaza, and official Israeli statements expressly favoring the elimination of Palestinians. [17]

I conclude this part of the formula – Internationalising a conflict situation – by arguing that weaker nations do not get justice in the Security Council, but at least in the GA and UNHRC their positions are recognised, and this gives them some moral authority – as illustrated in the case of Palestine.  But because the GA resolutions cannot be enforced, the aggrieved states (barring the permanent members of the Security Council) have no respite in the UN system.  Hence my conclusion that whilst the UN is an important agency to obtain moral backing for nations (outside the 5 states mentioned above), they should put no more that 10 percent of their time and energy into the UN.

2, I go now to the second option: to argue that the “lesser” countries, should put 20 percent of their time and energy in reaching out to the countries with whom they have conflicts. Sometimes this is known by a more appropriate term – namely, “Confidence Building Measures” (CBMs). I can give numerous examples of these. But what better example than the peace accord signed by Eritrea and Ethiopia on 8-9 July, 2018.  What is symbolically even more significant is that the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, travelled to Asmara in Eritrea to meet with the Eritrean President, Isaias Afwerki. This has ended the over 20 years of war between them.  Fittingly, Abiy Ahmed was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize on 3 December, 2019.

3, And, finally, the third option: Nations should spend 70 percent of their time democratizing their states and empowering their people. What gave Eritrean President, Isaias Afwerki the moral strength to negotiate with Abiy Ahmed was the unflinching support of the masses of his nation. This is true also, of Cuba and North Korea. “Petite” Cuba could stem the avalanche of its powerful neighbour only because Castro had created a socialist state where power resided with the masses. In North Korea Kim Jong-un derives his strength from the masses of the people from a rigorous policy of self-reliance – based on the three principle of Juche, mentioned earlier.

A final word. Most countries in the global South – barring China, Cuba, Eritrea and North Korea have more or less resolved their “National Question” (As argued above). I am optimistic that this small group would be joined by Lula da Silva in Brazil;  Nicolás Maduro who succeeded the late Hugo Chávez in Venezuela; Evo Morales in Bolivia – who is presently in exile pushed out by the Americans, but has substantial support in the country, and could well return to Bolivia; and Daniel Ortega who came out of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua.  Overshadowed by a titanic colossus on their north, they face immense challenges, but the spirit of the people in these countries is strong enough to turn the tide.  It is only a matter of time.

@Yash Tandon

29 December

 

[1] See below for further analysis of “democracy”.

 

[2] https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/rizkhan/2008/05/200861517452257212.html

 

[3] North Korea is half the size of Uganda. Uganda is 241,038 sq.km compared to North Korea’s 120,540 Sq. km. North Korea has a population of about 26 million compared to Uganda’s about 37 million.

[4] https://www.theguardian.com › world › sep › a-rogue-and-a-gangster-kim-…

 

[5] For the full text, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panmunjom_Declaration

[6] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/29/kim-jong-un-north-korea-allow-foreign-experts-witness-nuclear/

[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_North_Korea

[8] https://www.google.com/search?q=juche+ideology&oq=Juche&aqs=chrome.1.0l8.4848j1j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

 

[9] https://www.google.com/search?safe=strict&sxsrf=ACYBGNRuYz3_J7Sc2DO6K47-iD3watDuTQ%3A1577547454333&ei=vnYHXoyCFOeU1fAP2sOhwA8&q=AFRICOM

 

[10] https://www.google.com/search?q=Lincoln+at+his+1863+Gettysburg+Address

[11] https://www.google.com/search?q=Princeton+and+Northwestern+Universities+concluded+that+the+U.S.+is+not+a+democracy+but+an+oligarchy

[12] https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/jun/30.htm

[13] There is a difference between oppression and exploitation. Exploitation refers to the relation between those who own capital and the workers. Oppression is when a whole nation (not only the working class) but all nationals – including, for example, the “national bourgeoisie”.

[14] https://www.pambazuka.org/democracy-governance/trump-and-trumpism-reflections-post-us-elections-geopolitics

[15] In several different capacities, I have had connections with the UN for now close to 50 years. My Ph.D. theme (1967) was on “The United Nations Peace-Keeping organisations”.

 

[16] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel

[17] https://ccrjustice.org/genocide-palestinian-people-international-law-and-human-rights-perspective