Cuba-U.S.: February 7, 1962

More than half a century later, ordinance 3447 signed by Kennedy has not lose all its strength in official circles of Washington; it has neither erased the political-moral isolation of those clinging to its loose ends.

On February 7, 1962 started the execution of the already virtually established North American blockade against Cuba.

On January 1, 1959 the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista was overthrown and hours later Fidel Castro Ruz forewarned: “The happiness is great, but perhaps from now on, everything will be more difficult”, said the revolutionary leader.

Where resides the core of the bilateral conflict that Washington government imposed –around that time - to frustrate the agrarian reformation and other domestic measures?

Firstly, the Revolution had shattered the neocolonial status given to Cuba since the military North American intervention of 1898.

A social justice program began shortly afterwards for millions of “ordinary people” and expelled from Cuban soil the military North American mission that supported tyrant Batista.

Some analysts characterize this singular period as something Washington called “the original sin” of the Cuban Revolution.

That explains that three weeks prior January 1, 1959, the word blockade against Cuba was already mentioned.

Such one-sided politics was further defined on February 3, 1962, when the U.S. President at the time, John F. Kennedy, passed ordinance number 3447 that established the “embargo” of trade with its former colony.

That document halted all imports to the northern country of all Cuban products, since when?

Starting at 12 a.m. February 7, 1962.

The document read: “I hereby order the Secretary of Commerce to keep banning all exports from the United States to Cuba…”

When was the blockade put into force?

When the former Cuban colony still greatly depended of its commerce with the powerful neighbor from the North, and a serious military crisis between both countries was looming.

On February 7, 1962 the already virtually established North American blockade against Cuba was set in motion.

More than half century later, ordinance 3447 signed by Kennedy it’s still strong in official spheres of Washington.