The degree to which the imperial syndrome blinds the outlook of US politicians of every leaning and level can be appreciated in the present inauguration of a new government that was called to rectify the errors made by the departing administration, which have plunged the country into the worst discredit and unpopularity.

For many reasons, the incoming president is evidence of the desire for change that ranks foremost among the citizens of that nation.

After half a century of relations with Cuba, during which Washington has ignored the independence-driven decision that led to the victory of the Cuban people on Jan. 1, 1959, after a bloody struggle that began 90 years earlier against Spanish colonialism and was crowned by the triumph over the tyranny that watched over the interests of the United States on the island, Cuban patriots see no possible alternative to the absolute exercise of their sovereignty.

In those 50 years, Cuba had to deal with an asymmetrical confrontation that was the equivalent of a violent war, without relenting one inch on its decision to become independent.

The disproportion of forces is such that very few people in the world gave any chance of success to the Cubans' resistance in a David-and-Goliath confrontation. However, the patriots on the island have never weakened in their determination to achieve and vindicate their liberty.

Cuba has suffered the longest economic, financial and commercial blockade in the history of mankind. It has experienced terrorist aggressions of all kinds, including hundreds of attempts to assassinate its leaders, and all types of pressure, threats, expulsions, prohibitions and exclusions in international organizations, without surrendering or admitting any damage to its national sovereignty.

Cubans' collective heroism in defense of the national dignity and the evident social achievements of the Cuban Revolution stimulated a growing solidarity throughout the world. That solidarity has been expressed in actions that have humiliated the empire, such as the almost unanimous votes at the United Nations for a condemnation to Washington's blockade against Cuba.

But it was the American people themselves who, in an act that earned them the admiration of the entire world, spoke out against the imperialistic foreign policy of their government by choosing as their next president a candidate who promised changes in that policy.

The Cubans have a right to hope that, after 50 years of the implementation of a wrong policy against their country, those in the U.S. who must carry out the changes announced by the new president will speak out at all times in support of the independence of the other countries. They should also speak out for a rectification of the policy of abuses, arrogance, sanctions and aggression against the countries that form the world community. And in that community, the United States is just one country that owes respect to the others and deserves their respect.

It is an ill omen that some leaders and officials in the new government team voiced, in the days prior to the inauguration of the new president, projections about relations with Cuba that do not acknowledge the need to rectify a wrong policy but instead reiterate hegemonic stances.

United States policy toward Cuba has been miscarried not because it failed in its purpose to bring Cuba back into the corral and turn it into a colony (as the U.S. press often states) but because it is unfair. It is also responsible for an infinity of crimes against the Cuban people, in an effort to prevent their independence.

The traditional hegemonic tactics disguised as the promotion of democracy, an insistence in funding programs for subversion, the recruitment of traitors and defectors, and the promotion of sanctions against Cuba by U.S. allies and subordinates are in themselves criminal attacks against the sovereignty of the Cuban people.

To speak at this time of exacting reciprocal concessions from Cuba, of maintaining the blockade as an element of pressure, or establishing conditions prior to a dialogue is to insult the Cuban people and mock world public opinion from the United States' condition as the only superpower on the planet.

Only absolute obedience to international law, respect for the sovereignty of the other states and the principles that guarantee equality among nations regardless of their political system, age, population size, territorial size, military strength, economic development or any other consideration can give the United States the place its good people deserve, people who today are vilified by the crimes committed by its government all over the world.

In a peaceful world, reciprocal respect among all nations must be first and foremost.

--Manuel E. Yepe teaches in Havana.