The widespread protests that took place in Cuba on 11 July and continued days after made headlines about the unrest among the population. Many have rushed to blame the Cuban government, without thinking that the blame lies with the country to the North.
President Joe Biden – who promised while he was a presidential candidate for the Democratic Party to change the policies towards Cuba – forgot that the US blockade is the root cause of the economic pain the Cuban people have endured for decades.
Biden said that “relief from the tragic clutches of the pandemic” was necessary but overlooked an essential element: it is urgent that his administration lifts the economic, financial and commercial siege in order for Cuba to access markets and obtain resources.
Biden blames the current situation on the “authoritarian regime in Cuba”, but forgets again that the social project that is being built in the largest [island] of the Antilles was backed by more than 86% of its population in a referendum, which endorses the free choice of its future.
The US president asks for the needs of the people in Cuba to be met at “this vital moment”. But meeting those needs means developing their own vaccines in order to immunise the entire population against Covid, since obtaining them on the international market would be very difficult because of the blockade.
It is therefore a case of overcoming the obstacles caused by the financial and commercial persecution so that the majority [of the population] are not left unprotected and abandoned to their fate.
As stated by the US activist Medea Benjamin, the blockade is the primary cause of the shortages that affect the people in Cuba.
When Covid-19 causes a global cry for solidarity and cooperation, the US government maintains a policy that attempts to strangle the Cuban economy, warned Benjamin, co-founder of the peace organisation Code Pink, in online statements to Prensa Latina.
For her it is [a] criminal [act] that President Biden keeps the cruel sanctions against Cuba when he can lift all the coercive measures imposed by Donald Trump (2017-2021) at the stroke of a pen.
Benjamin claimed that Biden, however, is putting crass political calculations (that have to do with the domestic agenda) before the wellbeing of 11 million Cubans.
Almost six months after arriving in the White House, the Democratic leader continues to show no signs of the promised change of policy towards Cuba and, instead, maintains in force the 243 coercive measures imposed by Trump, who took the blockade to extremes.
Analysts suggest that Biden follows the same line as Trump, as there has been no change in the bilateral policy, and warn that, since January to date, measures have been taken to confirm this line, such as adding a non-terrorist country to the Federal Registry on the list of countries sponsoring this scourge.
Or also in ratifying Trump’s bogus claim to include Cuba on a list of countries that don’t cooperate in the fight against terrorism in a report published in May. Cuba was also included on a list of human trafficking.
According to diplomatic sources, for no reason whatsoever, the United States tightened, with lies and rhetorical make-up, the infamous text of the report that unjustly accuses Cuba of human trafficking, thus seeking to distort the true nature of the island’s health cooperation programmes. There has also been no shortage of threats and misleading recommendations to nations that have cooperation agreements with Cuba.
Moreover, notorious terrorist Eduardo Arocena who assassinated Cuban diplomat Félix García on 11 September 1980 on the streets of New York, was released on 25 June.
According to CNC TV Granma, Arocena’s criminal acts against Cuba include “provoking the dengue haemorrhagic fever that broke out at the end of May 1981, which affected around 344,293 people, causing the death of 158, including 101 children.” (PL)
(Translated by Cristina Popa – Email: gcpopa83@gmail.com) – Photos: Pixabay