This was my brief speech on October 29 across de United Nations Plaza, during the march against the anti-Cuban blockade.
Dear Friends of Cuba:
While the pretexts for US actions against Cuba have changed over six decades, the objectives have not. The goal was made clear in an April 1960 memorandum authored by Lester D. Mallory, US assistant secretary of state, who advised measures “to weaken the economic life of Cuba . . . to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of the government.”
Given the hardship and heartbreak caused by these actions, clearly, the human rights of the Cuban population were of no concern. This Blockade has been a tale of ever-increasing sanctions. The collapse of the USSR generated a severe economic crisis in Cuba, which lost 87 percent of its trade, and GDP fall by 35 percent. And yet, Cuba’s socialist system survived. The Cuban people demonstrated remarkable resilience and creativity, even while their enemies in South Florida and the United States sought their ruin through new and harsher sanctions.
For example, third-country manufacturers cannot export to Cuba any goods containing 20 percent U.S. components and must request a license for goods containing up to 10 percent U.S. components. These sanctions have targeted key economic and strategic areas of development in Cuba: sugar and nickel exports, tourism, hydrocarbons, and infrastructure projects as well as, more recently, biotechnology. It is important to remark that the extraterritoriality of the Blockade has been growing and creating more damage to the Cuban people.
In 2015, President Obama restored diplomatic relations with Cuba. Embassies were opened, Cuba was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, bilateral commissions were set up, regular flights and postal services were restored after decades, and restrictions on US citizens’ travel to the island were eased. In his final days, Obama eliminated the “wet foot, dry foot” policy to encourage emigration from Cuba. However, commercial and economic progress was comparatively small. Effectively, Cuba still could not use the dollar in the international economy nor make deposits in international banks. Cuban goods still could not be exported to the United States.
In 2017, President Trump’s administration reversed the rapprochement and ratcheted up hostility, culminating in 243 new actions, sanctions, and coercive measures against Cuba, generating a new energy crisis and scarcity of basic goods (fuel, food, and medicines) that replicated the severe economic crisis of the 1990s. The government used its control over distribution to ration goods rather than leave it to the survival of the fittest under a Darwinist market mechanism. Rising at dawn to join queues has become part of the daily grind for Cubans.
Over fifty of the Trump measures were introduced during the pandemic, as Cuba struggled to import medical ventilators, syringes, and oxygen tanks for its COVID-19 response. To protect the population, Cuba closed its borders at the start of the pandemic, leading to a 70 percent fall in tourism and a huge loss in revenue. It ended 2020 with an 11 percent fall in GDP. In an act of vindictiveness, Trump returned Cuba to the list of state sponsors of terrorism just days before leaving office, immediately qualifying Cuba as “high risk” for international banks and investors, even if humanitarian donations are obstructed.
Reneging on his campaign promise to reverse these measures, President Biden has added sanctions of his own. On the Island, the Pandemic of COVID has been met much more efficiently than countries that are bigger, with more technological capabilities and wealth. At the same time, Cuba has sent thousands of Health sector professionals to help other countries, in this number some well-developed countries in Europe, and produced its own vaccines against COVID, including a pediatric vaccine.
That Cuba, a small island nation, subjected to more than six decades of United States blockade, can play such an exemplary role because of a development strategy that prioritizes human welfare and community participation, not private profit. We demand the end of the criminal Blockade against Cuba, that started more than 60 years ago when three out of four Cubans were not yet born. I was 8 years old when the Blockage started de facto, and now I am a happy grandfather of 70, that cruel Blockage is still giving me misery and pain. That is all the Blockade has accomplished, to create massive hardships for the Cuban people. When I was in fourth grade the steamship La Coubre (French flag) was sabotaged in Havana Harbor, and two huge explosions killed hundreds of Cubans.
Not that far ago, a crude terrorist (A. Alazo), shot 32 times at the Cuban Embassy in Washington DC. Is really Cuba the sponsor of terrorism? We also strongly demand that Cuba is removed from the infamous list of countries sponsoring terrorism, the Island is a victim, not a sponsor of terrorism.
In a few days, we will witness a 30th consecutive vote supporting the United Nations Resolution demanding the end of the Sanctions against Cuba. Please, respect the will of the world! Do not convert the United Nations into a useless monolith of concrete, aluminum, and glass! Remove Cuba from the Terrorist States List! End the Blockade now! ¡Patria o Muerte!