Category: Cuba
Cuba receives medical supply donation from China as pandemic worsens
worker | August 31, 2021 | 8:23 pm | China, COVID-19, Cuba | Comments closed

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-29/Cuba-receives-medical-supply-donation-from-China-as-pandemic-worsens-137Su4Auhmo/index.html

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Cuba receives medical supply donation from China as pandemic worsens
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Cuba on August 28 received medical supplies donated by the Chinese government to help it combat the spread of COVID-19, as the island endures a sharp rise in cases, deaths and hospitalizations.

The medical supplies include rapid COVID-19 antigen testing kits, surgical gloves and protective suits, adding to the ventilators and oxygen concentrators donated by China recently.

Cuba Saves Lives in Haiti
worker | August 24, 2021 | 7:19 pm | Cuba, Haiti | Comments closed

Cuba Saves Lives in Haiti

By Alejandra Garcia on August 22, 2021, from Havana

Cuban doctors helping quake victims in Haiti

Nature once again took its toll on Haiti. On August 14, the most impoverished country in Latin America registered a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that as of the latest count has left over 2,000 people dead and 10,000 injured.The catastrophe is only exceeded to the damage left on the Haitian people by the devastating earthquake that shook the nation in 2010.

The testimonies are heartbreaking. “I saw bodies being pulled out of the rubble,” told to the press Jean Marie Simon, 38, a resident of Les Cayes, one of the most affected cities in the southern part of the country.

“The streets were filled with people searching for their loved ones. I will not forget their looks of despair, the destroyed houses around me, the bodies of young people lying on the ground,” the head of an Episcopal church in that city, Abiade Lozam, added.

But Haiti has not been alone amid this misfortune. Two hundred and fifty-three Cuban health professionals, including doctors and nurses, had been deployed in the areas most damaged by the phenomenon since long before the earthquake.

Cuba has been supporting the Haitian people since 1998, after the impact of hurricanes Mitch and George. They saved lives after the 2010 earthquake, the cholera epidemic, the 2016 cyclone Mathew, the Covid-19 pandemic, and the recent tragedy.

“Today, as it happened after every disaster situation during these last 23 years, the priority is to work tirelessly and bring medical care to all the victims,” Cuba’s Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez tweeted.

Our professionals will remain in that Caribbean nation for as long as the Haitian people need them. They will continue to bring health to every corner of the country, he added.

In Anse a Veau, a community of over 34,000 inhabitants about 20 kilometers from the earthquake’s epicenter, many houses collapsed, and hundreds of people were injured. From there, five Cuban specialists are working day and night to save lives.

A few seconds after the community trembled, hundreds of inhabitants crowded outside the Cuban installations. Many of them were children or people with traumas and exposed fractures. Despite the experience of Cuban doctors in dealing with natural disasters, these were painful images.

The specialists told Prensa Latina that one of the most shocking cases they received was a woman who fell backward onto a steel bar in the middle of the tremor.

“I have never experienced such a traumatic incident. The lady came to us with the section of iron still piercing her body. We contained her bleeding, cannulated the vein, and got her to a nearby hospital for surgical care, but that’s all we could do,” nurse Aliosca Asencio lamented.

The island’s specialists serve in other cities far from the capital Port-au-Prince, including Jeremie, L’Asile, Aquin, Anse a Veau, Corail, and Port Salut, which are now amidst the constant aftershocks that are rocking the south of the country.

According to local news outlets, some doctors are still sleeping in tents, like some 130,000 families who lost everything during the second most intense earthquake the country has experienced in the past 11 years.

“Our solidarity with the noble Haitian people will be eternal. We are here in body and soul for them amid these hard times, and we will be here for as long as it takes,” Asencio said.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano

René González of the Cuban Five on Cuba’s Challenge and Washington’s Hypocrisy
worker | August 13, 2021 | 6:51 pm | Cuba, Cuban Five, Fascist terrorism | Comments closed

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/08/cuban-five-cuba-protests

René González of the Cuban Five on Cuba’s Challenge and Washington’s Hypocrisy

RENÉ GONZÁLEZ

René González is one of the Cuban Five, long jailed in the US for their intelligence work combating far-right Miami terrorist groups. He spoke to Jacobin about the blockade and what his trial told him about the US’s concern for human rights in Cuba.

A Cuban flag flies over Havana. Andrew Wragg / Flickr

INTERVIEW BY
Denis Rogatyuk

René González is a former member of Cuba’s “Wasp Network,” set up to combat the terrorism long directed against the island by far-right Miami exile groups. Following the murder of over two hundred Cubans in sustained attacks on the country’s aviation, shipping, and tourism sectors — organized by figures like CIA agent Luis Posada Carriles — this intelligence unit worked to infiltrate and undermine the terrorist milieu.

Immortalized in the 2019 Netflix film Wasp Network, González is best-known as one of the so-called Cuban Five. After the FBI broke up the Wasp Network in 1998, González and four of his colleagues were put before a Florida court in a trial internationally condemned for its lack of due process. He was sentenced to a fifteen-year jail spell, and finally returned to Cuba in 2013.

Today living in Havana, González saw first-hand the July 11 protests that captured international attention. In an interview with Voces sin Fronteras, hosted by Jacobin contributing editor Denis Rogatyuk, he spoke about the current situation in the capital, the history of US attacks on the island, and a six-decade-long economic blockade affecting even Cuba’s trade with third countries.


DR

What has your experience of the protests been, and what have you seen?

RG

Like the vast majority of Cubans, I woke up on July 11 and began my normal life — or at least, a normal Sunday under the pandemic — and suddenly information began appearing on social networks. First, about what was happening in San Antonio, then the president’s presence there, and gradually, especially from sites in Miami, information and jubilant videos about events elsewhere in Cuba.

I continued my routine, until I realized something more serious was going on. I started making some calls and in the evening, I went to two places where protests had taken place. I went to [the municipality of] Diez de Octubre, and when I got there, the protest was still ongoing but was practically over. You could see the damage, and then I went to Zanja Street where something had also happened, but much less.

So I could see things first-hand. Then, I think on the Monday there were some further protests, and a mixture of falsehoods, lies, and video footage. We all know now that images of Buenos Aires, Alexandria, Venezuela, and other places were used to create the impression that Cuba was immersed in chaos, and that the government had collapsed.

In Cuba, we all knew that was a lie, but I suppose that it will have had its effect on some people elsewhere, who do not know the Cuban reality. And I suppose that some exaggerations regarding the supposed repression of peaceful protesters will have made their mark on some of the not so well-informed.

DR

How about the counter-mobilizations, in support of the revolution?

RG

I’m not going to deny that what happened surprised us. We’re not used to seeing events like these in our country — and above all, this level of violence. I will clarify that not everyone who demonstrated was a violent person — there were places where some dissatisfied people came out, some with genuine claims and problems that have been imposed on us for years, largely from the United States. But the level of violence was unusual for Cuba. This is something we need to examine, make the corresponding analyses, and take the appropriate measures — in terms of public order, but also social and political measures.

These events provoked a response among people who don’t want to see our country like this. The demonstrations organized by communities and by trade unions took to the streets to show that we want to build a peaceful country — we don’t want these levels of street violence. And also to show that most Cuban people continue to support this country, the revolution, the government.

Above all, that we’re aware that beyond the legitimacy of some people’s demands, all this is part of an attack against Cuba. It was well-planned through social networks. But we are going to defend this government, our sovereignty, our independence — and we are going to continue resisting.

We, as a country, as a people, as a community, have for six decades been subjected to a genocidal policy whose express purpose is precisely to make people surrender out of hunger, out of desperation, out of necessity. And well, there are people who surrender. I don’t mean this as an insult — I don’t think that everyone necessarily has to have the same level of endurance. The people who decided to blame the Cuban government for all this aren’t all criminals.

But I believe that criminal elements, spurred on by the tremendous campaign on social networks, made these demonstrations into what we saw in [those] days. I believe that the part of the population that maintains a dignified position in the face of US imperialism’s criminal policy has the right to take to the streets to demonstrate in favor of this process and against the policy that has tried to suffocate us for sixty years.

DR

What do you think about the comparisons being made between these protests and the so-called “El Maleconazo” in 1994?

RG

There are many points of contact. The main one, the “backdrop,” is the US blockade against Cuba, which has deliberately sought to sow despair among the Cuban people so that they become disenchanted and blame the government for this country’s economic problems and material hardships. It is part of a systematic, sixty-year policy, a common thread running through the 1994 crisis and the one we are facing now.

Moreover, I think that in both cases, the uprising was promoted from abroad. In 1994, the immigration issue was used so that some desperate people took to the streets and, in this case, the COVID situation has been used. This has been linked to an intensification of the criminal US policy against Cuba, imposed by President Trump and continued by President Biden.

I think that US empire’s policy towards Cuba will continue to promote these events. It will not change as long as they consider that they can provoke despair in the Cuban people, and there are moments like these when various circumstances converge that increase people’s material hardships and when part of that population — out of despair in some cases, in other cases due to political, malicious, sometimes even criminal intentions — end up taking these positions and take to the streets.

DR

Have you seen signs of a campaign of fake news?

RG

Yes, of course. The US government has always tried to use the media to influence the Cuban population and incite insurrection, illegality, and violence. We cannot forget that during Reagan’s presidency, Radio Martí was created. Previously, there was Radio Ciudad alongside Radio Americas. The US Government always wanted to use communications to subjugate Cuba, as part of this war. This is the psychological component of a war of attrition that is anything but simply psychological. In the 1960s, it was the radio, then came TV Martí, though it was never seen in Cuba, and recently social networks have joined this war.

We all know that the US Government dedicates considerable funds to this psychological warfare, which, through social networks, has been “dropped” on Cuba. It is a persistent, systematic, methodical, scientifically calculated effort that does end up impacting some people — and has been a very important element in this campaign.

This campaign is carried out in two directions. One aims to break our spirits, to confuse some Cubans, to incite us to violence, to make us believe and rationalize the theory that the embargo does not exist, that there is no blockade, that the Cuban government is to blame for everything. But we mustn’t forget that it also aims to deceive the rest of the world, so that people receive false news about Cuba. It aims to magnify any problem that occurs here and thereby justify the demands for “humanitarian intervention,” which many of the worst spokesmen of the Cuban counterrevolution make to the US government in the hope that its army will hand them back their privileges in Cuba.

In both cases, I think this is a criminal use of a technological instrument that in other circumstances should serve to bring people closer, to sow the seeds of peace. Obviously, this is not in the interest of those who wish to reconquer Cuba. And that’s a phenomenon that we must continue to face and fight.

DR

Is it possible to do something from outside of Cuba?

RG

As in the case of the Cuban Five, I think it’s important for people to inform themselves and not be fooled, to try to learn about Cuba from the Cubans who are here. Not to be influenced by all the campaigns, the lies, the misinformation that — both through social networks and through the hegemonic disinformation media — are disseminated throughout the world. To try to stay informed and spread that information among your friends, your acquaintances, and try to stir worldwide solidarity with the Cuban people, against the criminal policies of the US government.

Let’s not kid ourselves. They want to turn Cuba into a Syria, a Libya, an Iraq, and then come in with all these processes we’ve seen already in which capital returns and supposedly rebuilds the country that they have just destroyed. They want to do the big business that they do everywhere when they arrive with their “humanitarian” interventions, in favor of “democracy,” etc.

DR

What have been the harshest effects of the blockade that you have observed in the last year?

RG

The blockade has been a brutal act of war, intensified over the past four years by the Trump administration. The assault on the Cuban economy has been brutal, even before the pandemic came along. I’ll give some examples.

With the connivance of the Latin American right, specifically the presidents of Brazil and Ecuador, the medical programs that brought several billion dollars a year to enter Cuba were dismantled. That was a brutal economic blow. Then [Trump’s administration] continued to take measures against family remittances. Trump talked a lot about “human rights,” as does Mr Biden and all the others who went before did. They attacked the Cuban family and cut remittances to relatives in Cuba, inflicting another blow to the heart of the Cuban family economy. Further, [foreign-based] Cubans’ trips to Cuba were drastically reduced.

The pandemic added to all this. After the other blows I described, the Cuban economy was counting on tourism, but the pandemic has practically paralyzed the tourism industry and we have had to do without that income, which is what allowed the development of normal life in Cuba.

Under these conditions, the United States has increased its disinformation campaign, its psychological war against Cuba, always with the message that the fault lies with the inefficiency of the Cuban government — that it doesn’t care about its citizens and should be protested against. The result has been that some people have become desperate and have lost their perspective on the real impact that these measures have had on Cuba.

I don’t know the exact figure, but we can speak of several billion dollars that have stopped arriving in Cuba in recent years. Under these conditions, the government has had to deal with the pandemic — and the resources are simply not enough for everything. I wouldn’t venture a comparison with other governments such as Leningrad [in 1941], but the conditions we are experiencing at this time are quite similar.

If we lived in a just world, the Trumps and Bidens would be prosecuted for this criminal policy. It is imposed by the largest political, economic and military power in human history against a country of 11 million inhabitants which gives the rest of the world only solidarity, love, and peace. But our all-powerful neighbors have decided to set us against each other. They continue to dream — as it was set out in the 1980s — that through hunger and despair Cubans will end up desperate and will kneel before the US government.

DR

As a former US political prisoner, what would you say to those who say that Cuba is a dictatorship or a totalitarian regime?

RG

I think that the repression within US society is visible to the whole world. I am amazed when some people take lessons on human rights, on the rule of law, from the US government.

The US government has been repressive from its inception, and that has not changed. That’s not even mentioning the rest of the planet. The US government considers that it has the right to decide that each country must do what suits the US government — and, if not, it will have to face the consequences.

The trail of death that it has left around the world in recent decades just because a government decided not to do what suits US capital is appalling — and that is what they are looking for in Cuba. To speak of repression, and to do so in the name of the US government, is the most blatant cynicism.

I think that has a lot to do with the experience that we [the Cuban Five] had, especially in the legal process to which we were subjected. If the annals of American legal history are studied one day, the trial that we went through would be right up there for its cynicism, for the use of lies, by a government that considers itself the arbiter of human rights and legality around the globe.

We saw things in that trial that you don’t even see in the movies. We saw the prosecutors blatantly lie. Blatantly put people on the stand to lie knowing that everyone knew it was a lie — knowing with tremendous confidence that the jury was going to believe all those lies. We saw the prosecutors blackmail witnesses, threaten them with prosecution if they testified. That is, witnesses that we took to the trial for the defense, witnesses that were given subpoenas according to our right to defense but couldn’t testify because the prosecutor stood with tremendous calm and said that if that person testified, he would prosecute them.

In the trial, we saw the prosecutors threaten an American general that his pension would be taken away if he testified in favor of the defense. We saw all kinds of violations, mockeries of due process. … It had nothing to do with what we see in the movies where the accused has every right to defend himself.

Really, I think the trial taught us to better understand why an individual like Joe Biden, who is painted, presented or sold as liberal and moderate, can stand in front of a camera and say no to reopening family remittances because the Cuban government supposedly going to appropriate them. Why he can then stand before a camera and suddenly offer us vaccines, but insist that an international organization has to come to distribute them among the population because the Cuban government — the only one in Latin America that has created a vaccine — supposedly isn’t going to.

You have to be cynical, you have to be hypocritical, to say such things. I do not know if Biden is a lawyer — he is probably also a lawyer. I think he has learned from the cynicism that colors those who represent that imperialist, criminal, genocidal government. Our experience as political prisoners left a mark on us and quickly taught us to be able to identify such people.

The majority of the Cuban people continue to defend this revolution. I think it is a question of principles and human dignity. There is no reason why we should capitulate: we will continue to defend this revolution. We will have to look inside ourselves, rectify what has to be rectified. But I do not think it is worthy of our history, of our martyrs, of the principles that have inspired this revolution, that we surrender to an empire because it wants to starve us. We will have to look for solutions within ourselves — but surrender is not an option for us.

‘Independent’ Mexico has every right to send aid to Cuba in defiance of ‘inhumane’ US sanctions, president says
worker | July 29, 2021 | 7:35 pm | Cuba, Mexico | Comments closed

https://www.rt.com/news/530526-mexico-fuel-cuba-us-sanctions-inhumane/

‘Independent’ Mexico has every right to send aid to Cuba in defiance of ‘inhumane’ US sanctions, president says

‘Independent’ Mexico has every right to send aid to Cuba in defiance of ‘inhumane’ US sanctions, president says
President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has scoffed at the notion that Mexico should honor a US-imposed embargo on Cuba, as his country sends aid to the island in defiance of Washington’s suffocating economic restrictions.

 

Defending his decision to fuel shipments and other humanitarian aid to Cuba, Obrador said on Tuesday that US sanctions on the socialist state were “inhumane,” and that “independent” Mexico was well within its rights to defy the unilaterally imposed embargo.

Earlier this week, a Mexican cargo ship loaded with 100,000 barrels of diesel fuel set sail for Cuba. The Mexican government said the fuel would be used to provide power for Cuban hospitals.

Two additional vessels loaded with medical supplies and food embarked in the following days. Mexico’s Foreign Ministry described the shipments as humanitarian assistance aimed at helping Cuba overcome the coronavirus pandemic.

Washington has tried to penalize ships that deliver goods to Cuba by preventing them from docking later at US ports, Obrador noted. The rule is one of the main ways the US enforces its embargo.

The US government has ratcheted up sanctions aimed at some Cuban officials accused of human rights abuses following anti-government protests in the country earlier this month.

Mexico isn’t the only country that has openly bypassed Washington’s economic restrictions. On Saturday, Russia sent a large shipment of food and medical supplies to the island. Cuba’s trade minister applauded the move, tweeting: “We are not alone.”

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USA/Global: Let Cuba Live!
worker | July 28, 2021 | 7:55 pm | Action, Cuba | Comments closed

USA/Global: Let Cuba Live!

AfricaFocus Bulletin
July 27, 2021 (2021-07-27)
(Reposted from sources cited below)

Editor’s Note

The Biden administration has now been in office for six months, along with a narrow Democratic majority in Congress. So it seems an appropriate time for a report card. I offered my evaluation in another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out today, entitled “Building Back Better? Or Not?” But as I was finalizing that Bulletin, I realized that the rising U.S. attacks on Cuba are a key indicator of how things are going.

They show that the United States is headed toward “Build Back Worse” – a sharp bipartisan reversion to simplistic Cold War policies and the “bad neighbor” policy toward Caribbean countries. And yet the “mainstream media” (for me, the daily Washington Post and New York Times) contained at best only a few hints of dissent from this policy consensus.

I began accumulating links on the Cuba situation to include in the Bulletin, and they grew beyond the space available there. Hence the need for a separate treatment. This Bulletin contains an open letter published in the New York Times on Friday, July 25, as well as excerpts and links to sources that provide a fuller picture.

For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on USA/Africa relations, visit http://www.africafocus.org/country/usa-africa.php

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Open Letter to President Biden

Let Cuba Live!

Sign the letter here.

Dear President Joe Biden,

It is time to take a new path forward in U.S.-Cuban relations. We, the undersigned, are making this urgent, public appeal to you to reject the cruel policies put into place by the Trump White House that have created so much suffering among the Cuban people.

Cuba – a country of eleven million people – is living through a difficult crisis due to the growing scarcity of food and medicine. Recent protests have drawn the world’s attention to this. While the Covid-19 pandemic has proven challenging for all countries, it has been even more so for a small island under the heavy weight of an economic embargo.

We find it unconscionable, especially during a pandemic, to intentionally block remittances and Cuba’s use of global financial institutions, given that access to dollars is necessary for the importation of food and medicine.

As the pandemic struck the island, its people – and their government – lost billions in revenue from international tourism that would normally go to their public health care system, food distribution and economic relief.

During the pandemic, Donald Trump’s administration tightened the embargo, pushed aside the Obama opening, and put in place 243 “coercive measures” that have intentionally throttled life on the island and created more suffering.

The prohibition on remittances and the end of direct commercial flights between the U.S. and Cuba are impediments to the wellbeing of a majority of Cuban families.

“We stand with the Cuban people,” you wrote on July 12. If that is the case, we ask you to immediately sign an executive order and annul Trump’s 243 “coercive measures.”

There is no reason to maintain the Cold War politics that required the U.S. to treat Cuba as an existential enemy rather than a neighbor. Instead of maintaining the path set by Trump in his efforts to undo President Obama’s opening to Cuba, we call on you to move forward. Resume the opening and begin the process of ending the embargo. Ending the severe shortages in food and medicine must be the top priority.

On 23 June, most of the member states of the United Nations voted to ask the U.S. to end the embargo. For the past 30 years this has been the consistent position of a majority of member states. In addition, seven UN Special Rapporteurs wrote a letter to the U.S. government in April 2020 regarding the sanctions on Cuba. “In the pandemic emergency,” they wrote, “the lack of will of the U.S. government to suspend sanctions may lead to a higher risk of suffering in Cuba.”

We ask you to end the Trump “coercive measures” and return to the Obama opening or, even better, begin the process of ending the embargo and fully normalizing relations between the United States and Cuba.

Signatories available at https://www.letcubalive.com/.

*******************************************************************

For anyone wanting to understand the role of Cuba in African liberation struggles, and the parallel U.S. opposition to those struggles, the case study of Angola is essential.

These two books, by Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies professor Piero Gleijeses, are the key scholarly works on this history, based on multiple archival and oral sources from the United States, Cuba, Angola, and other countries.

See his CV here.

https://bookshop.org/a/709/9780807854648

https://bookshop.org/a/709/9781469628325

Other Background Resources on US/Cuba Policy

Whether simply out of political calculation or a return to the worst of U.S. Cold War thinking, the Biden administration, with political support from both parties, is doubling down on destructive policies against the Cuban people. Yes, Cuba does need reform, and uncritical support of the Cuban government disregards current realities.

But U.S. sanctions, aimed at punishing the Cuban people as a means to bring down the government, build on a history of U.S. occupation of Cuba at the beginning of the 20th century, imposing a highly limited “independence” after defeating Spain in the Spanish American War. Shortly after Cuban revolutionaries overthrew the latest U.S.-dependent government in 1959, hostility between the United States and Cuba mounted rapidly, culminating in the failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 and economic sanctions in 1962, almost 60 years ago. Sanctions were somewhat relaxed during the Obama administration, then strengthened again under Trump.

In Cuba policy, therefore, President Biden is continuing the Trump policies and even threatening to escalate. This is not “building back better” but doubling down on the worst. No rethinking of past policies at all!

https://www.democracynow.org/2021/7/27/cuba_protests_pandemic_conditions

https://novaramedia.com/2021/07/20/whats-actually-going-on-in-cuba/ by Helen Yaffe.

An excellent summary by a leading Cuba expert based at the University of Glasgow. Author of the book We Are Cuba! on the post-Soviet history of Cuba.See also https://www.facebook.com/helen.yaffe.9/ and https://www.facebook.com/100007628650696/videos/pcb.2929945513936375/498584691215357

Yaffe is in Cuba now, and her Facebook page contains videos such as those at the second link above.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/07/19/ending-forever-wars-must-include-economic-warfare/ – by Assal Rad

“In a rare tweet on foreign policy, President Biden stated, “We stand with the Cuban people,” and cited their “economic suffering.” The irony was not lost on many commentators who observed that only weeks earlier the United States rejected — for the 29th consecutive year — a United Nation’s resolution to end the decades-long U.S. embargo on Cuba that has cost the small-island nation an estimated $144 billion and hampered its ability to combat the pandemic. As the international community overwhelmingly voted to end the embargo in a vote of 184 to 2, only Israel joined the U.S. in support of continuing the now 60-year embargo. “Philip Brenner, one of the leading U.S. experts on Cuba, based at American University in Washington, DC, has been quoted extensively in the Spanish newspaper El Diario, as well as in the Spanish-language edition of the Los Angeles Times, but apparently not yet in English-language media included in Google News.

https://thegrio.com/2021/07/19/will-protests-lead-to-lasting-change-in-cuba/

A clear explainer in a 10-minute video with Dr. Danielle Clealand, University of Texas (Austin). Not the final word, but very useful. I am told by friends who know Cuba very well that her 2017 book on The Power of Race in Cuba is excellent.https://thegrio.com/2021/07/22/black-americans-haiti-cuba-opinion/ – by Blue Telusma,

“As a woman of Haitian and Cuban lineage living in the United States, this subject hits home in a very personal way. ”https://www.thenation.com/article/world/cuba-airstrikes/ – by Aída Chávez, July 20, 2021

The threat of U.S. military intervention.https://www.thedailybeast.com/its-time-for-biden-to-choose-between-starving-cubans-and-votes-in-florida by William LeoGrande, July 15, 2021

And back in March 2020, a dream that it might be better rather than worse

https://www.organizingupgrade.com/can-coronavirus-be-a-catalyst-for-thinking-globally/

– by William Minter and Imani Countess, March 25, 2020

“Don’t Be Afraid to Dream

To challenge a new Democratic administration and inspire progressive mobilization, we should advance not only practical policy goals but also new visions of mutual cooperation beyond those presently thinkable. One clear albeit difficult example is the case of Cuba, where U.S. policy has been paralyzed for decades by right-wing pressures.

A progressive agenda for U.S.-Cuban relations should begin with the reversal of new restrictive measures imposed by the Trump administration and progress toward full elimination of the trade embargo and travel restrictions that have defined U.S. policy for almost six decades.

A more ambitious goal would be to stress U.S. collaboration with Cuba in promoting global health, as happened in the case of Ebola in West Africa. The United States should be prepared to accept future Cuban offers of assistance with disaster relief and preparedness, an offer that the George W. Bush administration rejected in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. Most visionary, but also beneficial to both countries, would be for the United States to ask Cuba for technical assistance in developing equitable public health policies in this country—and to pay generously for such assistance. That could promote mutual understanding as well as begin to pay for repairing the damage done over many decades of U.S. intervention in Cuba.”

https://democracynow.cachefly.net/democracynow/360/dn2020-0324.mp4?start=2547.0&end=3237.0

https://www.democracynow.org/2020/3/24/cuba_medical_diplomacy_italy_coronavirus

https://www.aljazeera.com/videos/2020/3/22/cuban-doctors-head-to-italy-to-fight-coronavirus

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/world/cuban-doctors-nurses-arrive-in-italy-to-combat-coronavirus-outbreak/2020/03/23/22e75e15-9a16-4d5c-8cf7-e33b2d635407_video.html

AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter. For an archive of previous Bulletins, see http://www.africafocus.org,

Current links to books on AfricaFocus go to the non-profit bookshop.org, which supports independent bookshores and also provides commissions to affiliates such as AfricaFocus.

AfricaFocus Bulletin can be reached at africafocus@igc.org. Please write to this address to suggest material for inclusion. For more information about reposted material, please contact directly the original source mentioned. To subscribe to receive future bulletins by email, click here.

Cuba accuses US government of inciting Molotov cocktail attack on its embassy in Paris
worker | July 27, 2021 | 8:16 am | Cuba, Fascist terrorism | Comments closed

https://www.rt.com/news/530323-cuba-french-embassy-attack/

Cuba accuses US government of inciting Molotov cocktail attack on its embassy in Paris

Cuba accuses US government of inciting Molotov cocktail attack on its embassy in Paris
The Cuban Embassy in Paris was firebombed early Tuesday morning. The socialist country’s foreign minister accused the US of encouraging violence against Havana.

Two assailants hurled three Molotov cocktails at the diplomatic compound, causing some damage to the building, the Cuban mission said in a statement on its website. The diplomats were not injured.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denounced the “terrorist attack” and blamed Washington. “I hold the US government responsible for its continued campaigns against our country that encourage this behavior and for its calls for violence, with impunity, from its territory,” he tweeted.

The US backed this month’s historic anti-government protests on the island and imposed new sanctions on Havana over its crackdown on activists. “We stand with the Cuban people and their clarion call for freedom,” President Joe Biden said in a statement on July 12.

Biden’s hardline approach leaves little room for any potential easing of the embargo, which is taking a toll on Cuba’s economy.

During the largest demonstrations Cuba has seen in decades, people rallied against economic hardship, food and medicine shortages, blackouts, and the current political system. Protests were reported in more than 40 cities, including Havana, and were countered by pro-government rallies.

ALSO ON RT.COM‘Beginning’ of the end? Biden warns Cuba of looming torrent of sanctionsDemonstrations were also held in the US, Argentina, Brazil, and other places abroad. In Spain’s capital, Madrid, protesters marched condemning the Cuban government on Monday, and a rally in support of the authorities took place the next day.

Officials in Cuba made some economic concessions after the protests, but also accused the US and domestic dissidents of using economic problems to stir unrest through social media. President Miguel Diaz-Canel accused the media of spreading lies about the nature and scope of the protests.

Washington broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba in 1960, shortly after revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro overthrew the government, and imposed an embargo in 1962.

An American embassy in Havana was reopened in 2015 during the Obama administration, in which Biden served as vice president, which sought rapprochement with Cuba. The policies were completely reversed under Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, and the situation remained unchanged after Biden replaced Trump.

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Cuba’s Embassy in Paris Attacked With Molotov Cocktails – Photos
worker | July 27, 2021 | 8:14 am | Cuba, Fascist terrorism | Comments closed

https://sputniknews.com/europe/202107271083468876-cubas-embassy-in-paris-attacked-with-molotov-cocktails—photos/

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It’s unclear as to who might be behind the attack on Cuba’s diplomatic mission in the French capital. Cuba’s foreign minister, meanwhile, accused the United States of encouraging violence against the island nation.

The Cuban Embassy in Paris said that its building in the French capital had been attacked with Molotov cocktails on the night of 26-27 July.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez dubbed the incident as a “terrorist attack” and said that he holds the US government responsible for “its continuous campaigns against our country that encourage these behaviours and for calls for violence, with impunity, from its territory”.

The embassy added that none of its diplomatic staff had been injured during the overnight attack, but significant damage had been caused.

The Foreign Ministry of Cuba published photos on its official Twitter account of the damage done to the building, while denouncing the attack.

The country’s Foreign Ministry’s International Press Centre stated that the attack happened at around midnight. Three Molotov cocktails were thrown, with two hitting the embassy and setting a fire, the Centre said. Cuban diplomats extinguished the blaze as French firefighters and police arrived at the scene, it added. The attack was perpetrated by two individuals, according to the officials.

Earlier in July, the US imposed sanctions on Cuba’s minister of revolutionary armed forces and the interior ministry’s special brigade over the alleged crackdown on the protests. President Joe Biden said the US will continue to hold Havana responsible and the latest round of sanctions is “just the beginning”. POTUS had previously announced other restrictive measures, including banning US citizens from sending money to relatives in Cuba.

​Meanwhile, Cuba has seen the largest protests in the island nation since 1994, sparked by anger over shortages of food, medicine and other basic necessities. More than 100 demonstrators have been arrested and one individual reportedly died. US President Biden, despite Cuba’s dire economic situation, has so far refused to remove any sanctions that were imposed by his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump.