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Canadian Cuban Friendship Association (CCFA) Niagara

Statement On

CUBA

In 1959 Fidel Castro led a successful revolution that changed the face of Cuba and resonated around the world. Prior to the revolution Cuba was a largely backward, uneducated, racialized country, with a US puppet dictator and U.S. corporations in the form of Chiquita Banana, Imperial Oil and Bacardi Rum pretty much running the show. A sizeable segment of the economy was Mafia controlled gambling and prostitution. 

Today, the Mafia casinos and brothels are gone, and the Cuban economy is largely owned by Cubans serving Cubans. Now, Cuba is recognized by the UN as a world leader in health care delivery, in education and literacy, in racial harmony and eliminating poverty. The UN’s World Health Organization declared “Cuba’s health care system is an example for all countries of the world. And according to the United Nations’ 2016 Human Development Report, “Cuba is one of just a handful of countries that has managed to improve the health and well-being of its citizens while developing sustainably.” Cubans have a life expectancy greater than the US. No Cuban is without a doctor.

In stark contrast to its neighbours to the north, revolutionary Cuba does not have a drug abuse problem or high crime rates. Violent crime is virtually non-existent. The police look like police and not like military combatants. Tourists travel safely throughout Cuba. Canadians visiting Cuba know of the friendly nature of the Cuban people. They recognize that Cuba flourishes with arts and culture that are a direct product of the revolution. Their historical and artistic culture are a charm of this island nation.

Cuba’s historical solidarity with anti-imperialist, anti-racist struggles is admired and appreciated throughout much of the world. Today Cuba demonstrates international solidarity via their medical brigades providing medical services, wherever needed in times of crisis and by training doctors from poor areas around the world free of charge in Cuba. Their internationalism and social conscience is also displayed by providing Cuban developed COVID vaccines free of charge or at cost to poorer countries.

Cuba is socially rich but materially poor and while many are poor, they are not desperate. But life is not easy for many in today’s Cuba. Wages are low and while most costs such as housing, taxation, transportation, and utilities are relatively cheap and the government provides stipends of food rations, it is not enough. For many, life is a struggle, and the only grace is that it is a shared struggle, as the people support each other.

The illegal US embargo/blockade of Cuba is vicious and keeps the people poor. The World through the UN General Assembly has repeatedly made ignored calls for the US to drop its financial sanctions and trade embargo against Cuba. The US should give up on its failed 60+ year effort to destroy the Cuban economy and have the people rise up against their government. The embargo/blockade is illegal, and it is immoral. I believe it can be shown that without the US blockade, the Cuban people would have a material lifestyle not unlike our own. In a recent speech, President Díaz-Canel said, “if they want to make a gesture towards Cuba, if they really are concerned about the people, if they want to solve Cuba’s problem: lift the blockade and let’s see how we do.”

To better understand the full impact of the U.S. sanctions against Cuba imagine what life would be like in Canada if we could not undertake financial transactions with other countries. If countries and corporations that traded with Canada would be punished and not allowed to trade with the U.S. Imagine if Canada had developed a COVID vaccine, as Cuba has, but could not acquire syringes required to inoculate the population because of the U.S. embargo/blockade. This is the state of subjugation that Cuba has faced continuously for 60 years because it refuses to surrender its revolution and adopt American style neo-liberal capitalism. It is a state of affairs whereby arguably the most disliked country in the world is attempting to destroy the most liked country in the world.

It’s true that, in the current circumstances, many young Cubans are leaving their country. Not all of them oppose their government. Many are young and want to see the bigger world. Others seek opportunities for a materially better life. They know that their freely provided Cuban education system prepared them for opportunities of material success outside of Cuba. An education that poor Americans cannot afford.

Presently there is a dissident group of Cubans in Canada called “SOS Cuba” or “Cuba Decide” that seeks to destroy the Cuban revolution with claims that Cubans live in a dictatorship. They call for a multi-party system like in the United States and Canada. This well-connected US funded group is telling Canadians not to visit Cuba cutting a revenue stream that provides many services to the Cuban people. Canadians would be justifiably angered if any of our people or media supported a foreign government in attempting to overthrow our government.

Cuba is a democracy. It’s not our form of democracy but there is no god given reason why all countries must emulate us. Cuba has a one-party system presided over by the Cuban Communist party and that is their choice to support or not support as they do every five years by going to the polls and voting in far bigger numbers than here in Canada. This is reflected in voting turnouts above 70%. The Cuban government, within their limited means, has delivered social programs and services unseen in other developing and developed countries.

Cuba has both a representative government and a participatory democracy in which elements of direct and representative democracy are combined. A Participatory Democracy is a form of government in which citizens participate individually and directly in political decisions and policies that affect their lives. Cuba’s participatory democracy was exhibited last year when after months of nationwide public consultation and many amendments the people, in a national referendum, passed the amended Family Code Section of the Cuban Constitution. Earlier examples of nationwide consultation and electoral participation were seen with the adoption of the Cuban Constitution and Cuba’s New Economic Measures reforms.

Today there is growing disenchantment with capitalism and the economics of despair. Its unfairness is clearly displayed with a system in which 10% own 78% of the national wealth.

For too many the system is failing. Cuba offers a lesson in a more humane alternative system based on socialist values. It should be supported, not attacked.

Canadian Cuban Friendship Association (CCFA) Niagara

 

 CBC Ombudsman

ombud@cbc.ca

www.cbc.ca/ombudsman

Reply to “As holidaying Canadians return to Cuba…” article by Evan Dyer on CBC.

March 7, 2023

Dear Ombudsman:

What has happened to journalism in Canada and more specifically to the CBC? 

What has happened to speaking truth to power? 

The unbelievable ignorance and superficiality reflected in the information in Mr. Dyer’s article are astounding. Is it ignorance or is it deliberate in ignoring the elephant in the room: the embargo (conservatively speaking) against Cuba by successive U.S. governments for the last sixty-plus years is never mentioned to round out the present-day context of the problems the people of Cuba are facing. The article reminds me of the proverbial fox in the henhouse and then blaming the hens for allowing themselves to be eaten.

Surely Mr. Dyer and his editors are aware of the U.S. policy of long-term sanctions and actions to destroy Cuba’s economy as outlined in a memo written April 6, 1960, by Lester Mallory, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs in the U.S. government when it became obvious that changing the minds of the vast majority of people supporting the revolution was an impossibility. Mallory proposed that the U.S. “…deny money and supplies…to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” 

Since then economic and other measures have been initiated by the most powerful country in the world against an island off its coast in order to bring the country under U.S. control again as it was prior to the revolution. Is it deliberate on CBC’s part to present an article that subscribes to this U.S. policy, in effect for decades, by promoting the impression that Cuba’s socialist system doesn’t work? 

Are we to assume now, after a decades-long history of friendship between the Cuban and Canadian governments, that the CBC will now parrot the U.S. line of hostility about Cuba?

Perhaps Mr. Dyer did not do his homework when writing this article but shame on the CBC for aligning itself with a U.S. policy that is consistently condemned year after year in the United Nations by practically all the countries of the world, including our own, and which President Obama himself said did not work. The fact that the people of Cuba have determinedly and consistently resisted these assaults against their sovereignty through the past decades simply shows how doggedly determined the majority of Cubans are to maintain their system of government and the CBC ought to apologize for publishing an article masquerading as journalism.

Lisa Makarchuk, from Toronto, Ontario.

lisamakarchuk@sympatico.ca

 Dear President Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico,

 

The Canadian Network on Cuba (CNC), an organization comprised of 24 member-groups across Canada that work in solidarity with Cuba, would like to express our highest commendation and support for your recent statements and declared intention, pledging that Mexico will lead an international movement against the more than 60-year-old illegal US blockade against Cuba, and your rightful recognition of the successes of the Cuban Revolution and the example that the resistance of the Cuban people sets for countries around the world.

 

The CNC applauds Mexico’s position both in the context of solidarity with Cuba, as well as in its broader importance with regards to foreign policy, national sovereignty and independence, and the prioritization of basic, fundamental human rights, such as access to healthcare and education, and food security for all people, as opposed to allowing them to be marketable for profit by oligarchs.

 

Canada and Mexico were the only two countries in the Americas that did not sever relations with Cuba after its revolution in 1959. The CNC fully supports the Mexican people in this endeavor of solidarity with the Cuban people, and we affirm our commitment to join in solidarity with Mexico, and all progressive countries, and contribute to this movement in any way that we can.

 

The United States has no right to subjugate another country or people, and Cuba has been a victim of its terrorism for more than six decades. The Cuban people need our collective solidarity more than ever before, and that we act to demand and actualize the removal of the criminal sanctions against Cuba. The CNC will continue doing everything that it can to show our gratitude to revolutionary Cuba for the precedent that it sets for the world, and that necessitates the elimination of the blockade.

 

¡Abajo el bloqueo! 

 

  

Samantha Hislop

Julio Fonseca

Co-Chairs, Canadian Network on Cuba

               VOLUNTEER WORK BRIGADE

The 29^th annual Che Guevara Volunteer Work Brigade is almost here!

Since 1993 hundreds of people of various ages, skills and backgrounds living across Canada have enjoyed an exciting and informative three week stay in Cuba with the Ernesto Che Guevara Volunteer Work Brigade. The trip provides the opportunity to look at the gains and victories of the Cuban Revolution, as well as to understand the challenges Cuba faces first hand, in particular the impacts of more than 50 years of illegal economic blockade from the United States.

 

The Che Brigade fulfills two main goals. On the one hand, it is a great way to show support for the struggle of the Cuban people to maintain their independence and on the other hand it is an important opportunity for people from Canada to learn and understand the dynamism of all aspects of life in Cuba.

 

The Cuban people, committed to maintaining their Revolution and its great gains, receive the Brigade participants, known as Brigadistas, with warmth and friendship. Brigadistas coming from Canada to share friendship help reaffirm to many people in Cuba the value of social change they are carrying in Cuba for their own their country and also for the world.

 

For more information, questions or to receive updates on the Che Guevara Brigade please contact through email or phone the Che Brigade Coordinator Tyson Strandlund at chevolbrigade@gmail.com or at 250-883-7321. You can also follow the Che Brigade on social media.

 

Please finds us on:

·        Instagram@cdnntwrkoncuba,

·        Facebook at www.facebook.com/CheVolBrigade,

·        Twitter@CheVolBrigade.

 

The Che Guevara Brigade looks forward to travelling to Cuba later in 2023 and we hope you will join us!

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In Memoriam

Immortality  (1932)

Clare Harner Lyon

Journalist and poet from Kansas

 

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush.

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

 

Nova Scotia Cuba Association (NSCUBA) shares the sad news of the passing on Nov 15, 2022 of Sheila MacDonald. Sheila has been a life-member and co-founder of NSCUBA and her actions and contributions were always a source of support to many sharing her dream of justice for Cuba. Sheila's quiet and firm example was always a true inspiration to our members. Her involvement and belief in a better world are recognized by all of us and by the representatives of the people of Cuba. Sheila will be greatly missed at our gatherings, by all of us and, we are sure, by the many who were touched by her generous spirit.

We will remember Sheila and Innis generous hospitality and thank them in our hearts for the many evenings of camaraderie and friendship they made possible at their Fresh Start Bed & Breakfast in Halifax. Many guests from Cuba stayed at their place enjoying first hand their hospitality. Sheila and Innis hosted numerous NSCUBA AGMs and made possible numerous memorable potluck receptions at their home. We, NSCUBA members and friends, want to extend our love and condolences at this challenging time to Sheila's family and, especially, to Sheila's sister Innis. 

  Canadian Network on Cuba 

Hurricane Ian Relief Campaign 

How Cuba has reacted to Hurricane Ian Dear  friend,

As you will have heard, Cuba has been battered by Hurricane Ian.  We've all seen the dramatic pictures in the news and I thought you’d like a first hand report from Cuba.  First of all, everyone in Cubania is fine.  Some places still have no electricity and there's a big clean-up job to do.  Cubans know how to do this quite efficiently, it comes as part of the experience of living in Cuba, a country which is frequently battered by hurricanes.     Hurricane Ian passed through Pinar del Rio province with winds of up to 195kph in the early hours of Tuesday morning. The eye of the storm went directly over Viñales, an important tourist destination, as well as battering other smaller towns and villages in this tobacco growing region.     We heard from our friend Rachel whose organic farm is perched on the hill overlooking Viñales.  Her farm is well-known for growing the deliciously fresh produce served in their organic restaurant.  The farm has been battered and they have lost crops.   Pictures of the farm show crops crushed by strong winds.   The tobacco fields, for which Pinar del Rio is so famous, are flooded and the delicate crop has been damaged.     I spoke to Mayra yesterday.  She lives in the centre of Viñales, where the eye of the storm past and runs a casa particular, renting rooms to visitors who come to enjoy the spectacular scenery of Viñales Valley.    Mayra told us that trees had been uprooted bringing down power lines as they fell, and that corrugated iron or thatched roofs had been blown away by the strong winds.   She talked of the damage done to farms like Rachel’s.   But she also said that most of the houses in central Viñales have tiled or cement roofs and that these are intact with minor or no damage at all.   When we spoke, they were waiting to be reconnected to the national power grid and she asked us to give them a few days to clear up the fallen trees and debris.   She was confident that Viñales - in the worst affected area of Cuba - would be ready for business by the beginning of October.  Early next week.      The entire country suffered a complete blackout on Tuesday when the country’s electrical generators failed.    This morning, Thursday, local news sources report that power has been restored to 72% of users including  Havana, Trinidad, Playa Larga, Cienfuegos, Santa Clara, Varadero and other destinations important to Cuba’s tourism.   No doubt, Hurricane Ian has done serious damage in parts of Cuba, but this is a country which is accustomed to dealing with hurricanes.  In fact the word hurricane comes from the Taino people, indigenous to Cuba  who used the word "huracane" to describe the evil power of strong winds.  They knew about hurricanes. And we have a lot to learn from present day Cuban expertise when it comes to their systematic approach to preparing for hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural disasters.      The country is well known in the area for its Civil Defense System, established in 1966, which successfully harnesses the social power of the revolution for relief and rescue operations during and after natural disasters. It coordinates annual drills on a national level, promotes education and oversees communication, from early warnings and emergency alarms to forced evacuations before storms strike followed by guidance for recovery afterward.   More than 70,000 Cubans were evacuated from their homes prior to Hurricane Ian hitting Cuban territory.  They have all be returned to their homes and the clean-up operation has started.  Most of the debris and fallen trees will have been swept up by this weekend.      The Civil Defense System has created an innate culture of hurricanes, resilience and safety, ensuring that the population is aware of the country’s risk reduction system, educated in risk consciousness and disaster mitigation, able to use the lifeline structures in an emergency and actively participate in disaster preparation and the clean-up operation after a hurricane.    If you’re travelling to Cuba over the next few weeks, you may see some of the damage caused by Hurricane Ian, especially if you travel to Pinar del Rio.   But be ready to admire the resilience of Cuba too, a country which has picked itself up, cleaned up the mess and started normal life again.     We look forward to welcoming you soon!    Un abrazo from Lucy and all the Cubania Team

UNDERSTANDING CUBAN MONEY IN 2022

From: 

Cubania Travel 

click: https://cubaniatravel.com/stories/ 

 Resistance, Resilience and Renewal: Cuba Commemorates Moncada

-by Isaac Saney-*

July 26, 2022, marks the 69th anniversary of the act that is annually celebrated all over Cuba as the beginning of the movement and struggle that paved the way for the Cuban Revolution. On that day, Cuba’s rebels - led by Fidel Castro - rose up against the U.S.- supported dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.  

On July 26, 1953, a group of courageous young men and women attacked the Moncada Barracks in the city of Santiago de Cuba, and the Carlos Manuel de Céspedes Barracks in Bayamo, in an attempt to overthrow the U.S. supported puppet dictator Fulgencio Batista. As the island's second largest military garrison, the Moncada Barracks was critical to Batista's military control of southern Cuba. The goal was to seize the weapons and distribute them to the people and spark a national uprising that would not only overthrow the Batista dictatorship but also establish Cuba's independence and sovereignty. This heroic act is annually commemorated all over Cuba as the beginning of the movement and struggle that laid the foundation of the Cuban Revolution.  

The attacks were carried out by an organization that was created in 1952, under the leadership of Fidel Castro and Abel Santamaria, and comprised of young workers, students, artisans, peasants, and landless farmers. It had around 1,500 members and affiliated itself with historic Cuban national liberation figures such as José Martí and Antonio Maceo. Around 120 youths were part of the attacks, approximately 70 of whom were killed, with many being tortured and executed after the attack. The survivors, including Fidel Castro, were subsequently put on trial, and given lengthy prison sentences. Most, including Fidel Castro, were released after an amnesty in May 1955. This amnesty was the result of the mass mobilization of Cubans in support of the imprisoned rebels. Under the leadership of Fidel Castro, the July 26th Movement galvanized Cubans, ultimately leading to the victory of the Cuban Revolution on January 1, 1959.

The Cuban Revolution is a culmination of the struggles for national independence and social justice, embodied in the indigenous resistance to Spanish colonisation, in African rebellions against slavery, reaching a crescendo on October 10, 1868 when Carlos Manuel de Céspedes launched the first war for independence, carried forward and deepened by José Martí and Antonio Maceo, and revived periodically throughout the 20th century when Cuba languished under U.S. hegemony, with Moncada a crucial signpost.  

The Cuban Revolution is, therefore, the crystallization and consummation of the historical aspirations of the Cuban people, manifested time and time again in their re-affirmation and determination to defend, strengthen and perfect the revolutionary project.

However, the empire has never accepted the verdict of the Cuban people; it has waged an unceasing economic war and campaign of destabilisation aimed at restoring U.S. imperialism's domination and tutelage.

This year’s Moncada celebrations and commemorations occur a little over one year after the failed U.S. financed and organized effort to overthrow Cuba's government by taking advantage of the amplification of serious challenges and difficulties faced by the Cuban nation due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the intensification of Washington’s unrelenting economic war.  

The July 11, 2021, protests in Cuba were maliciously manipulated by reactionary politicians and the monopoly media in various deliberate ways to discredit the Cuban Revolution and create a climate of disinformation and confusion to justify further aggressions against the island nation. However, overwhelmingly, the international community and the world solidarity movement with Cuba united rejecting Washington's economic war and destabilisation campaign. The U.S. state department failed miserably in pressuring countries in the Americas and across the world to join its ignominious and scurrilous attacks and manoeuvres against Cuba. The latest debacle at the Summit of the Americas not only underscored its failure to isolate Cuba but Washington's own estrangement from the region as many countries either stayed away in protest against Cuba's exclusion or sent lower-level delegations, with one participant after another calling for an end to U.S. hostilities against the heroic island nation.  

Nevertheless, Washington remains intransigent. Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, Washington has waged an unceasing assault, both military and economic, against the Cuban people, organizing an invasion, assassinations, terrorist attacks against civilians and systematic economic sabotage. Many of these acts were directly launched from and/or planned in the United States. These acts of terror against Cuba include the 1976 bombing of a civilian Cuban airliner that claimed the lives of 73 people and the 1997 Havana hotel bombings, which claimed the life of Fabio Di Celmo, a young Montrealer of Italian origin. As a point of fact, 3,478 Cubans have been killed and 2,099 injured, because of these terrorist acts.

The objective of Washington’s strategy is the negation and extinguishment of Cuba’s right to self-determination, sovereignty, and independence: to reimpose U.S. domination, hegemony, and tutelage.

The malign goal is to starve the Cuban people into submission by suffocating the economy for the purpose of generating shortages, hardships and exacerbating social inequalities that the Cuban Revolution has been working resolutely to eliminate in order to lead to Washington’s longed-for massive social unrest that would then serve as a pretext to intervene in Cuba.

This was unambiguously articulated by Lester D. Mallory, Vice Secretary of State, and an architect of U.S. Cuba policy. He wrote in a now-declassified U.S. State Department April 6, 1960, memorandum:

“The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba … denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government.”

But what is it that Washington seeks to destroy? What is the society that the U.S. government is so zealously committed to undermining?  

Cuba is a society where universal education and health care, housing, food, and access to culture are fundamental human rights, and the state — within its limited resources — does its utmost to transform these aspirations into reality.

Indeed, in Cuba there are no homeless children roaming the streets eking out an existence in a dog-eat-dog society where everyone fends for themselves, so characteristic and defining of profit driven and capital centred societies.

This commitment is affirmed and ratified by and through Cuba’s system of popular power which provides consequential, concrete, and meaningful input into decision-making by the citizenry. Through mass participation and consultation these historical aspirations are expressed in a political consensus to defend, strengthen, and perfect the revolutionary project.

 

Cuba is the country that despite worldwide attacks on fundamental human rights has created a final draft of a new family code that will be voted on in a September 25, 2022, referendum. The code is guided by José Marti's dictum, "with all and for the good of all", guaranteeing respect for family diversity and defending the rights of all.

Cuba is also the country that has a vibrant biotechnology sector as its own highly effective vaccines and treatments against the corona virus have abundantly demonstrated. Indeed, Cuba’s successful vaccines are a direct challenge to the West’s monopoly over this vital medical technology, especially as these vaccines continue receiving international recognition.  

Cuba is one of the most prescient and powerful voices in both word and deed as humanity faces an ecological catastrophe, developing a plan to 2100 to address the ravages of climate change. Indeed, in 2006, the World Wildlife Fund designated Cuba as the only country with sustainable development.

Besieged by the empire, the heroic island nation has made invaluable contributions to the well-being of the world’s nations and peoples, having established an unparalleled legacy of internationalism and humanitarianism.

More than 400,000 Cuban medical personnel have served in 164 countries fighting disease.

More than 2,000 Cubans gave their lives in the struggles to liberate Africa from the scourge of colonialism and the racist apartheid South African state.  As Nelson Mandela emphasized: "The Cuban people hold a special place in the hearts of the people of Africa. The Cuban internationalists have made a contribution to African independence, freedom, and justice, unparalleled for its principled and selfless character."

It is internationalist Cuba which has selflessly dispatched tens of thousands of medical personnel to dozens of countries across the world to fight disease, be it Ebola or COVID-19.

What Cuba has done nationally and internationally is no small feat. Its impressive achievements have occurred amid an all-sided brutal aggression by Washington.

Commemorations of Moncada Day in Cuba and internationally reflect the ties that exist between Cuba and the world.  The peoples of the world admire the courageous and rebellious spirit embodied in Moncada; a spirit that today is so powerfully manifested in Cuba’s steadfastness against the efforts of the empire to destroy the island’s independence. As Cuba's President, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez poignantly and repeatedly underscored, "We will not surrender the sovereignty of our country."

While the Moncada attack failed in fulfilling its immediate objective, it was central to the Cuban people's struggle for national affirmation and social emancipation. Cubans have always placed Moncada in a broad historical context, viewing it as a crucial link in the century-long striving of Cuba to free itself from Spanish colonial domination and U.S. tutelage, and then, establish authentic independence. At his trial Fidel Castro delivered a speech that eventually became the manifesto of the movement to overthrow the Batista tyranny. It was published as La Historia Me Absolvera (History Will Absolve Me) and laid out the national and social goals of the revolutionary movement that eventually triumphed on January 1, 1959. Today, the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes barracks, now a school and a museum, stand as concrete symbols of that successful struggle.

Although that first battle was lost, the Revolution ultimately prevailed on January 1, 1959.

Since the Cuban people embarked on the road paved by Moncada, Cuba has refuted and continues to refute the colonialist mentality and practice of foisting on independent countries imperial arrangements and dictates that they resoundingly reject. The Cuban Revolution has refused to renounce its right to self-determination, independence and sovereignty, principles forged in the crucible of Moncada.  

*Isaac Saney is a Cuba specialist at Dalhousie University, and the author of Cuba: A Revolution In Motion and the forthcoming, Cuba, Africa, and Apartheid's End: Africa's Children Return. From 2008-2022, he served as co-chair and national spokesperson of the Canadian Network On Cuba, with which he now serves in an advisory capacity.

ReplyForward

 Cuban President: People will be there to represent us!

 

“Cuba advocates a solution that guarantees the security and sovereignty of all”

Originally published: Granma English by Cubaminex (February 28, 2022 ) 

 Posted Mar 03, 2022

 

The U.S. determination to continue NATO’s progressive expansion toward the Russian Federation’s borders has brought about a scenario with implications of unpredictable scope, which could have been avoided.

United States’ and NATO’s military moves toward regions adjacent to the Russian Federation in recent months are well known, and were preceded by the delivery of modern weapons to Ukraine, which together constitute a military siege.

It is impossible to make a rigorous and honest examination of the current situation in Ukraine, without carefully assessing the Russian Federation’s just demands of the United States and NATO, and the factors that have led to the use of force and non-observance of legal principles and international norms which Cuba strongly supports and, are, particularly for small countries, an essential resource in resisting hegemony, abuse of power and injustice.

Cuba is a country that defends International Law and is committed to the Charter of the United Nations. Cuba will always defend peace and oppose the use of force, and threats to do so, against any state.

We deeply regret the loss of innocent civilian lives in Ukraine. The Cuban people have had and continue to have a very close relationship with the Ukrainian people.

History will hold the United States accountable for the consequences of an increasingly offensive military doctrine beyond NATO’s borders, which threatens international peace, security and stability.

Our concern has grown worse with NATO’s recent decision to activate, for the first time, its Response Force.

Ignoring the well-founded claims made by the Russian Federation concerning security guarantees for decades and assuming that Russia would remain defenseless in the face of a direct threat to its national security was a mistake. Russia has the right to defend itself. Peace cannot be achieved by mounting sieges or encircling states.

The draft resolution on the situation in Ukraine not adopted by the UN Security Council February 25, which will be submitted to the General Assembly, was not intended as a genuine contribution to resolve the current crisis.

On the contrary, it is an unbalanced text, which does not take into account the legitimate concerns of all parties involved. It does not acknowledge either the responsibility of those who instigated or took aggressive action that led to the escalation of this conflict.

We call for a serious, constructive and realistic diplomatic solution to the current crisis in Europe, via peaceful means, ensuring the security and sovereignty of all, as well as regional and international peace, stability and security.

Cuba rejects hypocrisy and double standards. It should be recalled that in 1999 the United States and NATO launched a major attack on Yugoslavia, a European country that was fragmented with a high cost in human lives, in pursuit of geopolitical objectives, disregarding the UN Charter.

The United States and several of its allies have used force on many occasions. They have invaded sovereign states to bring about regime change and interfere in the internal affairs of other nations that do not submit to their interests of domination, defending their territorial integrity and independence.

They are also responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, which they label as “collateral damage,” millions of displaced persons and widespread destruction across our planet in their wars of plunder.

 

https://mronline.org/2022/03/03/cuba-advocates-a-solution-that-guarantees-the-security-and-sovereignty-of-all/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cuba-advocates-a-solution-that-guarantees-the-security-and-sovereignty-of-all