Sanctions Kill!

In Cuba, donation of medicines and supplies to treat children with cancer

The noble work of a group of solidarity activists in the United States brought to Cuba a donation of specialized medicines to treat cancer in pediatric hospitals

Author: Nuria Barbosa León | internet@granma.cu

may 22, 2024 08:05:37

Photo: Nuria Barbosa

The noble work of a group of solidarity activists inside the United States brought to Cuba a donation of specialized medicines to treat cancer in the Juan Manuel Márquez pediatric hospital in Havana and the José Luis Miranda hospital in Santa Clara, according to what was announced on Monday, May 20, at the headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP).
The initiative was sponsored by the Hatuey group, which stands for Health Advocates in Truth, Unity and Empathy. The Interfaith Foundation for Community Organizing, IFCO-Pastors for Peace, and other organizations working for solidarity with Cuba in the U.S. also took part.
The coordinator of Hatuey, Gloria La Riva, assured that this is the beginning of other future shipments, because the American people are against the criminal blockade and the inclusion of Cuba in the spurious list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
She explained that in order to obtain each of the products in the shipment they requested a license from the U.S. Treasury Department, and despite having it, many companies refused to sell, because they are afraid of being sanctioned
"Those of us who work on these solidarity issues are punished, and it becomes evident, when we return from Cuba, that the Immigration officers detain us for several hours, for no reason," said the solidarity activist.
In thanking this humanitarian gesture, the president of ICAP, Fernando González Llort, described the group as "the best representation of the United States, it is the real thing and the future of that country".
He characterized them as people who work anonymously, who are never made visible by the media and whose images are never multiplied, but who make a great effort to gather their scarce resources so that the supplies reach their destination, in this case, children hospitalized in the oncohematology wards.
He pointed out that the time will come when efforts like this will no longer be necessary, because there will be normal relations between the two countries, when the sanctions against Cuba are repealed.

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The Same War

Ana Hurtado

November 4 2023 | 7

We have been hearing it for years and we have assimilated it. Those who live it, suffer it. Outside nobody can imagine it. That is the danger attached to the normalization of crimes. The blockade of Cuba is an example of this. There is silence. Silence, even though we know few countries could survive three months in economic, human and social conditions similar to the ones imposed on Cuba.

We are at the proper historic moment to continue denouncing the Cuban Blockade. The entire planet is living a televised genocide. It was said that the revolution would not be televised, but the genocide is on television.

When the Holocaust took place we did not know it, we learned about it later. The propaganda at the time was confusing and there was lying. Nobody could imagine what Nazi Germany was doing in its work and extermination camps. We learned it later, when invading troops entered German territories. Then we heard the cries and lamentations of many:  I was not aware. I did not know. No, I was just following orders. Now we know it: Six million Jewish people were killed. And not only Jewish people were killed, but Gypsies, Spaniard Republicans, homosexuals, people with disabilities, Communists, Anarchists and more. It was because of the Holocaust that, in compensation -if there can be any compensation for a massacre, an invented country in a populated territory was offered to the people most affected by the massacre. Thus, Israel was created. 

Is there any historic reference, beside biblical texts, to Israel as a country? 

The land was always Palestine. Anybody immersed in history, anthropology or social science knows this. We also know that Palestinians are Semites.  It is Zionism, not Judaism, committing a holocaust today, terrible and without pity, as in World War II Hitler troops committed against the Jewish people. Yes, the Zionist state of Israel is anti-Semite, and it has proposed to erase from the face of Earth a millenarian community: the Palestinians. This is not from now, it did not start on October 7. Those who believe this to be so ignore the truth. Imperialistic rhetoric abuses ignorance and disinformation to advance its wars as they are its most lucrative business. 

We are watching this war in the social net, communication media and any informative platform from different perspectives. It makes us either accomplices or in opposition. War is in our homes and in our phones; thus, not taking position against it is being part of it. History is wise and will charge us. Good versus Evil. Peace confronting a pain which does not end. It does not need to touch us close for us to be moved by atrocities taking place anywhere in our planet. 

Already there are countries willing to break diplomatic relations with Israel. Bolivia is heading this initiative. But "Real Politiks" offers pragmatism and lack of decency. Nations may lack moral, ethical and ideological values when faced with a conflict of this size. Let us hope the initiative of Bolivia is followed by other countries willing to carry dignity as their flag. Let's hope Spain understands the need to break relations with Israel as long as Israel continues to be immersed in “ethnic cleansing.” 

 

Interest is still considered first, not human lives. Thus is capitalism and we know it well. 

Without going too far, and comparing consciously, something similar to what is happening to the Palestinian people, although in a different manner, is also happening to the Cuban people for more than six decades. A silent and slow war, extenuating and exhausting, with the same objectives and similar intentions. Colonialist imperialism fails to make distinctions.

Nobody should have any doubt that, if a massacre as the one happening today in Gaza has not been committed with the Cuban people is because they have not been able to. The Cuban Revolution, with their maximum leader Fidel Castro, impeded such from the first moment. They are cases, contexts and situations different that maybe cannot be compared. Yet, if something unites the Palestinian people with the Cuban people is their resistance and bravery. As well as being the number one target of one of the most criminal governments in the contemporary history we live.  

If it wasn’t because of the Revolution, long time ago they will be in Cuba. If it was not for the people, its moral protector and the many achievements built throughout these years, the island would have been erased from the map. Thus the ongoing frustration in trying to drown Cuba and fail to achieve it.  They know well what will happen if the try to take Cuba. I guess, we all know what they will get if they do not die in the struggle. 

Once again the United Nations comes together these days to vote against the United States blockade against Cuba. Once more the world will vote NO to the blockade but Cuba will continue to be blockaded because nothing happens at international level to stop it. How can we believe in international organizations when they do not provide answers to the peoples of the world living under such oppression. 

Italian historian, Domenico Losurdo writes that at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa in Eastern Europe, the minister of Nazi propaganda (Joseph Goebbels) wrote in his diary the following notes during the first days of the invasion in 1941: “We have in front of us a triumphal march without precedents.” He also wrote how Hitler had referred to the Soviet Army: “It is only a joke.”

Months later, however, the tone of Goebbels writing changed: “In private the Führer is very irritated with himself for having allowed to be deceived to such a point about the potential of the Bolsheviks…We have calculated the potential of the Bolsheviks in a totally erroneous manner.”

Allowing the historic comparison can be wise and help us understand the confidence often Executioners have regarding their fanciful victories.  I have no doubt that North Americans executing foreign policies against Cuba and other sovereign peoples may also keep a diary. Even if in their case the time elapsed is not six months like in the case of Goebbels, I dare to say that their diary has also been changing and it will change even more in the future. Until it may finally say that they were wrong. That there is nothing more to do. That victory of their enemies (us) is inevitable. And may be it will be them, who knows when, who will have the same defeat the Nazis had. 

It can sound dystopic.

There are may forces, peoples, nations and lives to bring together in this commitment and yet...

 

Higher towers have fallen.

There we have Goebbels, his family and his colleagues.  

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Cuba-UK biotechnological                        

joint venture launched                        

officially

 

HAVANA, Cuba, Nov 21 (ACN) BioFarma Innovations, a Cuban-British joint venture, was officially presented on Friday in London, capital of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, during an online seminar where Cuban advances in biotechnology were highlighted.

According to the Cuban Embassy in the European nation, the event analyzed the advantages of this economic and commercial association, with the presence of Chris Bennet, President of the Caribbean Council, the co-president of the Cuba Initiative, Lord David Triesman, and the development director of the Cuban company Hebert Biotec S.A., Merardo Pujol.

BioFarma Innovations is the result of an agreement between the Cuban company BioCubaFarma and the British company SG Innovations Ltd and was created last August, with the premise of direct access to medicines patented by the Cuban biotechnology industry by the British Commonwealth and Europe.

The online seminar entitled "Bringing Cuban biopharmaceuticals to patients around the world - a new British-Cuban joint venture", also addressed the marketing of pharmaceutical products in the world, the protection of intellectual property and the opportunities that exist to expand this relationship and bring Cuban medicines to many more patients around the world.

The panelists insisted on the participation of Cuban science in the fight against the pandemic, the successful use of Cuban biotechnological products in the fight against COVID-19 and the development by the Caribbean nation of three vaccination candidates against the disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.

It was also highlighted that all these results have been achieved despite the intensification of the unilateral economic, commercial and financial blockade that the United States has maintained against the Caribbean country for 60 years.

It was announced that the Cuban Chamber of Commerce and the British Embassy in Havana will organize a similar seminar next December 11.

Abel González Alayón

Chief-Editor Language Department

Cuban News Agency

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Sanctions and Cuba

U.S. Encirclement 
Endangers Cuba’s Economy, 
Provokes ResponseW. T. WHITNEY, Counterpunch, January 3, 2020

Closing a session of Cuba’s National Assembly on December 21, President Miguel Díaz-Canel declared that, “The 61^st year of the Revolution has indeed been difficult and challenging.” He blamed these troubles on the “brutal” and “demented” U.S. blockade. Dangers have mounted for Cuba’s socialist revolution, and the government there is responding.

Carlos Fernández de Cossio, the Foreign Ministry’s “director general for the United States,” recently highlighted the gravity of the situation. A report on the Ministry’s website communicated his view, expressed in an interview, that Cuba’s government is “ready” for a rupture of diplomatic relations and that “sustainable progress in favor of bilateral relations” is unlikely as long as the blockade persists.

De Cossio was reacting in part to U.S. economic sanctions instituted in April and solidified in September that target companies and vessels of third countries that transport oil to Cuba – particularly from Venezuela. To deprive Cuba of fuel, he stated, “is an extremely drastic measure.” President Díaz-Canel declared in his speech that sanctions have “deprived us of more than 50% of our fuel needs.”

The U.S. blockade has lasted 58 years and continued even during 2015 and 2016 when the Obama administration had eased some restrictions on travel and commercial exchanges and established diplomatic relations with Cuba.  In 2017 Trump’s administration reinstated in full the U.S. bans on travel, commercial ties, and more. In May 2019 that administration implemented Title III of the 1996 Helms Burton Law in order to render foreign investments in Cuba as risky.

The U.S. government is seeking to undermine Cuban programs of international medical solidarity. It had already disabled the embassies of both countries. Most employees of the U.S. Embassy in Havana were recalled on the pretext of neurological symptoms that, supposedly inflicted, are still unexplained. The Trump administration expelled most Cuban diplomats stationed in Washington.

Otherwise the blockade proceeds as in the past. Annually the U.S. Treasury Department punishes dozens, even hundreds, of foreign companies and banks for violating blockade rules. Summaries of individual cases appear in the yearly reports that Cuba’s Foreign Ministry prepares ahead of the UN General Assembly’s annual vote on the U.S. blockade. The report for the year ending in March 2019 is available in English here. That year Cuba’s economy suffered losses totaling $4.34 billion.

The Treasury Department recently fined a U.S. insurance company whose branches in Canada and Germany had insured clients traveling to Cuba. A Swiss insurance company with a branch in the United States was also fined because its clients from many countries had traveled to or done business in Cuba. The U.S. government also levied large fines recently on the Standard Chartered Bank of Britain, the Expedia Group, Hotelbeds USA, and Cubasphere Inc.

Cuba has mounted a vigorous response. Speaking to the National Assembly, President Díaz-Canel discussed priorities. Alluding to ideology, he declared that, “The Cuban people, shaped and trained by Fidel in legendary battles, is prepared to understand and assume any problems posed by the enemy’s aggression. They only need to be informed and receive explanations in a timely manner.” Protecting the economy is crucial, because failure there “is the path to the destruction of the Revolution,” and provides an opening “to show that socialism is not a viable system.”

He called for achieving “the greatest possible prosperity.” For that, “we need greater, more diverse and better quality production with the added value of science … We need to reduce imports and increase exports.”  The President rejects privatization as a means to build production. In remarks December 27 before the Council of Ministers, he called for “getting rid of obstacles in order to strengthen state-owned companies and consolidate them.”

In his report to the National Assembly in December, Minister of Economy and Planning Alejandro Gil reviewed 28 initiatives taken in 2019 on behalf of state-owned companies. They include plans for “a new financial institution to promote development,” for “closed financing schemes at the company level,” and for the “pre-financing of production and investment by national entities.” Improved relations between state-owned companies and “non-state forms of management” are contemplated. Industries producing export goods will receive financial and material resources on a priority basis. The same goes for companies in the tourist sector and state enterprises working to satisfy “the population’s basic needs, mainly food, low-cost products and fuel.”

At the National Assembly, President Díaz-Canel highlighted accomplishments in 2019 aimed at improving the economy and people’s well-being, among them: the building of 43,700 new housing units, 80 new railroad cars, and 300 new buses – assembled in Cuba. He mentioned salary increases for workers, expanded telephone service and Internet access, and 3,855 new hotel rooms for tourists. Cuba hosted more than four million foreign visitors in 2019.

In his report to the Assembly, 1st Vice President Salvador Valdes Mesa emphasized both an “increase in foreign exchange earnings” and extra resources being made available to increase production. He called for municipal self sufficiency in food production, alternative agricultural tools and equipment, and reliance upon “all planting technologies.”

For her part, Meisi Bolaños, Minister for Finance and Prices, proposed relatively more spending on housing, education and health care while maintaining budgetary rigor in other areas. Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz told Assembly deputies that the state’s set-aside of more than $2 billion for foreign investment exceeded previous levels.  He described plans for centralizing administrative arrangements for foreign investments.

In 2018 Minister Alejandro Gil had warned that in the following year Cuba wouldn’t be able to meet certain repayment commitments. He noted that, “We have a level of debt for which the economy doesn’t generate the capacity for meeting [all obligations].”

In September, transportation minister Eduardo Rodriguez Davila reported that reorganization of public transport was underway “to palliate the short-term lack of diesel [fuel].” The ministry would be prioritizing rail transportation.

President Díaz-Canel, First Vice-President Salvador Valdés Mesa, and others gathered on December 24 to discuss how to achieve food sovereignty. They agreed on reduced reliance on foreign sources for tools, machinery, and other agricultural inputs. The problem of excess reliance on food imports is not new. Cuba’s government for many years has had to import up to 70 percent of the food Cubans and tourists consume.  The annual cost hovers around $2 billion.

Minister Gil reported to the National Assembly on the current state of Cuba’s economy. GDP growth for 2019 would be 0.1 percent, he estimated – and 1.0 percent in 2020. The figures are in line with trends in Latin America and the Caribbean where in 2019 national economies grew at an average rate of 0.1 percent – with a rate of 1.3 percent predicted for 2020. Employment in Cuba will increase by 0.7 percent in 2020; the state sector employs 68 percent of workers.

Minister of Finances and Prices Meisi Bolaños explained that under the national budget for 2020, the education sector receives 24 percent of the outlay; 28 percent is assigned to health care and “social assistance.”

Cuba, in essence, faces conflicting realities. Material resources are needed for protecting and elevating the population.  But an implacable enemy blocks access to such resources. Struggle is constant.

Thus Minister Gil asserts that fuel shortages have “affected public transportation, among other sectors, [and] forced us to temporarily suspend some investment projects and slow down work on others, and negatively impacted agriculture, food production and distribution.” Nevertheless, “We have not applied neoliberal measures; no schools or hospitals were closed; no increases in fuel or electricity prices to reduce consumption.”

Maybe Cuba is relying on a not-so-secret weapon. Gil notes that, “we have been called upon to conserve and all of us to share in the effort to resist, and also to continue investing in development.” He is paraphrased as saying, “our people have responded to this challenge with more unity … It is up to [them] to ensure that the economy provides for the welfare of our people.”

His point seems to be that the Cuban people are aware of the values and ideas of their Revolution and of the means for its survival. This is a brand of political consciousness that doubtlessly resonates with more than a few U.S. Americans. Intellectually at least they would be in solidarity with Cuba. But now they have a test. Are they inclined to take part in Cuba’s struggle, on Cuba’s side?  They are inside the United States and ought to be able, somehow, to exert force where it does the most good, and the need now is great.

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World Beyond War: 
Sanctions Kill

World BEYOND War's a new 3-part series of fact sheets on the impact of sanctions in Iraq, Cuba, and North Korea. You can view and download the fact sheets for free from our website.

The fact sheets are designed as printable handouts that can be used for tabling events, lobby meetings, and much more. Each reference is meticulously footnoted, so you can cross-check every fact and go to the original source for more details.

Simply put, sanctions can kill. Time and again, sanctions are utilized as a brutal tool of war and repression, destroying innocent communities. Some eye-opening statistics stand out from our research:

• According to UNICEF, sanctions on Iraq killed half a million children under the age of 5, due to restricted access to adequate food and clean water, which caused widespread malnutrition and disease. Likewise, 60,000 malnourished children are facing starvation in North Korea due to sanctions.
• The embargo on Cuba has cost the country over $130 billion in losses.
• A ban on employing North Korean construction workers in Russia, China, and other countries has eliminated tens of thousands of jobs.

The fact sheets document these statistics and much more, illustrating the widespread negative impacts of sanctions in Iraq, Cuba, and North Korea. View and download the full fact sheet series from our website.

A shout-out to volunteers Ben, Gayle, Gar, Joanne, Emily, Eleanor, and Alice for their assistance with detailed research, writing, editing, and graphic design for this fact sheet series!

Please utilize these fact sheets as an educational tool in your community and share them far & wide!

For questions or more information about our peace education programs and volunteer opportunities, email Greta at greta@worldbeyondwar.org.

For a world beyond war,

Greta Zarro
Organizing Director
World BEYOND War
greta@worldbeyondwar.org