Flags of Cuba and United States. Photo: Kaloian.
By Raúl Antonio Capote – Dec 29, 2023
At the beginning of 2023, the Chargé d’Affaires of the US Embassy in Havana, Benjamin Ziff, said in an interview with The Associated Press that “it was difficult to go back” in normalizing relation with Cuba.
This statement embodied the current position of the White House towards Cuba, and shut down any possibility of concrete action in favor of an improvement in the ties between the two countries, including something akin to the timid rapprochement that took place during the Obama administration.
In truth, during the course of the year, very little progress was made in this direction. On the contrary, the Biden administration holds the record of being the most efficient and dedicated in enforcing sanctions against Cuba.
Consistent with the policy established since February 3, 1962 by the Kennedy administration, the current US president signed the extension, for another year, of the so-called Trading with the Enemy Act, the basis of the United States’ economic war against Cuba.
The blockade is behind every medicine that is missing in Cuba, the thermoelectric plant that cannot function, the public transport system that lacks spare parts, the social welfare project that could not be executed.
Punishing Cuba’s public sector, knowing that it provides essential services for the entire population, such as healthcare, education, sports, culture, etc., without excluding anyone, continues to be an essential part of Washington’s policy.
In addition, lies, manipulation of the truth, political-ideological subversion, organization and financing of violent anti-Cuban groups within the US increased during 2023.
The list of perfidy
Despite the growing demand of the international community for the US government to remove Cuba from its list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, the White House, in 2023, chose to persevere in the iniquity and lies.
The action has a high cost for Cuba. The main consequences derive from the increase in risk for any person or entity associated with any type of business, investment and trade involving Cuba. In addition, it seriously harms the international flow of Cuban finances.
Cuba was unjustly included, for the first time, in the US State Department’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism during the administration of President Ronald Reagan in 1982.
It was not until 2015 that the government of former President Barack Obama removed Cuba from the list. However, almost at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, on January 12, 2021, Cuba was again designated as a State sponsor of terrorism.
Despite the fact that Cuba has an impeccable resume of international collaboration in the fight against terrorism, and has always expressed its willingness to cooperate with US authorities in this matter, as it does with other countries, Washington insists on using this designation as a destabilization tool against Cuba.
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Quagmire of lies and disinformation
As the world faces an era of turbulence and crisis, Cuba, in additon, has to wage an unparalleled battle against slander and lies.
The toxic ecosystem of false media functions as a thicket of disinformation, a kind of swamp in which some people get hopelessly lost.
Stereotypes associated with terrorism are frequently constructed and used against Cuba, appealing to emotions to give veracity to their manipulative discourse.
In June 2023, a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) tried, once again, to hold the Cuban State responsible for the death of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, despite the fact that there is ample evidence of the causes of his death, as ruled by Cuban and Spanish courts.
Another dangerous lie was the statement made by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the presence of a Chinese espionage base in Cuba.
This was not a light accusation; behind this fake news were hidden the intentions of extreme-right sectors intending to escalate aggressive actions against Cuba.
Meanwhile, a campaign led by one of the main operators of the Cuban-American ultra-right, Orlando Gutiérrez Boronat, recently tried to accuse the Cuban State of sending mercenaries to fight for Russia in the war in Ukraine.
Another such fake news operation conceived and applied with all impudence was the attempt to associate Cuba with the alleged agitation for “acts of vandalism” in Argentina, which was totally unfounded, crude, and lacking in seriousness.
No less important, due to its direct impact on the people, was the manipulation of exchange rates through digital media outside Cuba, as part of the strategy to asphyxiate the country.
Attacks against Cuban medical collaboration, incitement for mass migration, slander and attempts to stain the political leadership of the country, disinformation, attempts to promote anti-government demonstrations within the country, the contrived construction of situations of violence against people to generate a climate of fear and insecurity, have been our daily bread in the digital ecosystem.
In this war, the enemy acts through its think tanks, pressure groups, financial lobbies, with the support of a network of media affiliated to the big media conglomerates, to generate destabilization and chaos.
Who are the real terrorists?
The plans of the US State Department and the US intelligence community to create violence and chaos in Cuba, with the aim of generating an uprising before the end of 2023, were exposed in a timely manner by Cuban media.
Having this information, the Cuban Ministry of the Interior thwarted destabilization plots created in the United States by terrorists of Cuban origin.
The Cuban government also made public a list of the promoters and executors of terrorist actions, and reiterated its policy of zero tolerance to any manifestation of such evil, which has caused the Cuban people so much pain and suffering for years.
To generate chaos, hunger, diseases; to create idleness, confusion, apathy, fear, betrayal that opens the doors to “regime change,” with minimum cost for the Yankee troops, was and is the great task that the servants of the empire yearn to accomplish.
(Granma)
