Cuba

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Statement by the Revolutionary Government of Cuba: “In the Face of the Imperialist Onslaught”
Posted by Internationalist 360° on January 23, 2025
Granma



Homeland or Death. We Will Win!

U.S. President Donald Trump is lashing out against Cuba from day one and without any pretext. The decision to reinstate the harsh measures of economic warfare against Cuba, which his predecessor eliminated only days before, is a demonstration of the aggressiveness of U.S. imperialism against the sovereignty, peace and welfare of the Cuban population. Among them is the inclusion of our country, once again, in the arbitrary list of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism, a designation that evidences an absolute disregard for the truth.

This is not surprising. The statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on January 14 already warned: “that the government of that country could reverse in the future the measures adopted today, as has happened on other occasions and as a sign of the lack of legitimacy, ethics, consistency and reason of its conduct against Cuba”. He also affirmed that “U.S. politicians do not usually stop to find justification…”. This is how they govern in that country.

Trump has interpreted his coming to power as the coronation of an emperor. His ambition includes, just for starters, the conquest of Canada, the usurpation of Greenland, the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico and the dispossession of the Panamanians of their canal. The hegemonic Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny, which were imposed on Latin America and the Caribbean with blood and fire, are the guide of the new government team.

The groups and politicians who have made aggression against Cuba a way of life, have profited for decades from the anti-Cuban business and today share the new president’s drunkenness are associated with him. All of them have a high responsibility in the difficult economic situation of the country and in the increase of the migratory flow from Cuba to the United States.

This new act of aggression by the U.S. government against the Cuban people shows, once again, the true, cruel and merciless objective of these and so many other measures of encirclement and suffocation applied against Cuba for the purpose of domination. It is the reaction of impotence in the face of the inability to bend our will and in the face of the respect, sympathy and support that the Revolution arouses among the peoples of the world.

The economic blockade, its reinforcement and the new aggressive measures will continue to weigh, with a very harmful effect, on our economy, the standard of living, the potential for development and the legitimate dreams of justice and well-being of the Cuban people, as has been the case in recent years.

They will not divert us from the socialist course, from the determination to recover the economy, to promote the greatest solidarity, creativity, talent, spirit of work, and to defend freedom, independence, sovereignty and the privilege of building a future without foreign interference as an impregnable bastion.

The Cuban people are grateful for the many expressions of support and solidarity received from all over the world, from governments, Cubans living abroad, parliaments, political, religious and social organizations and political figures from the United States and other countries.

No one should be deceived. The Cuban people expressed themselves with clear determination and strength in the march of December 20. Here the conviction prevails that CUBA WILL WIN.

HOMELAND OR DEATH, WE WILL WIN.

Havana, January 21st, 2025

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/01/ ... onslaught/

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National Electric System Disconnection in Cuba Due to High Power Oscillation


Picture of Cuba showing one of the areas affected by the power outage. Mar 14, 2025 Photo: Telesur English

March 14, 2025 Hour: 9:31 pm

Urgent: Disconnection of Cuba’s National Electric System due to high power oscillation. Investigation underway to determine causes and magnitude of the power outage

On the night of March the 14, a massive disconnection of the National Electric System (SEN) occurred due to a high power oscillation, causing a widespread power outage across much of the country.

A breakdown in the Diezmero substation has been identified as the primary cause of the significant loss of power generation in western Cuba, which ultimately led to the collapse of the National Electric System (SEN).


«The national electrical system was disconnected due to a high oscillation of the system. The causes and magnitude of what happened are being investigated», stated Lázaro Manuel Alonso, a journalist with Canal Caribe, on his social networks.


The authorities has assured that all necessary measures are being taken to restore the electric service in the country.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/national ... cillation/

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Message for Press Day in Cuba
We believe with Fidel, that “without a revolutionary press, there can be no Revolution,” said the President of the nation, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez

Author: Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez | internet@granma.cu

march 14, 2025 13:03:43


Photo: Granma

To all Cuban press workers and particularly to the young people who are making their debut in the profession:
As we celebrate this March 14, Cuban Press Day, we are motivated, first of all, by the duty and emotion of commemorating the birth of the newspaper Patria, founded by José Martí on this day in 1892, “to gather and to love, and to live in the passion of truth”.
I do not believe that more beautiful and accurate words have been said, before or since, to describe the mission of journalism needed by the Revolution in its tireless search for a more just and solidary society. Or as Martí invoked it: “With all and for the good of all”.
That is why we feel the constant need to return to the reasons of our Homeland, every time a day of celebration summons us to the essential reflection on the role of the press in our society.
Because, although it is a day of just tribute to those who, with their dedication and commitment, assume the daily challenge of recording what we are and what we do, in the midst of the fiercest imperial siege, it is also our duty to point out and, if possible, rectify everything that hinders and weakens the communication between the people and those who today assume the responsibility of representing them from the most dissimilar tasks in the Party, the Government, the National Assembly and the political and mass organizations.
Although we are a small archipelago navigating in a world mostly characterized by the use and abuse of information as a weapon of power controlled by a few media conglomerates, which are part of or associated with national and global oligarchies, we are a society free from the subjugation imposed by modern merchants on the exercise of journalism.
But, the Cuban press, with all that has advanced and grown in recent years, continues to suffer the burden of obsolete practices in language, forms and times, as a logical consequence of years of exercise in the trenches.
And because the hour of danger has not passed, these burdens still weigh heavily. But for that same reason, today our press is aggressively challenged by technology and the wonderful originality of our people, to transform itself, creatively, viralizing the “passion for truth” against the obscene invasion of lies and manipulations that assault audiences from digital networks driven by hate.
We have recently called for a new “Vindication of Cuba”, like that exemplary fight by José Martí, from an American newspaper, against those who tried to denigrate our people. It is not about returning hatred to hatred, as the Apostle did not do in his time. It is about opposing the truth of a nation engaged in the search for solutions to imperial harassment, with exemplary dignity that includes the essential self-criticism.
This does not deny, nor can it deny, the irrefutable fact that the Cuban press, the authentic Cuban press, has been and continues to be a bastion of resistance. And that Cuban journalism, over and above nonconformities and demands, has known how to act with the ethics and passion of genuine revolutionaries, deeply committed to the people from which it was born, to the Revolution that formed it and to the values that define us as a nation.
We are all aware of how much the so-called social networks and new technologies have transformed the media landscape, by dint of disinformation, false news and manipulation of public opinion. In this context, Cuban journalism has the responsibility to surpass itself, as a beacon of truthfulness and ethics. We must use digital tools not to follow trends, but to educate, to form conscience and to defend the truth.
In Cuba, the revolutionary press is truly independent, because it is not at the service of capital or foreign interests. It is at the service of the people and that service must be assumed as an obligation to reflect more and better, more integrally, the concerns, achievements and challenges of our society.
At the same time, our press has the freedom that in other places is punished or marginalized, to give voice to the solidarity with the peoples fighting for their liberation, such as the Palestinian people, victims of a war of persecution and extermination and of a media war that seeks to justify the unjustifiable. From Cuba, we will continue to denounce these injustices and amplify the voices of those who fight for peace and the dignity of all peoples, and we count on the Cuban press to be at the forefront.
Today, the Cuban press is in young hands. It is up to you to carry forward the legacy of Martí, of Fidel, of so many journalists who did their work and gave their lives for the Revolution. That legacy is fundamental in the formation of the new generations, not only in the techniques of journalism, but also in the values of ethics, honesty and social commitment, as protagonists of an innovative, critical and revolutionary press.
We believe with Fidel, that "without a revolutionary press, there is no Revolution possible" and that the press must be a bulwark in the defense of truth and justice, and an instrument for the mobilization and awareness of our people. Raúl also reminded us that the press should be a space for debate and reflection, at the service of the people.
In defense of these ideas, we have stressed the need to modernize and transform our political, public and press communication system, urging them to be innovative and to make the most of new technologies. The Social Communication Law, which went into effect in October 2024, is a vital component in the political, economic, social and cultural advancement of our nation.
We are convinced that political and digital communication can and must be an accelerating tool for the construction of a more just and united world. We pledge to continue working together, to strengthen our networks and to carry forward the principles and values we have shared.
Comrades,
On this Press Day, we reaffirm our commitment to truth, justice and the Revolution. The Cuban press is not a business; it is a service. It is not an instrument of domination; it is a tool for liberation.
Let us remain faithful to the legacy of Martí, who said: "The press is not kindly approval or insulting anger; it is proposition, study, examination and advice".
May our press continue to be a light full of truth in the darkness of ideas of the times the world is living in. May it continue to be, as it has always been, an instrument at the service of the homeland, of the people, of Humanity.
Long live the Cuban press!
Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez
First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba
President of the Republic of Cuba

https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2025-03-14/me ... ay-in-cuba

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Seven Silent Measures Against Cuba
March 15, 2025


Cuba sign. Photo: Bill Hackwell.

By Rosa Miriam Elizalde – Mar 13, 2025

Marco Rubio –Little Marco, as his boss in the White House calls him – is ignored by Trumpian diplomacy, nevertheless as a consolation prize he has been given the menial task of intensifying the attack on the island where his parents were born.

President Trump does not take him into account when negotiating with Netanyahu, Zelensky or Putin, but in less than a month the Secretary of State has managed to push through seven measures against Cuba that raise the collective punishment imposed by the US blockade to unbearable levels.

Usually announced on Friday afternoons, hardly anyone has noticed as they appear unconnected to each other, however they form a battering ram that is being fired like grenades at Cubans on the island and even at those who live outside it: Reinstatement of Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. This is the most severe measure of the financial siege against the island and is being applied without any real justification.

It significantly aggravates the effects of the economic and commercial blockade by dissuading banks and international institutions from operating with Cuba for fear of US sanctions. The reincorporation of this country on the list implies additional obstacles for importing basic necessities, receiving credits and accessing international financing.

Reinstatement of the list of restricted Cuban entities. The list of Cuban companies and entities with which the United States prohibits citizens and companies from that nation from carrying out any transactions has been reactivated and updated. This clearly extraterritorial measure seeks to impede trade and investment in key sectors of the Cuban economy. It especially affects tourism and financial transactions with third countries.

Reactivation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act. This allows US citizens (including Cubans naturalized in the US) to file lawsuits in US courts against foreign companies that invest in properties nationalized in Cuba after the 1959 Revolution. Such a measure seeks to prevent foreign investment and generate legal uncertainty for international companies interested in trading with Cuba.



Suspension of the license for transactions with Orbit SA. As part of the financial war, the Trump administration has suspended the license that allowed the Cuban company Orbit SA to receive remittances from the US. This directly affects thousands of Cuban families who depend on this income to cover basic needs. By cutting off one of the few sources of foreign currency, it seeks to further weaken the Cuban economy and create an internal social crisis.

Suspension of humanitarian parole and family reunification. Many of the more than 900,000 Cubans who have arrived in the US since October 2021 could be deported under the Trump administration’s new provisions. By tightening the blockade, Washington encouraged them to leave Cuba and immigrate to the US, and now it intends to deport them.

Suspension of visas for exchanges. In a clear attempt to weaken cultural and academic ties, the Trump administration has suspended visas for Cubans participating in cultural, academic and scientific exchanges in the US. No Cuban team, not even children’s teams, will be able to participate in regional or bilateral sports competitions on US territory.

Visa restrictions on collaborators of Cuban cooperation programs. In a particularly aggressive move, visa restrictions have been imposed on Cubans and foreigners linked to South-South cooperation programs in which Cuba participates, especially in the health sector.

This measure is part of the smear campaign against Cuban medical missions, affects Cuba’s ability to offer medical assistance in numerous countries and criminalizes third-country citizens involved in collaborative projects with Cuba.

In addition, the Trump administration has included Cuba on the list of “foreign adversaries,” along with Venezuela, Iran, Russia and China, thus limiting Cuban access to US technology, especially in artificial intelligence.

And it will get worse. The New York Times leaked this week that the Trump administration has drawn up a red list of countries whose citizens would be “categorically banned” from entering the US. Of course, the island is in this group, which also includes Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

The monster, as the Austrian Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek would say, can be heard breathing.

(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)

https://orinocotribune.com/seven-silent ... inst-cuba/

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Caribbean Countries Blast US Plans to Sanction Cuban Medical Missions Around the World
Posted on March 18, 2025 by Nick Corbishley
While Cuba exports doctors to the world, the US exports sanctions.

Perhaps one of the least surprising features of US foreign policy during these first few months of Trump 2.0 is that it includes an intensification of the economic blockade of Cuba, now in its 63rd year. With the State Department under the aegis of a fanatical Cuban-American politician like Marco Rubio who has built his entire career on demonising the Cuban Revolution and trying to economically starve into submission the people of his parents’ homeland, it was odds on that US-Cuban relations would get even worse.

But what was perhaps not quite so clear was the extent to which the US’ new actions against Cuba would further isolate Washington from most of the countries in its own “backyard”, not to mention the world at large. Below is a visual reminder of just how out of step Washington already is on the world stage wrt its ongoing economic embargo on Cuba. This map, courtesy of Ben Norton’s Geopolitical and Economy Report, shows how many countries voted in favour of lifting the blockade in the latest UN resolution, held in October.



For years, the rest of the world, including long-standing US vassal states like all EU member states, the UK, Japan, South Korea, Australia and Canada, have demanded an end to the US embargo. Only the US and Israel consistently vote against the resolution. The only US government to break with this trend was the Obama Administration, which abstained in the 2016 vote, notes the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA):

[It also] lifted restrictions for Cuban-Americans to travel and to send family and donative remittances, reestablished the U.S. Embassy in Havana, removed Cuba from the SSOT list, expanded access to the internet, and licensed a range of trade opportunities for U.S. companies. Beyond these specific policies, this shift in discourse by a U.S. president signaled the biggest change in U.S.-Cuba policy since diplomatic relations were severed in 1961, and ushered in a new era in the relations, leading to 23 bilateral accords on issues of mutual interest. The next two years saw an unprecedented boom in private-sector activities in Cuba, significant openings for civil society discourse, and other reforms by the Cuban government.

In 2017, the Trump administration undid all the progress Obama achieved and more. It swiftly imposed new restrictions prohibiting U.S. companies from doing business with certain Cuban companies managed by the armed forces and prohibited U.S. visitors from staying in hotels operated by those companies. It eliminated people-to-people educational travel, placed strict caps on family remittances, and made it impossible to send remittances by wire service.

A New Low for US Foreign Policy

Now, Trump 2.0 seems to determined to isolate the US even further by trying to prevent some of the world’s poorest countries from availing of the medical assistance provided, often free of charge, by Cuba’s medical missions. It is yet another new low for US foreign policy. As Helen Yaffe writes for Jacobin, while Cuba exports doctors, the US exports sanctions (and, of course, other weapons of war).

On February 25, Rubio’s State Department announced visa restrictions for both government officials in Cuba as well as any other officials in the world who are found to be “complicit” in the island nation’s overseas medical assistance programs. The sanctions would extend to “current and former” officials and the “immediate family of such individuals,” and could also include trade restrictions for the countries involved.

In essence, the US government is accusing Cuba of using forced labour, even likening overseas Cuban medical personnel to slaves. If this latest sanctions gambit is successful, it will have crippling effects on a Cuban economy that has been cut out of the US-dominated financial system for years and is now grappling with nationwide power outages. It will also hurt dozens of the world’s poorest countries that depend upon Cuban medical missions precisely at a time when many of them are facing the prospect of looming debt crises.

The real objective, writes Yaffe, is “to undermine both Cuba’s international prestige and the revenue it receives from exporting medical services”:

[F]or decades tens of thousands of Cuban medical professionals (far more than the World Health Organization’s workforce) were stationed in some sixty countries, mostly to work in underserved… populations in the Global South. By threatening to withhold visas from foreign officials, the U.S. government intends to sabotage these Cuban medical missions abroad. If the measure works, millions of people will suffer…

Since 2004, earnings from exports of Cuban medical and professional services have been the island’s largest source of income. Cuba’s ability to conduct “normal” international trade is currently obstructed by the long US blockade, but the socialist state has succeeded in converting its investments in education and health care into national earnings, while also maintaining free medical assistance to the Global South based on its internationalist principles.

Since launching inaugural missions in Chile and Algeria in the early 1960s, more than 605,000 Cuban medical professionals have been dispatched to an estimated 180 (out of 195) countries, mainly in the Caribbean and Latin America. They have provided essential medical care and support during natural disasters (e.g., Chile’s largest ever earthquake in 1960), wars (e.g., Algeria’s war for independence from France), epidemics (e.g., Cholera in Haiti, Ebola in Africa, to COVID-19 pandemic), nuclear disasters (Chernobyl) and have even helped countries establish their own public health care systems.

The World Health Organization awarded the Henry Reeve brigades, established in 2005, with the prestigious 2017 Dr Lee Jong-wook Memorial Prize for Public Health in 2017, by which time they had helped 3.5 million people in 21 countries. In the COVID-19 pandemic nearly 40 countries across the world received assistance from Cuba’s medical missions, including even wealthy, western nations like Andorra and Italy and South American nations not politically aligned with Cuba, such as Peru.

As NBC reported at the time, the island nation “has once more punched far above its weight in medical diplomacy,” describing the medics’ success as “a setback for the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump”, which had “launched an unprecedented campaign against Cuba’s medical missions in recent years, citing what it calls their exploitative labor conditions.”

A Six-Decade Policy of Forced Hunger

The medical missions are now the largest source of income for the government in Havana, bringing in $6 to $8 billion per year, far more than the proceeds from tourism. Now, the US intends to bring pressure to bear on the dozens of countries that continue to benefit from the Cuban medical missions in an attempt to cut Cuba off from its largest source of external financing.

This is part of an ongoing six-decade policy set out in a 1960 memorandum whose aim is “to weaken the economic life of Cuba . . . [to deny] money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” The US has long achieved all of those aims apart from the overarching one: the overthrow of the Cuban government.

As already mentioned, this is not the first time the US has targeted Cuba’s medical missions as part of its raft of sanctions against the island. In Trump’s first administration, his then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pressured countries on the American continent to expel Cuban medical staff in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling them victims of forced labour and human trafficking. Washington aligned governments in the region such as Bolsonaro’s Brazil and Guillermo Lasso’s Ecuador acceded, with fatal consequences. From the NYT:

“In their zeal to get rid of the Cuban doctors, the Trump administration has punished every country in the hemisphere, and without question that has meant more Covid cases, and more Covid deaths,” said Mark L. Schneider, a former head of strategic planning for the Pan-American Health Organization who was a State Department official in the Clinton administration. “It is outrageous.”

Smaller, less powerful countries like Ecuador felt the pain. Ecuador acceded to American pressure and sent home nearly 400 Cuban health care workers shortly before the pandemic. Then the country also suffered from the Trump administration’s freeze on funding for the health organization, which hampered its ability to provide emergency supplies and technical support.

Now, Trump 2.0 wants to extend this practice of crushing Cuba’s medical missions to the entire globe. But the idea is already getting pushback in the US’ direct neighbourhood. Last week, several leaders of countries of the Caribbean Community (Caricom) lambasted the restrictions, arguing that Cuba’s medical missions are fundamental for the survival of the region’s health systems. They have also rejected the US allegations that hiring Cuban doctors is labour exploitation.

The Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, current president of Caricom, said she is prepared, like other leaders in the region, to forego her US visa if “a sensible agreement” is not reached on this matter, since “principles matter”.

Similar arguments were made by Gaston Browne, Ralph Gonsalves and Keith Rowley, the respective prime ministers of Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago.

“I just returned from California and, if I never go back there in my life, I will make sure that the sovereignty of Trinidad and Tobago is respected by all,” Rowley said.

All Caricom leaders also agreed that availing of Cuba’s medical missions does not represent a form of human trafficking.

“We pay them the same as the Barbadians,” said Mottley. “We repudiate and reject the idea, spread not only by this U.S. government but by the previous one, that we were involved in human trafficking.”



The US allegations that the Cuban government is engaging in human trafficking do not much bear scrutiny. In countries below a certain income level, the cost of the medical missions is entirely borne by the Cuban state. In countries like Barbados, the Cuban doctors are paid the same as local medical staff.

Cuba started monetising its medical services primarily out of basic economic necessity. After the collapse of its most important ally and economic partner during the Cold War era, the Soviet Union, in the early 1990s, Cuba began introducing reciprocal agreements to share the financial burden of the medical programs with recipient countries that could afford it. Following the launch of the famous “oil-for-doctors” program with Venezuela in 2004, the export of medical professionals became Cuba’s main source of revenue.

However, as Yaffe points out, “this income is then reinvested into medical provision on the island. However, Cuba continues to provide medical assistance free of charge to countries who need it.”

By contrast, when a comparatively rich nation such as Qatar opts to staff some of its hospitals with Cuban doctors, the doctors can receive as little as 10% of what other foreign medical professionals can make working in government hospitals in Qatar while still earning significantly more than they would in Cuba. The remainder is pocketed by the government in Havana.

This situation is still relatively rare but has become increasingly common as Cuba has leveraged its medical knowhow and resources. Even though doctors volunteer to take part in the missions, US-based critics of the Cuban government claim the programme is exploitative, as The Guardian reported in 2019:

However, others argue the medical missions are highly-coveted opportunities in a country where doctors earn just $40 to $70 a month.

“I don’t believe that they are being exploited,” says John Kirk, professor of Spanish and Latin American studies at Dalhousie University in Canada. “They are earning significantly more than they would earn at home. They have been trained in a socialist system, have paid nothing for their medical training, and understand that the superior amount paid to the Cuban government is used to subsidise the healthcare system back in Cuba.”

The Guardian spoke to several medics at the Cuban hospital and some defended the system.

“I believe we should help everybody,” says one. “Based on that, yes it is fair, because I know that the other amount is used to support our health and education system … but if you think only of yourself, of course it’s not fair.”

In the US’ purely-for-profit healthcare system, by contrast, the managers think only of themselves and their companies’ bottom line — hence why so many people in the US still have no access to basic healthcare while hundreds of thousands of people are plunged into bankruptcy each year by extortionate medical costs.

This is one of the main reasons, together with life-style and dietary trends in the US and the near-total absence of processed food in Cuba, why life expectancy in the US, the world’s richest economy, is now over two years lower than in Cuba, one of the world’s poorest countries whose government nonetheless has poured much of its scarce resources into healthcare provision.

Despite that poverty, Cuba is arguably the world’s most generous provider of overseas aid. As Yaffe documents, “Guatemalan researcher Henry Morales reframed Cuba’s international solidarity as ‘official development assistance’ (ODA), using average international market rates and adopting the methodology of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), to calculate the magnitude of its contribution to global development and facilitate comparison with other donors”:

According to Morales, the monetary value of Cuba’s professional medical and technical services, ODA, exceeded 71.5 billion dollars between 1999 and 2015 alone, which is equivalent to 4.87 billion dollars per year. This means that Cuba annually devoted 6.6% of its GDP to ODA, the highest proportion in the world. In comparison, the European average was 0.39% of GDP and the United States contributed only 0.17%. Given that the U.S. blockade cost Cuba between $4 billion and $5 billion annually in this period, without this burden the island could have doubled its contribution to ODA.

Waning US Influence

By targeting sanctions against Cuba’s professional medical and technical services, the Trump Administration’s presumed goal is to isolate Cuba globally as well as tip its embattled government over the edge by depriving it of its main source of income. However, by taking such a drastic step the US risks further ostracising itself from the countries in its own neighbourhood as well as the world at large.

Perhaps more government officials in Latin America and the Caribbean will follow Mia Mottley’s example and simply forego their US visas, resulting in further loss of US influence in the region. Also, Cuba is far from alone on the world stage. Last year, it was among 13 nations invited to join the BRICS as partner countries. While not granting full membership, the partnership status offers a potential pathway toward full membership.

Russia has also pledged to help Cuba restore its energy system. Russian trade with Cuba has increased in recent years, helped along by US sanctions on both countries as well as the war in Ukraine. Russian naval flotillas have docked in Havana twice so fare this year as a show of military strength. But deliveries of Russian oil, like deliveries of Venezuelan oil, have largely petered out. However, that may change if the US continues to turn the screw on Cuba’s economy in its attempt to tip the government in Havana over the edge.

China has also said it will continue to support the Cuban people in standing against foreign interference and the blockade. That said, trade between the two countries has slumped in recent years, even as trade between China and Latin America has surged.

One country that is significantly upping its support of Cuba is Mexico, which has gradually strengthened its ties with Havana since Andrés Manuel López Obrador became president in 2018. His government has signed numerous agreements with the government in Havana to receive hundreds of doctors from the Caribbean nation. Yesterday (Oct 31), López Obrador’s sucessor as head of state, Claudia Sheinbaum, confirmed that her government will also support Cuba for humanitarian reasons:

“Even if there is criticism, we are going to be in solidarity.”

Mexico’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos de México (aka Pemex), dispatched 400,000 barrels of oil and finished gasoline and diesel to the island nation in just a few days during October. Asked about the shipment, Sheinbaum said that “Mexico produces 1.6 to 1.8 million barrels a day (…), so 400,000 barrels is not even one day’s production.” Sheinbaum also recently defended her government’s decision to employ Cuban doctors to help fill Mexico’s shortage of medical personnel, particularly in rural areas.

Mexico, like Russia and Venezuela before it, is becoming Cuba’s energy lifeline. But while Russia and Venezuela are both, like Cuba itself, heavily sanctioned by Washington and depend on schemes to circumvent sanctions, Mexico is currently the US’ largest trading partner. It remains to be seen how Washington will respond to Mexico’s growing support of Cuba but it will presumably involve the threat of sanctions, tariffs or some other economic weapon.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/03 ... world.html

[blindpig]

March 2025: The Cuban Economy and Living Conditions
Posted by Internationalist 360° on April 8, 2025
Tim Anderson



Tim Anderson reports from Cuba on worsening deprivation due to the renewed US blockade under Trump’s second term, which is severely impacting food, medicine, and economic recovery efforts.

By early 2025, Cubans were once again suffering extreme deprivation since at least the COVID crisis (2020-2022), which, combined with restrictions imposed by the first Trump presidency, killed the tourist economy. This current deprivation follows the deep crisis of the 1990s, after the collapse of economic agreements with the Soviet bloc. Since the 1990s, there were a couple of waves of economic improvement: first in 2005-2006, when the benefits of the ALBA ‘doctors for oil’ exchange with Venezuela were felt, and then again in 2016-2018, when the limited openings from President Obama led to a brief boom in tourism (with up to 5 million tourists per year, prior to the COVID pandemic).

The current deprivations include lack of food and medicine and repeated power cuts, including from nationwide blackouts. These problems are exacerbated by inflation and currency instability, which has reduced purchasing power. A dual currency system is currently being re-introduced (with many imports being processed in foreign currency). Average salaries (converted to dollars) are between $10 and $20 per month, there are serious shortages on the ration booklet (libretta), and most local prices have risen. Emigration persists, particularly amongst youth, but with rates declining in recent years.

There is an urgent short-term need for relief from these deprivations, all of which stem from the US blockade – now intensified by a new set of measures from the second Trump administration that increasingly target third parties attempting to cooperate with Cuba.

The US blockade under Trump’s second administration includes these measures:

Financial penalties for third parties trading with or helping finance Cuba;
Intimidation of foreign tourists by threats of non-entry to the USA;
Threats to third-party countries which accept Cuban doctors;
Penalties on those seeking to assist Cuba on humanitarian grounds;
Severe restrictions on family remittances from Cuban families in the US;,
Returning Cuba to the US list of “state sponsors of terrorism”, a list which has nothing to do with actual terrorism but which acts to intimidate and block banking transactions with Cuba;
Designating occupied Guantanamo Bay as a dumping ground for thousands of unwanted Latin American immigrants to the USA.

Sugar exports have not been central to the Cuban economy since the 1990s. While there are still significant exports of sugar, nickel, and tobacco in recent years, the most important hard currency earners have been (1) medical services, and (2) tourism. Pharmaceuticals are also an important industry and involve partnerships with China, Vietnam, and Iran. Cuba remains the largest trainer of doctors in the world, accepting “compensation” payment from other countries according to their capacity.

In the medium term, the challenges for the Cuban political economy, after the restructuring reforms of the 1990s and 2010, include these important matters:

Restoration of medical services agreements, in the face of systematic US obstruction, Cuba has a surplus of trained health professionals, ready for large missions;
Restoration of tourism, in the face of systematic US obstruction, Cuba currently has an oversupply of hotel capacity, much of it built just before the COVID crisis;
Building local food production capacity, so as to reduce reliance on imports, this has been addressed through leasing arrangements which have had only limited success; the recent rice growing agreements with Vietnam will help, but more assistance with domestic agriculture is needed;
Restoration of power supply to the national grid, much of this grid was renovated in 2005-2006, but maintenance has again faced serious problems, the recent contribution of solar panels from China is very welcome;
Restoration of fuel for transport and all other industries, supply from Venezuela has resumed but at lower levels than before, and local oil supply remains inadequate;
Removing ‘bottlenecks’ in the wholesale-retail sector, a problem currently being addressed, albeit in a rather bureaucratic way; some management assistance might be useful.[/b]

Chinese assistance in the power sector has broken through the delays. Photovoltaic units were arriving and being distributed to the provinces, while I was still there. Further assistance to the national grid will be necessary.

Trump seems determined to obstruct third party relations with his island neighbours. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was recently slapped down by Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Stuart Young for spreading false stories about Cuban doctors working in their countries.



In short, Cuba faces an urgent need for relief, particularly as large-scale tourism has yet to resume, and the second Trump administration is doing its best to sabotage recovery in all sectors as a means of punishing the Cuban people. Cuba has great potential in the health cooperation, tourism, and pharmaceutical sectors but US obstruction is strong.

The island nation recently became a ‘partner member’ of BRICS, but there are so far no visible benefits. However, this situation could shift if the major BRICS members provide financial assistance and engage in cooperative efforts that bypass the US-dominated financial infrastructure.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2025/04/ ... onditions/

[blindpig]

Six decades of blockade
April 12, 19:06



Six decades of blockade

Behind the stormy applause for Trump's peacekeeping initiatives in Ukraine, the information about the order of the newly elected American president to cancel Biden's decision to remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism went almost unnoticed. The corresponding document was signed by Trump in the first days after the inauguration. The history of US sanctions pressure on the Island of Freedom is very instructive for us to understand the illusory hopes of all Trumpophiles for the lifting of US sanctions against Russia. It is important to turn to the situation in blockaded Cuba and to understand what kind of assistance Russia can provide to a friendly country in these conditions, both within the framework of bilateral trade and economic partnership, and taking into account Cuba's interest in deepening cooperation with the BRICS countries (where Cuba is an associate member) and the EAEU (in which Cuba is an observer country).

Sanctions against Cuba are among the longest-running in the history of international relations. Only US sanctions against North Korea have lasted longer. The Founding Fathers of the United States were obsessed with Cuba. American presidents have tried to buy it twice. For the United States, it has always been a question of hegemony in the Caribbean and Central America. And then, in 1959, the Cuban revolution took the Island of Freedom out of the American sphere of influence. Sanctions followed almost immediately. After the nationalization carried out by Fidel Castro, a partial embargo was first introduced on the export/import of goods from Cuba, and just a year and a half later, the J.F. Kennedy administration established a complete blockade of Cuba, linking it with the Trading with the Enemy Act. Americans were banned from traveling to the rebellious island. A ban was imposed on the use of the US dollar in Cuba's financial transactions with third countries. The sanctions became more stringent literally every year. Since 1982, the United States has included Cuba in the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which implies a ban on all financial transactions and support for them from third countries. In the early 1990s, Clinton banned money transfers to Cuba, and in 1996, sanctions were extended extraterritorially under the Helms-Burton Act, which allowed owners of Cuban property nationalized after the 1959 revolution to sue the government in U.S. courts to recover damages.

Some easing of sanctions occurred under Obama, who removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism in 2015, but it did not last long. Trump, who replaced him, added Cuba back to the list in 2021 and has no intention of abandoning his hard-line policy toward Cuba during his second term.

The absurdity of declaring Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism is obvious. Even the Biden administration officially acknowledged the absence of any ties between Cuba and international terrorism. The UN General Assembly has already called for an end to the blockade 32 times (as a rule, only the US and Israel objected in all cases), but the US plays the long game against unwanted regimes. In 2022, the original text of the memorandum, prepared back in April 1996 by Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester Mallory, was published in the US for the first time. It speaks of the need to "weaken Cuba's economic life" through measures such as "denial of funds and supplies, reduction of real and cash wages, creation of hunger, despair and overthrow of the government." In the 64 years since the adoption of the Mallory memorandum, both under good and bad "investigators", the objectives of US policy in the Cuban direction have remained unchanged.

In his second presidential term, Trump tasked Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, who became the new Secretary of State, with achieving complete isolation of the rebellious island, including financial isolation, and using all available means to force the Island of Freedom to change course...

Besieged Fortress

The blockade has never been the only means of pressure on rebellious Cuba. Literally from the very first days after the victory of the revolution, sabotage, terrorist attacks and other covert operations organized by the American intelligence services were carried out in huge numbers. There were more than 700 documented attempts on the life of Fidel Castro alone. According to the hero of the Republic of Cuba, illegal intelligence officer Gerardo Hernandez Nordelo, from 1959 to 1997 the United States carried out 5,780 terrorist attacks against Cuba, from 1961 to 1996, 67 economic targets were fired upon from sea vessels. The CIA controlled 299 paramilitary groups with 4,000 men, responsible for hundreds of murders of Cuban civilians. The US also constantly organized various provocations to justify a tightening of the blockade of Cuba and possible military intervention. An example is the deliberate violation of Cuban airspace in February 1996 by three US Cessno 337 aircraft belonging to the Brothers to the Rescue organization, which opposed the Cuban government. Unlike the USSR, which under Gorbachev allowed Matias Rust's plane to land on Red Square in September 1987, the Cuban government responded harshly: two planes were shot down by a Cuban fighter, and the third managed to escape.

In 1993, the book "From Dictatorship to Democracy: Strategy and Tactics of Liberation" by Gene Sharp, a professor at the University of Massachusetts and a theorist of nonviolent strategy, was published in the United States. It became a new word in methods of fighting against unwanted regimes and the main manual for carrying out color revolutions. In the early nineties, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba was in a very difficult situation. Having lost the support of its main economic partner, it was forced to curtail all development programs, mothball important construction projects, and cut consumption to the limit. The country de facto lived in a state of emergency, and there was no electricity in homes for 13 hours a day. Thanks to the filigree work of diplomacy and intelligence, the original and strictly verified social forms of the "special period", Fidel Castro managed to preserve the morality and culture of society, human resources, high standards of medicine and education in conditions of a total deficit of literally all resources. Cuba survived! And then Washington, having tested new methods of work in the Balkans and the post-Soviet space in the nineties, gradually began to move in Cuba from sabotage and subversion to methods of targeted influence on the young and middle generations of Cubans with the aim of preparing the subsequent betrayal of the elite.

Washington began to attach particular importance to work in the information space. It is financed primarily through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)*, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)**, the State Department, and Soros's Open Society Foundation***. Hundreds of millions of dollars have already been invested in attempts to change the consciousness of Cubans and organize a color revolution. The first large-scale project to develop the information space of Cuba was the creation under Obama of Cuban Twitter - the ZunZuneo network, the main tasks of which were to create a database of Cuban subscribers to the messenger (including gender, age and political views) and recruit young Cubans for anti-government actions. Hip-hop communities, rappers, and various programs, including seminars on HIV prevention, were used to attract young people. Interestingly, USAID, which financed this activity, kept it strictly secret and formalized it as a project in Pakistan... The messenger "ZunZuneo" existed from 2010 to 2012 and managed to gather more than 40 thousand subscribers.

The attack on Cuba's information space has intensified dramatically during Trump's first term in office. In 2018, the US State Department created the Cuba Internet Task Force, which included representatives of the US government and non-governmental organizations. It was tasked with "facilitating the free and unregulated flow of information in Cuba" to promote liberal thinking, American ideas about democracy and freedom, disseminate information "about the failures of the revolution" and identify young people particularly dissatisfied with the situation among social media users in the country. In a short time, a network of subversive anti-Cuban online resources was created, such as ADN Cuba, CyberCuba, Cubanos por el Mundo, Cubanet, Cubita Nau, El Estornudo, Perjodismo de Barjo, El Toque, YucaByte, working to destabilize the situation. The funding, editorial policy, staff training and technical equipment of the editorial offices of these "independent" resources are carried out from the United States.

During Trump's second term, in parallel with the information offensive, the financial blockade of Cuba is tightened to the limit. Its extraterritorial nature forces financial institutions of third countries to suspend all their transactions with Cuba, cancel deliveries, terminate export contracts, and refuse investments. The resulting shortage of essential goods is intended to sharply worsen the standard of living of the population, provoke protests, lead to destabilization of the situation and a change of power.

Without betraying the ideas of the revolution

Large-scale protests of the population in Cuba broke out in July 2021, when the policy of a complete blockade and economic strangulation of Cuba were superimposed on the consequences of the pandemic. The authorities were forced to close the borders, as a result of which income from foreign tourism - the main source of foreign exchange earnings - practically disappeared. Since the onset of the pandemic, Cuba's GDP fell by 11%, imports of food, fuel, and medical supplies decreased by half. The shortage of essential goods brought people to the streets. American foundations and NGOs involved in color revolutions in Latin America spread videos of anti-government protests on social networks, some of which "unexpectedly" turned out to be recordings of demonstrations by government supporters, and some - recordings of football fans celebrating in Argentina... By a "strange" coincidence, the beginning of the protests in Cuba coincided with the introduction of a cheap and highly effective Cuban vaccine against coronavirus into industrial production, which immediately attracted the interest of many Latin American countries. It turned out that, having become the only vaccine producer in the region,rebellious Cuba with its advanced medicine and science has encroached on the "sacred" - in this case, the profits of "big pharma".

In the United States, the two-day July protests by Cubans were quickly called the beginning of a color revolution. However, to Washington's great disappointment, the protests ended rather quickly after thousands of citizens came out to meet the opposition march with slogans in defense of the Cuban revolution, and the authorities temporarily turned off the Internet, thereby blocking anti-Cuban online resources.

After 2021, there were attempts to repeat the protest marches, designed to draw the government's attention to the difficult economic situation. Thus, on March 17, 2024, a protest took place in Santiago de Cuba due to power outages and food shortages. Contrary to Western media reports of angry crowds, pogroms and riots, the protests were peaceful, since, in the opinion of most Cubans, the main reason for the shortage is the US blockade.

Meanwhile, the economic situation in Cuba continues to be extremely difficult. According to official data, GDP in 2023 decreased by 2%, inflation reached 31%. As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, sugar production fell sharply, which was no longer enough even to meet domestic demand, and Cuba was forced to terminate the contract with China for sugar supplies. Rice production, which is a rationed product, in 2024 amounted to only 30% of the 2018 level, and its yield fell by half. The production of eggs, pork, coffee, and beans has decreased. Cuba today is heavily dependent on imported food, fuel, and many other goods. Public transport is facing serious problems due to fuel shortages and obsolete infrastructure.

Social inequality is growing. Salaries in private companies are many times higher than salaries in the public sector. Due to the closure of many family doctors' offices, high-quality medical care is becoming less accessible to the majority of the population. The best clinics are starting to provide paid services and are gradually reorienting themselves to wealthy clients. Cubans have begun to leave the country en masse. Since 2022, more than 500,000 migrants from Cuba have arrived in the United States, and a total of 1.3 million people currently reside in the United States who retain Cuban citizenship. In addition, a category of Cubans has emerged that opposition websites call "pre-emigrants." These are those who currently do not have the opportunity to leave, but have already made the decision to do so.

The generation that carried out the national liberation uprising is gradually passing away, and with it the memory of what Cuba was like before the revolution, when 20,000 people were killed during the seven years of Batista's military-police dictatorship (which he himself called "disciplined democracy"). Poverty, illiteracy, 40% unemployment, 8,500 brothels in Havana alone, more than 70% of the economy in American hands, children who do not know the taste of milk. The older generations of Cubans know the price of "freedom and democracy, American style." Such propaganda is powerless against them. But with the change of generations, new prospects for manipulating consciousness open up. Cuban "zoomers" (like Generation Z in other countries) literally live on the Internet, which opens up new opportunities for manipulating public opinion and using orange technologies.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel calls economic recovery the main task today. Like China and Vietnam, Cuba is trying to combine state planning and a strong public sector with private initiative. Entrepreneurship is being revived. At the beginning of 2024, 1.6 million Cubans were already working in private organizations provided for by the updated Constitution (this is about a third of all employed citizens). Only 124 types of economic activity are prohibited for individual entrepreneurs, including medicine, media, education, activities in strategic areas of the economy (defense, mining, biotechnology, telecommunications). But for now, most of the country's assets are still owned by state-owned enterprises, providing 87% of GDP, concentrating 92% of imports and more than 99% of exports. The updated Constitution of Cuba has preserved the basic principles of Cuban statehood: the socialist model of society and the leading role of the Communist Party. Speaking about the reforms being carried out in the economy, Miguel Diaz-Canel said: "We are moving forward without betraying the ideas of the revolution."

In the twenties of the last century in the Soviet Union, the Bolsheviks during the NEP managed to use market mechanisms and at the same time preserve the socialist economic system, protect the gains of the revolution, achieve high rates of economic growth and a gradual improvement in the standard of living of the population. During the "perestroika" started by Gorbachev in the mid-eighties, the gradual weakening of the vertical of power and serious mistakes in personnel policy, combined with ill-considered cardinal transformations of the entire system of life organization of the country led to the catastrophe of the nineties: the destruction of the national economy, the emergence of ugly forms of wild peripheral capitalism, a dramatic decline in the standard of living of the population.

Whether Cuba will be able to preserve its achievements while carrying out reforms and simultaneously solve the existing problems depends on whether the current authorities understand that the necessary conditions for this are: 1) the presence of a clearly thought-out detailed plan of action (does the Cuban leadership have such a plan today, given that the main herald of market reforms and decentralization of government, Alejandro Gil Fernandez, was dismissed from the post of vice-premier and is under investigation?); 2) strengthening the central government and the entire vertical of government (it is necessary for the signal to pass smoothly from top to bottom); 3) strict control over compliance with the law and a ruthless (!) fight against corruption. Specific people are behind the fulfillment of each of these conditions, and personnel, especially in difficult moments, decide everything. Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel speaks of moving forward "without betraying the ideas of the revolution." The success of this movement will be possible only if it is determined by people who are unconditionally devoted to the ideas of the revolution and who work for a common cause.

Whether Cuba will be able to preserve its sovereignty and remain an impregnable bastion for the Americans with their stranglehold and proven technologies of color revolutions depends on how carefully the Cuban authorities will act and whether they will be able to avoid the mistakes made during the reforms in other countries, primarily in Russia, with which the Cuban economy was very closely linked.

Russia and Cuba

In 2007 and 2008, I had to speak in Havana at the annual international conferences of economists on the problems of globalization and development with reports on the results of Russian neoliberal "reforms", on the mistakes made and on the economic and social catastrophe that occurred in Russia as a result of the restoration of capitalism. The discussion of these problems aroused great interest among Cubans.

Today, with the sophisticated technologies of influencing consciousness and destroying society applied in Russia, the United States is trying to "open up" Cuba. Therefore, Russia's experience of escaping from the trap prepared for it by the West is relevant for Cuba in practical terms. And Russian experts are ready to share it. In December 2021, a seminar was organized in Havana called "Cuba and the EAEU: Cooperation in the Context of Structural Reorganization of the World Economy". At this seminar, with the participation of employees of the Cuban government and the central bank, Russian experts made specific proposals on liberalizing prices in Cuba, stimulating innovative activity, monitoring the activities of state-owned enterprises, transforming directive planning of socio-economic development into strategic planning, etc., and also discussed mistakes that must be avoided during reforms.

Unfortunately, the enormous potential of Russian-Cuban cooperation has not been fully realized to date. Russia has a unique set of tools for advancing its position in Cuba, due to the common histories of the two countries, the still-operating industrial facilities built with Soviet assistance, and real business and personal connections. All this makes it possible to become a key partner of the island on the world stage, which is especially relevant when both countries are under American sanctions. Russia and Cuba signed a program of trade and economic cooperation until 2030, which provides for stimulating the growth of trade and investment, strengthening ties between business communities. Russia already supplies equipment and machinery for thermal power plants, railway cars, vehicles, oil, vegetable oil, and food products to Cuba. In January 2025, Zarubezhneft put into operation a field of extra-viscous and extra-heavy oil in Cuba, the UAZ concern began test assembly of its cars this month and plans to launch the conveyor of a new plant in Havana in the very near future. Cuba exports tobacco, alcoholic beverages, and some types of non-ferrous metals to Russia. Promising areas of cooperation are energy, including renewable energy, supplies of liquefied natural gas, modernization of railways and transport infrastructure, agriculture, and housing construction. To remove problems with servicing the Cuban debt, on March 11, 2024, Vladimir Putin approved amendments to the loan agreements between Russia and Cuba. Havana was given the opportunity to repay the debt in rubles, postpone the payment plan from 2023-2027 to 2028-2040, and change the calculation of penalties for late payments. But the world policeman is not asleep, and the "Cubans" in Florida are doing everything possible through social networks to discredit Russian-Cuban cooperation.

It would be possible to counter the American blockade of the Island of Freedom and secondary sanctions through BRICS, where Cuba is an associate member. In addition, it is a long-standing ally of Russia, China and Brazil, a partner of South Africa and India. It has friendly relations with Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia. The fundamental goals and interests of all these countries coincide on the Island of Freedom. In the early nineties, when Cuba was in an extremely difficult situation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a critically important agreement for the island state was concluded "oil in exchange for sugar". Similar barter deals with Russia and the BRICS countries could still provide significant assistance to Cuba today. Such support would be the embodiment of the ideas of a multipolar world, to which all BRICS countries are committed.

***

Today, Cuba is one of the few independent sovereign countries in the world, a state with free healthcare and education, of which it can rightfully be proud. The great ideas of the Cuban revolution - justice, solidarity and dignity - are enshrined in the Constitution. Yes, Cuba today has many problems, which are successfully and continuously created by its northern neighbor, which has been losing for 65 years in the confrontation with the rebellious and proud people and expects to take revenge. The alternative in this confrontation for Cubans is very simple: either maintaining sovereignty and the huge (!) gains of the revolution, or American-style democracy and a return to the model of a tourist-brothel-gambling appendage of the United States, where young people will have an abundance of TikTok, casinos and drugs, but there will be no education...

The long confrontation between Cuba and the United States is sometimes compared to the biblical battle of David and Goliath. Goliath, as you know, was almost three meters tall, he had heavy armor, a huge shield and a spear. And everyone was afraid to fight him. But the brave young man David, who had neither a sword nor armor, accepted the challenge and defeated Goliath, because he had faith. "There is no force in the world capable of crushing the power of truth and ideas," the leader of the Cuban revolution Fidel Castro once said. That is why the world gendarme has been powerless against the Island of Freedom for so many years.

(c) Sergey Batchikov

https://zavtra.ru/blogs/protivostoyanie_14 - zinc

https://colonelcassad.livejournal.com/9778181.html

Google Translator

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Cuban doctors arrive in South Africa in 2020 to support efforts to curb COVID-19. Credit: Flickr/governmentza (CC BY-ND 2.0)

No, Marco Rubio, Cuban doctors are not victims of ‘forced labor’
Originally published: Liberation on April 12, 2025 by Cecilia Paz (more by Liberation) | (Posted Apr 17, 2025)

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio wants to end Cuba’s international medical brigades, which have provided essential healthcare to millions of people across the globe. On Feb. 25, Rubio restricted the visas of anyone involved in Cuba’s overseas medical missions. This includes doctors, their families, and foreign officials who work with Cuban doctors.

Rubio claims that the medical missions–which provide essential health care to millions of people across the Global South–are actually “forced labor” in disguise. On April 7, Florida Congressman Carlos Gimenez went a step further, claiming that the United States should impose sanctions on foreign governments that have benefited from Cuba’s medical missions. These escalations in U.S. aggression towards Cuba represent a threat to international health, and have already been condemned by multiple foreign governments.

Cuba’s history of medical internationalism
Cuba’s medical missions are the crown jewel in their commitment to socialist internationalism. After the socialist revolution in 1959, the Cuban government immediately began making massive investments in education and scientific research. Since then, Cuba has had free universal healthcare, free medical schools, and medical and biotechnology research has been entirely government-funded. Today, they have the highest doctors per capita in the world. Even though crippling U.S. sanctions prohibit access to needed medicine and equipment, Cuba has a higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality rate than the U.S. And since the early years of socialist construction, Cuba has not limited the gains of the revolution to itself—it shares them with the world.

Just four years after the revolution, Cuba sent its first medical mission to Algeria. After Algeria won independence from French colonizers, it found itself in a healthcare crisis. A team of 54 Cuban healthcare workers volunteered to help fill the gap left by the departure of French doctors. In the decades since, Cuba has sent over 600,000 healthcare professionals to over 160 countries. This includes short-term emergency deployments after natural disasters, vaccination campaigns, and extended stays to help fill systemic healthcare gaps.

After Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Cuba offered to send over 1,500 doctors and 36 tons of medicine to the U.S. Not only did the Bush administration allow nearly 1,400 Americans to die due to their inadequate disaster response, but they also refused Cuba’s offer of solidarity. In defiance of U.S. aggression and to the benefit of the world, Cuba then doubled down on its medical internationalism after Katrina. Castro renamed the medical missions “the Henry Reeves International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disasters and Serious Epidemics.” Henry Reeves was an American soldier who fought in Cuba’s first war for independence in 1876. Shortly after Katrina, Cuba sent 27 brigades to 19 countries.

The Henry Reeves brigades focus on underserved communities and building solidarity between peoples impacted by imperialism. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and the 2013 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, Cuban doctors were first responders. Starting in 2013, Cuba sent 8,500 doctors to Brazil to provide free healthcare to rural indigenous communities. Thanks in large part to this program, the child mortality rate dropped by up to 10% in some parts of rural Brazil. When right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro took power in 2018, he banished Cuban doctors, which threatened the health care of 28 million people.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, dozens of countries called on Cuba for support. By September 2020, Cuba sent over 4,000 doctors to 40 countries. In poor countries like Haiti, Jamaica, and Togo, Cuban aid helped form the backbone of national COVID response. While the U.S. hoarded vaccines and intellectual property, Cuba produced five vaccines and shared them with other underresourced and sanctioned countries. Domestically, Cuba had a significantly lower mortality rate and higher vaccination rate than the U.S..

Many countries who receive Cuban doctors pay both the doctors and the Cuban government. The crippling U.S. blockade prevents Cuba from accessing foreign banks or trading with any country that trades with the U.S., meaning that the Henry Reeves Brigades are one of the only ways Cuba can access much-needed foreign capital. Cuba also exchanges medical services for goods, for example, Venezuela exchanges subsidized oil. The income from Cuba’s medical brigades are reinvested into its healthcare system and other public services.

However, Cuba continues to send completely free brigades to countries in need, and also treats foreign patients in Cuban hospitals. In 2004, they launched a program called “Operación Milagro” (Operation Miracle) in partnership with socialist Venezuela that has provided millions of free eye surgeries to people with reversible blindness. They also welcome foreign medical students to study free of charge at their acclaimed medical schools, including students from the U.S..

Given Cuba’s widespread commitment to global health, it’s no surprise that dozens of countries–including many U.S. allies–have come to Cuba’s defense since February. The leaders of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Jamaica recently emphasized the importance of Cuban medical brigades to their countries and denied allegations of “forced labor” and “human trafficking.”

Every accusation is a confession
Rubio’s claim that Cuban doctors are victims of “forced labor” is entirely unfounded. The program is completely voluntary. The Cuban socialist education system emphasizes compassion and collective care, and after receiving free medical training, many Cubans are inspired to continue their country’s legacy of internationalism. Cuban doctors actually make more money abroad than they do in Cuba, which they can use to support themselves and their families. The fact that the Cuban government is also paid for the missions is an added bonus, because it ensures that Cuba can continue to strengthen its healthcare system and other services for the people.

In fact, many of Rubio’s claims about Cuba would better describe healthcare in the U.S. Rubio states that Cuban medical missions “deprive ordinary Cubans of the medical care they desperately need in their own country.” Actually, 100% of Cubans receive free healthcare because it is treated as a universal human right under the socialist system. In contrast, 45% of Americans struggle to access healthcare. This is because under U.S. capitalism, private insurance companies, hospital corporations, and Big Pharma are allowed to make trillions of dollars in profits selling healthcare as a commodity. In fact, two-thirds of people who declare bankruptcy in the U.S. cite medical bills as the primary cause.

Rubio himself is a staunch supporter of Trump’s moves to privatize Medicare, fire thousands of public health workers, and slash Medicaid by $880 billion, policies which will deprive tens of millions of Americans of healthcare in the name of reducing government spending. Yet Cuba spends about one tenth of what the U.S. does per person on healthcare and has better outcomes. They are able to save money and resources by focusing on preventative care. Neighborhood-based “polyclinics” offer primary care and diagnostic services, and doctors also make house visits. Doctors are intimately integrated into the communities where they work and prioritize fostering trust with their patients. Contrastingly, the American healthcare system is inefficient, impersonal, and neglects preventative care, leading to rampant mistrust of medical professionals.

End the blockade!
The only thing depriving Cubans of needed healthcare is the inhumane U.S. blockade. Because of the U.S.’s all-encompassing trade restrictions, Cuba cannot import medical supplies like syringes, pacemakers, and basic medications. Patents and export restrictions necessitate the development of their own pharmaceuticals. In addition to medicine, the blockade prevents Cubans from accessing basic needs like imported food, fuel, and building materials. The country is sent into frequent nationwide blackouts because they cannot repair the electricity grid. The U.S. has severely sanctioned Cuba since the socialist revolution, and Trump’s policies have been even more suffocating.

Ending the U.S. blockade on Cuba is a life-or-death matter, not just for Cubans, but for people who benefit from Cuban doctors worldwide. Working-class people in the U.S. must stand with the people of Cuba against imperialist aggression and the economic war at home.

https://mronline.org/2025/04/17/no-marc ... ced-labor/

The danger of a good example...

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Socialism, the only alternative in the face of danger

April 16, 1961 is also recognized as the founding date of the Communist Party of Cuba

Author: Jorge Ernesto Angulo Leiva | internet@granma.cu

april 16, 2025 08:04:00


Fidel's words on that April 16 and the days that followed remind us of those who wish to sow death and those who bet on the future. Photo: Raúl Corrales

The most accurate way to remember the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution is to reaffirm it every second, beyond the dates marked.
The articles of the Magna Carta dedicated to the irreversibility of that choice for our destiny are not enough as a guarantee; only men can enlarge this collective work. Nevertheless, celebrating the path chosen to face the future, 64 years later, speaks to us of resistance, despite the storms.
Under the threat of an armed storm, on the morning of April 16, 1961, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz deepened the boldness of the Revolution when he publicly linked it to socialism.
Thousands of militiamen raised their rifles as a sign of approval of his words and ready for a new combat. From the corner of 23rd and 12th, in Havana's Vedado district, they could observe the ocean from a few meters away and imagine how the mercenaries were advancing through its waters, with the mission of invading the Island.
At dawn on the 15th, three formations of U.S. planes bombed important points of the Cuban air defense, without warning of war and with the perfidious strategy of carrying insignia of the attacked aviation.
They tried to diminish the capacity to respond to the imminent invasion and to evade their responsibility, behind the appearance of an internal uprising. The Puma, Linda and Gorilla squadrons attacked Ciudad Libertad, San Antonio de los Baños and Santiago de Cuba.
In Ciudad Libertad 53 people were wounded and seven died, including the artilleryman Eduardo Delgado, who expressed with his blood the decision of the people: to follow “Fidel” to the last consequences. The victims were buried after the transcendental declaration that marked the course of the Homeland.
In the midst of the greatest dangers, those present listened and supported the determination that “for this Revolution we are ready to give our lives”. Just a few hours later, the pages of heroism was demonstrated at Playa Giron.
Like any human achievement, Cuban socialism is not a perfect work, but Fidel's words on that April 16 and the days that followed remind us of those who wish to sow death and those who bet on the future.

https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2025-04-16/so ... -of-danger

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US-Funded Cuban Opposition Leaders Call for a Second Blockade Against the Island
April 19, 2025


Rosa María Payá, daughter of the late Cuban far-right dissident Osvaldo Payá, follows in her father's footsteps by calling for economic sanctions against Cuba and continuing a legacy of comprador behavior. Photo: EFE.

In a virtual hearing on human rights with the European Parliament, Cuban opposition activists Rosa María Payá and José Daniel Ferrer called for new economic sanctions against their own country, with their historic goal of deepening the suffering of the Cuban people.

This is a classic strategy of the opposition to Cuban sovereignty: calling for more US sanctions and a tightening of the blockade, then blaming the Cuban government for the needs of the population.

Both Payá and Ferrer have stood out in their opposition to Cuba due to their paid position with the United States and their close ties to the violent terrorist mafia in Miami.

Like those who support them, they claim that the economic blockade of the island will suffocate the population, exacerbating their hardships, while justifying the United States’ human rights violations. With this, they aim to deepen the suffocation by knocking on European doors.

To expand this action, anti-Cuban media outlets paid by US government agencies are spreading their rhetoric, as the Cuban counterrevolution is experiencing a period of discredit and little support, facing profound internal divisions.

Payá, whose organization Cuba Decide receives funding from the US government, stated that the Cuban government “has plunged Cubans into hunger and misery,” manipulating the narrative and obscuring the fact that the US blockade is responsible for the flow of income into the country. This is reflected in the inability to acquire medicine, food, and fuel, among other basic necessities.

Ferrer, for his part, confronts the Cuban Revolution by repeating already worn-out slogans fabricated in Miami about “political prisoners,” hypocritically ignoring that he himself has been linked to illegal financing from abroad to promote sedition in Cuba.



Payá and Ferrer’s stance is part of Washington’s plan, in place since 1960 and reflected in the Lester Mallory Memorandum, to weaken the Cuban government through political destabilization, an economic blockade, and international isolation.

These strategies would not be possible without the complicity of Washington’s paid spokespersons—media outlets that call themselves independent but whose mission is to influence the population to bring about a change in the island’s system. To this end, they are promoting the media war against Cuba, which currently focuses on generating smear campaigns and justifying new economic attacks against the country.

https://orinocotribune.com/us-funded-cu ... he-island/

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Opens Cuba’s Biennial Of Graphic Humor With The Slogan ‘Less Fake And More News’


Photo: Radio Ariguanabo

April 20, 2025 Hour: 6:09 pm

The 24th edition of the International Biennial of Graphic Humor began this Sunday under the slogan ‘Less fake and more news’ in the town of San Antonio de los Baños (west), with the creation of an allegorical mural, the inaugural parade and the opening of a collective exhibition.

This year, the Biennial, rather than an artistic event, will be a popular festival, social critique and identity celebration, with a special focus on contemporary conflicts. This year’s edition will pay tribute to Manuel Hernández Valdés, recent winner of the National Fine Arts Prize, culminating with his award at the National Museum of Fine Arts in Havana.

The Biennial will extend this Monday from its epicenter in Artemisa province to a gallery in Havana to exhibit the international exhibition Promoting Peace in Gaza, which will bring together 60 works by 58 authors, from more than 30 countries, according to the organizers of the event.


The agenda of the traditional event until next Wednesday includes other exhibitions, as well as workshops, book presentations, parades, tributes, and an international salon competition in which 233 works compete in the categories of general humor, political satire, humorous comic strip, personal caricature and humorous photography.

The most represented countries in the competition are Iran -with 62 artists- and Cuba (27), followed by China, Turkey and Brazil.

The event will close in the so-called Villa del Humor Gráfico with the delivery of the Grand Prix Eduardo Abela, the three awards for each category, as well as the collateral prizes, and those of the children’s contest ‘Riamos siempre’.

This edition of the Biennial is dedicated in 2025 to the Cuban artist Manuel Hernández, winner of the 2024 National Plastic Arts Prize, who has interpreted in his work the imaginary of the Cuban peasantry from his paintings, ceramics and caricatures.

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opens-cu ... more-news/

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The flame of the Revolution is still alive in the Zapata Swamp

The unforgettable days of April 16-19 serve as an essential motivation to promote social and economic work in this emblematic municipality

Author: Ventura de Jesús | informacion@granma.cu

april 15, 2025 07:04:49


Photo: Ventura de Jesús García

As it became clear in that dinner of Fidel with the charcoal workers when the Revolution was just beginning its victorious march, this immense work does not forsake the place where not only many humble and forgotten people lived, but also where an event that forever marked with shame the history of imperialist and mercenary invasions in America and the rest of the world took place.
That is why the unforgettable days of April 16-19 serve as an essential motivation to promote social works which since those early years of the Revolution to date, have been premised in order to ensure, first, the dignity of the charcoal families and then, their full access to all social welfare.
Among the new endeavors is a children's home with a capacity to care for ten children of working mothers in the locality of Playa Girón. This is one of the actions underway in this territory, in honor of the 64th anniversary of the Cuban victory on April 19, 1961.
Bienvenido Roig Chirino, first secretary of the Party in that municipality of Matanzas, explained that the center is under the protection of the Ministry of Tourism in the province, and provides a solution to an old claim, in the first place, of the mothers who work in the tourist village of that town.
Another of the works that will be made available to the residents of the Zapata Swamp, in that popular council, is the construction of a funeral chapel.
According to Roig Chirino, work is also being done on the revival of the Girón Museum, on a new microbiology laboratory and on the completion of a freezing chamber for the preservation of fish. New Etecsa services are also being incorporated in the communities of Soplillar, Pálpite and Los Hondones.
As a novelty, the René Ramos Latour UEB is venturing into the export of red crabs, crustaceans that until now were considered unusable due to their high toxicity.
The execution of economic and social works also includes the reconstruction of El Peaje, a distinctive symbol of the Zapata Swamp.
As regards foodstuffs, he considered as the most striking aspect the production, for the first time in the territory, of five hectares of imported seed potatoes, with a favorable balance.
He assured that the municipality produces around 40% of the various crops it consumes, a higher volume than what was achieved until five years ago. The production of grains and vegetables is assumed, above all, in backyards and plots, he emphasized.
The problem with the water supply continues to be the most worrisome issue for the locals, since the water is supplied - not without difficulty - from the Jagüey Grande territory, something that is now more complex due to the limitations in the electric service.
He admitted, however, that there has been some improvement with the installation of more powerful pumping equipment, which facilitates the transfer of a greater flow of the liquid.

https://en.granma.cu/cuba/2025-04-15/th ... pata-swamp

Well worth a visit for both the history and the wildlife.

[blindpig]

May 1: Cuba’s determination and resistance are on full display
May 1, 2025 Bill Hackwell and Cheryl LaBash


For Cuba Together We Create. Photo: Bill Hackwell

Havana, May 1 — The massive outpouring filled the emblematic Plaza of the Revolution in Havana this morning to show their resolve that they will not go back or give in to the maximum pressure that U.S. policy imposes on the Cuban people.

For the first time since 2022, when the scaled-back May Day celebrations gathered in other venues for economic reasons, today the march returned to the Plaza in an unmistakable response to the unrelenting extra-territorial starvation measures imposed by Cuba’s rapacious neighbor to its north.

At exactly seven o’clock, as the sun broke into the plaza, the first notes of the National Anthem were heard. And the 25th anniversary, the speech given by Cuba’s historic leader Fidel Castro Ruz, echoed across the people and the hundreds of international union and solidarity delegations attentively gathered there, defined what Revolution Is, “Revolution is a sense of the historical moment; it is to change everything that must be changed; it is full equality and freedom; it is to be treated and to treat others as human beings; it is to emancipate ourselves by ourselves and with our own efforts; it is to challenge powerful dominant forces within and outside the social and national sphere; is to defend values in which we believe at the price of any sacrifice; is modesty, selflessness, altruism, solidarity and heroism; is to fight with audacity, intelligence and realism; is to never lie or violate ethical principles; is a deep conviction that there is no force in the world capable of crushing the force of truth and ideas. Revolution is unity, it is independence, it is fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world, which is the basis of our patriotism, our socialism and our internationalism.”


Cubans wait for hours to begin May 1, march. Photo: Raul Capote

The celebrations were led by army general Raul Castro Ruz, and President of the Republic, Diaz-Canel Bermudez. In the major address by the Secretary-General of the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba (CTC), Ulises Guilarte said, “Cubans do not fear threats or blackmail.”

Guilarte went on to say, “We are celebrating the feast of the world proletariat in the midst of a complicated international scenario, the world suffers a renewed and dangerous imperialist offensive, with neo-fascist expressions that seeks to redesign the international system, ignore the principles of peaceful coexistence and sovereign equality between states as well as to overturn the conquests of justice and human dignity achieved by the peoples. … Without hesitation, we will continue the battle we wage for the consolidation of our freedom, independence and social justice; this is strongly being confirmed by the sea of people that are flooding the squares of the whole country today, with the slogan ‘For Cuba together We Create.’ The Secretary-General went on to add, “We reaffirm our most absolute rejection of the genocidal war waged by the Israeli government against the children of Palestinian land.”


May 1, Havana. Photo: Bill Hackwell

Officially, 5.3 million Cubans turned out across the island, according to the CTC publication Trabajadores, including an estimated 700,000 in Havana alone., according to the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), which is celebrating its 65th anniversary this year. A thousand friends from more than 30 countries, including members of the May Day brigade, shared the revolutionary energy, dreams and commitment of struggle of the Cuban people.

The first contingent in Havana this morning was the doctors, health professionals, hospitals, research and pharmaceutical facilities providing improved outcomes by prioritizing human health needs instead of piling up profits for Big Pharma, corporate hospitals, and insurance companies.

Recently, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has upped the attacks on Cuba’s medical missions by threatening to sanction individual leaders of countries for engaging in legal bilateral agreements with Cuba for medical support, which was widely rejected by Caribbean leaders.


Photo: Bill Hackwell

The U.S. has targeted the tens of thousands of Cuban doctors providing the health needs of under-served communities primarily in the Global South. The extraordinary example of Cuban doctors coming from this blockaded country is an embarrassment to the U.S., which is the richest country in the world that only identifies healthcare with profit. It is important to remember that we are approaching the twentieth anniversary of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, when President Bush ignored Cuba’s offer to send 1,500 fully equipped disaster-trained medical professionals to save lives in New Orleans, as the majority Black population died in flood waters and on rooftops. That contingent was named the Henry Reeve Brigade for a U.S.-born hero who fought and died struggling for Cuba’s independence from Spanish colonialism.

For those visiting Cuba for the first time, today’s event provided a tremendous inspiration to fight along the lines of Fidel’s words.

Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English

https://www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2025/ ... l-display/

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May Day message from Cuba’s CENESEX
May 1, 2025 CENESEX


Photo: CENESEX

By CENESEX (Cuban National Center for Sex Education)

This May Day occurs at a difficult time for just causes around the world.

We see how rights are being rolled back in several countries, and revolutionary forces have had to mobilize to express their resistance to a retrograde, neoliberal, and far-right offensive advancing under the guise of modernity and media manipulation, fueled by the erosion of traditional politics and the exploitation of the exploited working class, which sees the satisfaction of its needs increasingly at a disadvantage.

New powers, allied with the established powers, are consolidating and building consensus against leftist ideas. There are attempts to dilute the class struggle, camouflage exploitation, exclusion, and inequality with “technological” capitalism. Revolutionary ideas are stigmatized, and the identity of those who defend socialist and communist ideas is attacked. In this context, no just cause should be seen as an isolated struggle.

In the face of the advance of neo-fascism and capitalism, of genocide and the economic blockade, as a method of imposition of imperialist power, as has occurred against the Palestinian and Cuban people, and above all, for the class consciousness we must have in our struggle for all rights for all people, the workers and activists of CENESEX will once again be in the Plaza marching in support of the ideal of the Cuban Revolution and socialism, alongside our people on this International Workers’ Day, aware that one cannot fight for a just cause if one is not capable of fighting for all just causes.

Translated by Melinda Butterfield

https://cdn.shortpixel.ai/spai/q_lossy+ ... NESEX.jpeg

[blindpig]

The interventionist behavior of the top US diplomat in Cuba
Randy Alonso Falcón

May 2, 2025 , 11:54 am .


US Embassy in Cuba (Photo: AFP)

The current U.S. Chargé d'Affaires in Cuba has been tasked with a responsibility that is incompatible with his official position. His own experience, along with a long resume in the diplomatic service, allows him to understand that what he has been entrusted with is a detestable undertaking.

The mission of an accredited diplomatic agent in any country is a serious matter, as it represents his or her own country and government to the person who has the courtesy to receive him or her, allow him or her to stay, and perform his or her duties. Like any visitor to a destination other than his or her own, his or her conduct is expected to be ethical and his or her behavior respectful.

It seems that these basic standards of decency do not apply to U.S. diplomats, just as when a child is not properly raised in foster care.

To harmonize the expectations of each government in accordance with cultural, moral, and ideological standards, which vary from country to country, the international community undertook the task of drafting, negotiating, and approving the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, an international instrument that governs and guides the behavior of diplomatic agents and their offices, as well as the duties and rights of the receiving country. Its articles are easy to understand and not difficult to comply with if one is properly educated and has a genuine intention.

However, it is clear that even this instrument fails to clean up the conduct of U.S. diplomats around the world, and several of those who have passed through Cuba are clear examples of this.

It is impossible for the Chargé d'Affaires to ignore the displeasure his actions generate in this society—with which he loses all possibility of respect and consideration—and that the tolerance he believes he enjoys can only be explained by the solid guarantee that he does not advance one iota in his intentions to be an agent and promoter of subversion in this country.

But there is another, less perceptible side to his behavior. Several Cubans have already shared their complaint that this individual incites them to act against the state and authorities, to become critical of official policies and generate discontent. Among them are academics, economists, private entrepreneurs, fraternal leaders, and others who, regardless of their beliefs and opinions, feel understandable concern about the suggestions of an official of a foreign government whose official policy is openly aggressive toward Cuba.

The Chargé d'Affaires, like all foreign officials, is obliged to respect Cuban laws but enjoys diplomatic immunity, which exempts him from having to personally confront the authorities' actions in compliance with and enforcement of the law. However, the citizens he incites do not enjoy this privilege, even less so when he himself accompanies his incitement with promises of material, financial, or other rewards, and when these are carried out directly or indirectly.

Cubans understand that they are indeed obligated to confront the law, especially when an act is carried out against the homeland in the service of a foreign power, which makes no secret of its aggressive intentions and has a long and dirty history that has cost the lives of thousands of Cubans and subjected the people to a relentless economic war.

It is known that the Cuban Foreign Ministry has called the Chargé d'Affaires' attention on more than one occasion for his disrespectful conduct and violation of international law. He has been warned about the negative and useless course he has been directed to follow in his work in Cuba, serving the narrow interests of anti-Cuban politicians, surely far removed from what the people of the United States would expect from those who assume the important task of representing them in the diplomatic service.

He has also been warned about the opportunistic act of inciting Cubans to act against his country, while he hides behind the parapet of diplomatic immunity.

To an ordinary observer, one not involved in official duties, it's clear that this official doesn't know Cuba, doesn't understand our people, and has no sense of what is tolerable here and what isn't. No one explained to him in time that the accumulated experience of many years of frontal struggle against imperialist aggression allows us to firmly and patiently observe his obnoxious and meddling behavior, only until the Cuban people's cup is full.

This article was originally published on Cubadebate on April 29, 2025.

https://misionverdad.com/opinion/la-con ... se-en-cuba

Google Translator

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With Russian brothers, opportunities for joint work


The Cuban President visited the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Monitoring Center, the Werteks drug factory and the Rosseti Company's Intelligent Laboratory of Encrypted Networks

Author: Alina Perera Robbio | internet@granma.cu

may 6, 2025 07:05:01


The Head of State inquired, at the Monitoring Center, if its creators are exporting the experience to other latitudes. Photo: Estudios Revolución
ST PETERSBURG, Russian Federation -For common endeavors, to exchange ideas and to take advantage of potentialities wherever they appear, there will always be time and space, it will always be worthwhile to say: "see you later".
That is the certainty derived from the experience of the high-level delegation that arrived in the Russian Federation on Monday, led by the President of the Republic of Cuba Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez.
The afternoon in St. Petersburg was focused on visiting leading institutions in the use of new technologies and permanent innovation. "We are very pleased to welcome you," the dignitary was told at the city's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Monitoring Center.
In the modern AI center, whose purpose is to monitor the functioning of the city in order to improve the flow of life, the president received detailed explanations on how to optimize the vitality of services such as transportation, electricity, water supply, among others.
Some 12,000 calls are received daily from citizens about multiple emergencies. There, until the stories are resolved, they remain open. This is a way, as they explained to the Cuban president, to solve multiple issues, to avoid all kinds of accidents and to reduce indiscipline.
The Head of State inquired whether its creators export the experience to other latitudes, and commented on the relevance of Cuban specialists coming to St. Petersburg to be trained on this 20-year-old undertaking which, supported by tools such as AI, can have a direct impact on the quality of life of a society and be very useful, as it was during the days of COVID-19.
A GROWING FACTORY AND AN INVITATION TO WORK TOGETHER
The second point on the itinerary was the Werteks drug production center, located in the city's Special Economic Zone. Werteks is one of the mainstays of the development of the national pharmaceutical industry. Proud of the variety and presentation of what is made, the managers of the place said that more than 400 products are produced there; 300 of them are generic drugs.
Some 900 people work in the production workshops. It is expected that new facilities will be enlisted, and that another 300 workers will join them. Werteks' reach is extending beyond the territory of the Russian Federation; scientific research is continuing apace; and the resonance of success is reaching as far as the Asian region.
President Díaz-Canel said: "We are very grateful for the welcome we have received and the explanations we have been given". We, he commented, "have a high appreciation for the development of this area and the company".
He alluded to a similar experience that exists in the largest of the Antilles, such as the Mariel Special Zone in Havana, and recalled that last year, just in that scenario, a videoconference allowed to present to the companies of St. Petersburg a group of opportunities of the business portfolio, of which several are associated with the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.
The dignitary evoked the 90s of the 20th century, when the Island was going through a very complex situation, and Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro, "who always had an advanced vision of the role of science and innovation in a country like Cuba, promoted a group of research and innovation centers that became known as the Havana Scientific Pole".
Díaz-Canel commented on the fact that, at that difficult time, "more than 20 centers were oriented to scientific research for the development of biotechnological and pharmaceutical products. Those were very hard times, he said, and some people thought that Fidel was making a big mistake, "but life proved him right: he created a potential for scientific development and innovation, which produced a group of medicines and advanced developments, recognized today in an important part of the world".
The president mentioned Cuban reference products, such as effective vaccines against lung cancer and other types of cancer; a wide range of products of different technologies in vaccines for diseases such as hepatitis; and vaccines against COVID-19, of which Cuba designed five candidates, and three of them became effective vaccines.
"I think that there is potential to carry out joint research and to contribute mutually in developments, perhaps in technological transfers". He affirmed that "the issue of joint development of biotechnology and the pharmaceutical industry has always been part of the discussions we have held with President Putin, with the Intergovernmental Commission and with the Russian Federation".
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba recalled that Latin America represents an important space, with great potential, for a company like Werteks, if it is a matter of joint ventures: "We invite you to that, and we expect you in Cuba, sooner rather than later", said the head of state.
The intense afternoon session was followed by another important center for the development of the Eurasian giant: the Rosseti Company's intelligent laboratory for encrypted networks. This entity is one of the largest dedicated to electricity distribution throughout the national territory, with an active presence in 82 regions.
Díaz-Canel received a detailed explanation of what they do there in terms of engineering and construction of electrical installations, equipment testing and implementation of digital technologies, as well as the solution of problems related to cybersecurity.
In parting, the dignitary expressed to his attentive hosts, "See you in Cuba. We have to do things like this."

https://en.granma.cu/mundo/2025-05-06/w ... joint-work

Cuba and St. Petersburg: The most vivid example of friendship between two peoples


President Díaz-Canel met with governor of St. Petersburg. He began his official agenda in Russia paying tribute to the heroes and martyrs of the siege of the city of Leningrad

Author: Leticia Martínez Hernández | internet@granma.cu

may 6, 2025 07:05:12


Cuban high school and college students will be able to study in schools in St. Petersburg. Photo: Alejandro Azcuy
ST PETERSBURG, Russian Federation-If anything distinguishes the meeting between Russians and Cubans is the closeness, the joy, the feeling that "somewhere we have coincided"; a common history, marked by political and economic events; but also, and above all, by family and personal affections, generational memories that can range from a song, a cartoon, a movie, a household appliance, to a trip to the cosmos. A common history that is respected and honored in a two-way street: from the largest Island in the Caribbean to the largest country in the world.
Precisely because of that mutual admiration, President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez began his official agenda at the Piskaryovskoye Memorial Cemetery, where the memory of 490,000 heroes and martyrs of the inhuman siege of Leningrad is cared for and honored, the city that for more than 900 days endured the hellish pains of the Nazi siege, namely hunger, cold, daily bombardments, death on all sides, and emerged victorious by a resistance that still today amazes and has become a distinctive character of the Russian soul.
The president walked the 480-meter main avenue leading to the monument to the Homeland, where the anthems of both nations were heard and each member of the Cuban delegation placed red carnations, in even numbers as tradition dictates in these lands, on the slabs of dark marble.
President Diaz-Canel, with those strong feelings that always provoke the examples of heroism, wrote in the visitors' book that he was again at this Memorial in the framework of the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Great Patriotic War, "to pay tribute to the victims of the bombing and famine, and to the heroic soldiers who died defending this city.
"The heroic resistance of the inhabitants of Leningrad, in the face of siege, hunger and cold, confronting the Nazi war machine, is admired and respected by the peoples of the world," he said.
Díaz-Canel recalled here the young Cubans who participated as combatants in the Great Patriotic War: the Vivó brothers, who fought in Leningrad, and Enrique Vilar, who fought in Poland.
"Today, when there are frequent attempts to rewrite history and minimize the heroism of the USSR and the Red Army, and their role in the victory, we want to show here that the Cuban people do know the true history and the contribution to humanity of the Soviet Union and the Red Army in achieving victory at a high human and material cost," he said.
That is the historical truth, he stressed, "history shows that only united, through cooperation, solidarity and friendship, will we be able to face the challenges of today and the future," the president said in that sacred place in Russia. There are 186 mass graves there that speak of the horror of fascism and the threat that today looms over all humanity.
A VISIT THAT STRENGTHENS CONVICTIONS AND PROMOTES NEW COMMITMENTS
The Governor of St. Petersburg Alexander Beglov received the Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, whom he had seen recently, in November 2024, during his trip to the Caribbean Island, with a hug and at the door of his house. Then, the Head of State welcomed him at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana, and from there the invitation to this visit was born.
At the gate of the Smolny Palace, a historic building that was chosen by Lenin as the Bolshevik headquarters during the October Revolution, the governor of St. Petersburg received Díaz-Canel, who after the embrace placed flowers on the statue that honors the memory of the leader of the first socialist state in the world.
Then came the meeting, which in diplomatic language is called Official Conversations, and in practice it turned out to be a very close dialogue. Beglov said that it was an honor to receive the president and his entourage, we are proud that their first destination in Russia is our city, he declared. He then described the three Cubans who died in the Great Patriotic War as "our heroes".
The governor considered that St. Petersburg plays an important role in the relations between Cuba and Russia, there is trust and mutual respect.
He spoke of the enormous potential to continue the path of cooperation, and mentioned important lines such as pharmaceuticals, machinery, equipment, and the supply of raw materials. He referred to Cuban medicine as one of the most progressive in the world, and to his government's willingness to share experiences in specialties such as cardiology and pediatrics, among others.
Beglov was emphatic about cooperation in the area of secondary and higher education, in which the potentialities are enormous. We are ready to receive students of technical specialties in our schools, he said, referring to a project that is about to be implemented this year.
The relations between Cuba and St. Petersburg are an example of friendship and fulfillment of projects, he considered, and then wished peace and prosperity for the Cuban people.
Taking the floor, president Díaz-Canel expressed his gratitude for the sensitivity with which Russia attends to Cuba's problems; and particularly regarding the ties with the former Leningrad, he said that an important work portfolio has been built in several areas of the economic and cultural life of both peoples.
The President referred to the proposal to collaborate in the health sector, especially in rehabilitation issues; we have the capacity to provide these services, he said. Likewise, he valued as very positive the education programs, related to hosting Cuban students in St. Petersburg, and providing training to high school teachers; as well as increasing cultural exchanges.
Díaz-Canel thanked Russia for its permanent support in the fight against U.S. blockade against the Island and ratified the condemnation of the coercive measures applied by the West to punish Russia.
The President described the situation faced by the country, with shortages of food, medicines, energy problems, which affect the economic and social life of the nation. He assured that the Cuban people will not surrender, as Leningrad did not, and "we will not allow ourselves to be humiliated".
Finally, he considered that this visit strengthens convictions and promotes new commitments for both parties.
Monday's morning session concluded at the Smolny Palace with the inauguration of the exhibition Oh, Havana. Transit, with works by Russian artists on life in Cuba, and then the President visited the offices where Lenin and Putin, leaders of this great nation that these days welcomes Cuba, and other brotherly countries of the world, for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the victory against fascism, worked, each in their time and with their responsibilities.
As the Head of State said in his account on the social network x: "Cuba will be in the Red Square this May 9. It is an honor".

https://en.granma.cu/mundo/2025-05-06/c ... wo-peoples

[blindpig]

Trump & Rubio tighten the noose on Cuba

The impacts of a tightened US blockade, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the return of Trump with a vindictive Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, have deepened the crisis in Cuba, making international solidarity with the island more important than ever.

June 05, 2025 by Manolo De Los Santos


US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a press conference. Photo: US Secretary of State / X

Cuba is once again facing a severe, multi-faceted crisis, not due to the hurricanes that pummel through the Caribbean every year, but from the relentless and suffocating pressure exerted by its powerful neighbor to the north. This is a recurring story of a people striving for independence under an unyielding siege and blockade. Through deliberate actions, the US government has been meticulously constructing and enforcing even greater barriers that threaten the very survival of the Cuban people.

The latest expression of this crisis came on May 30 with an announcement from ETECSA, Cuba’s state-owned telecommunications company, regarding a significant rate hike for mobile data. While seemingly minor to outsiders, for Cubans, it ignited a major criticism born of simmering frustrations. The new rates, particularly for additional data, are high in comparison to the average salary. An extra 3 GB now costs 3,360 Cuban pesos, nearly ten times the price of the monthly 6 GB plan. This is not merely a price adjustment; it came as a shock to the vast majority of Cuba’s 8 million mobile phone users, many of whom rely on internet access for education, work, and to connect with family abroad. This ETECSA announcement, though, is not an isolated incident; it underscores the immense strain under which Cuba attempts to meet the basic needs of its people under the US blockade.

Tightening the blockade
For those less familiar with Cuba’s recent history, the island’s economy, already reeling from the pandemic’s devastating blow to tourism and the six-decade blockade, has been further squeezed since Trump first took office. The 243 sanctions imposed by Trump during 2017-2021 remain in place, a suffocating blanket woven into the fabric of daily life. Even under President Biden, who campaigned on promises of change, the pressure was maintained.

Back in 2017, the US accused Cuba of “sonic attacks” on its embassy officials. A claim later proven false, yet it served its purpose: a pretext for Trump to freeze relations, collapsing tourism, and closing the door to the over 600,000 annual US visitors. Then came the shutdown of Western Union in 2020, disrupting vital remittances. The suspension of visa services at the US Embassy in Havana in 2017 sparked the largest wave of irregular migration since 1980, a desperate exodus of Cubans seeking any way out.

The economic devastation since then has been profound. Cuba’s GDP shrank by a staggering 15% in 2019 and an additional 11% in 2020. Imagine a country unable to purchase basic necessities due to banking restrictions, its public services and industries crippled. When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Cuba’s robust public healthcare system, a point of national pride, found itself under immense pressure. Its only oxygen plant, critical for treating patients, became non-operational because it couldn’t import spare parts due to the blockade. Thousands of Cubans struggled to breathe, yet Washington refused to make exceptions.

Cuba’s response to deepening crisis
Trump’s final act in office, listing Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism in January 2021, was a devastating blow. This designation makes it nearly impossible for Cuba to engage in normal financial transactions, cutting off vital trade. Then in the first 14 months of the Biden administration, the Cuban economy lost an estimated USD 6.35 billion due to the continued Trump sanctions, preventing crucial investments in its aging energy grid and the purchase of food and medicine. The Cuban peso plummeted, devaluing already low public sector wages. While the rationing system provides a subsistence diet, this level of deprivation hasn’t been felt since the “Special Period” of the 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Faced with these severe constraints, the Cuban government has had to adapt. In 2020, it began to rely more heavily on the private sector as both a new source of employment and an importer of basic goods – a pragmatic step born of necessity. Over 8,000 small and medium-sized businesses have registered since 2021, and in 2023, the private sector was on track to import USD 1 billion in goods. While this rise of the private sector has boosted the import of some supplies, it has also introduced new challenges for Cuba’s socialist project by creating income disparities, a stark contrast to Cuba’s historic emphasis on equitable wealth distribution.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel has consistently emphasized the government’s commitment to providing essential services while acknowledging the need for change due to the current scenario of an ever-tightened blockade. He defines Cuba’s socialist project of social justice not merely as welfare, but as a fair distribution of income where those who earn more contribute more, and those who cannot are supported. This is the tightrope the Revolution walks: balancing economic realities with its foundational principles. The leadership insists on safeguarding the socialist project and guaranteeing essential services while resisting calls for major privatization efforts.

The pandemic, which decimated tourism, Cuba’s leading industry, further exacerbated the crisis. Despite dwindling access to hard foreign currency, the government spent hundreds of millions of dollars on medical supplies and continued to guarantee salaries, food, electricity, and water, adding USD 2.4 billion to its debt to cover basic needs.

Six decades of US regime change attempts
The ultimate contradiction consuming Cuba’s every effort to meet the basic needs of its people is the open and unrelenting antagonism of the United States. The US government’s objective from day one of the Cuban Revolution has been regime change, achieved by manufacturing worsening conditions and sponsoring internal subversion. While the blockade has always hindered Cuba’s development, for the first three decades, Soviet support and a favorable environment in the Third World offset much of its impact. The 1990s, which became known as the “Special Period”, was a crisis of immense proportions, as Cuba had to face the might of the US blockade on its own, yet it forced innovative responses that allowed Cuba to survive.

However, the current moment is different. The cumulative effect of Trump’s sanctions, the pandemic, the global economic downturn, Biden’s inaction, and the return of Trump with a vindictive Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, have created a perfect storm for the US to attempt its long-held objectives of regime change. Lester Mallory’s infamous memorandum from 1960, which explicitly stated that the blockade’s aim was to cause internal rebellion through hunger and desperation, has found a new, more sophisticated application. This strategy is forcing the Cuban state to adopt measures that might be contrary to its project but are critical for its survival in a period of great hostility.

State-owned enterprises, the bedrock of Cuba’s socialist economy, are crumbling under the inability to fund much-needed maintenance or generate enough foreign currency reserves, due to the blockade.

ETECSA, heavily sanctioned by the US, has been left with little to no options to renovate its entire internal infrastructure besides raising its rates for the first time in years. From its servers to radio base stations, all require imported technology. The state, historically capable of subsidizing everything from education and health to transportation and food, is being forced to reduce, adapt, and in some cases, relinquish its ability to meet all needs at once. Garbage collection, water services, and most critically, electricity, face such severe challenges that their dysfunction breeds not only frustration but a growing disbelief in the state’s capacity to solve these problems.

While the US government, in 60 years of economic warfare, has failed to overthrow the Cuban state outright, its measures have now begun to have their most severe impact, to the point where the Trump administration and its henchmen, like Marco Rubio, are further tightening the noose on the Cuban state’s ability to meet the people’s needs. Whatever measures Cuba takes at this moment are not signs of weakness or surrender, but a direct consequence of the crisis forced upon it by the blockade.

The people’s responses to this crisis have been varied. Since July 2021, protests, often small and isolated, have become a normal occurrence across the island, and Cubans overall have become more vocal in their criticisms and demands of the Cuban state. In response to the ETECSA price increase, Cubans across diverse sectors of society have voiced criticism. Among them are students and chapters of the Federation of University Students (FEU) across campuses which, since the announcement, have not only criticized but also led direct negotiations with the Cuban state and ETECSA to find solutions. Nonetheless, like clockwork, anti-Cuban voices in the US have tried to exploit this moment of crisis to manipulate the students’ criticisms into attempts to overthrow the Cuban Revolution.

In response to this, Roberto Morales, a high-ranking leader of the Communist Party, condemned the “media manipulations and opportunistic distortions” that “enemies of the Revolution have attempted to impose.” While legitimate critiques by the people are understandable and an important aspect of life in Cuba, he argues that they must be viewed within the larger context of a nation under siege. The objective of Trump and Rubio, as it always has been for the anti-Cuban elements in Miami, Morales declares, has been “to sow chaos, promote violence, and shatter the peace of our homeland.”

Human toll of the blockade
An even bigger response to this crisis, however, has been the largest wave of migration in Cuban history, surpassing the Mariel boatlift and the 1994 rafter crisis combined. Nearly 425,000 Cubans migrated to the US in 2022 and 2023, representing over 4% of the population. Thousands more have gone to Spain, Mexico, Brazil, and other countries. Cuba’s population has fallen below 10 million for the first time since the early 1980s, losing 13% of its inhabitants since its peak in 2012. Yet the US, which for decades has created the conditions for and promoted this mass migration of Cubans, has taken a sharp turn. Cuban asylum seekers are being deported and Cuba was just added to Trump’s travel ban list, outright banning Cubans from traveling safely and legally to the US.

This is the stark reality for Cuba: a country besieged, its people enduring great hardship, and its government adapting in ways that are both necessary and challenging for survival. The challenges are immense, and the sacrifices of its people are profound to sustain the gains of its revolution.

It is in this context that the solidarity of people in the world and in the US must be forged anew. We cannot simply be aware; we must be active. We must go beyond raising awareness and take actionable steps to support the Cuban people. This means demanding an end to the brutal and genocidal US blockade, a cruel and inhumane policy that punishes an entire nation for its commitment to self-determination. It means supporting humanitarian aid efforts, advocating for diplomatic engagement, and mobilizing for a world without sanctions and blockades. The Cuban people need more than our sympathy; they need our active, unwavering solidarity.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/06/05/ ... e-on-cuba/

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Cuba Adjusts Internet Tariff Following Popular Demands: Education and Health Prioritized
June 5, 2025


Cuba's Mesa Redonda program with ETECSA's executives and students where new adjustments to mobile data plans was announced. Photo: X/@ETECSA_Cuba.

Cuba’s state-run telecommunications company ETECSA has announced adjustments to its recent commercial measures in response to widespread criticism from various social sectors, particularly within the university sphere. The new changes include specific benefits for students and healthcare workers amid a broader economic crisis exacerbated by the U.S. blockade and technological constraints.

Amid growing public dissatisfaction over increased mobile internet prices, the Cuban Telecommunications Company S.A. (ETECSA) introduced new flexibilities aimed at mitigating the impact of recent rate hikes, especially in vulnerable sectors such as education and public health.

ETECSA, Cuba’s sole telecommunications provider, was established after the Cuban Revolution as a state-owned entity with a mandate to ensure universal, equitable, and sovereign access to communication services. Its mission has long been tied to the country’s scientific, educational, and cultural development, assigning it a social responsibility that extends well beyond commercial interests.



The announcement came from ETECSA’s Executive President, Tania Velázquez Rodríguez, during a second broadcast of the national television program Mesa Redonda. The update followed a series of exchanges with student leaders, academics, and civil society actors who raised serious concerns about affordable access to digital connectivity.

One of the most significant updates is the launch of a second 6 GB plan priced at 360 Cuban pesos (CUP), available exclusively for university students. This will bring the total monthly quota to 12 GB for 720 CUP, offering partial relief compared to the basic data plan introduced on May 30, which costs 3,360 CUP.

Additionally, ETECSA announced free mobile access to a list of roughly 40 educational and scientific websites, benefiting students, researchers, educators, and healthcare professionals. This initiative aims to protect academic development and the right to information amid economic hardship.

In coordination with state agencies, efforts will also be made to promote the use of national platforms such as Todus and Nauta email, whose data consumption is deducted from lower-cost “national megabytes.” National scientific journals will also be hosted on ETECSA servers to facilitate more affordable access to key academic resources.

Velázquez also stated that Cuba’s educational infrastructure—particularly in universities, vocational high schools (IPVCE), pedagogical institutes, and provincial technical schools—will be strengthened. This includes improvements in Wi-Fi zones and the installation of local servers with backup energy sources.

Minors will be granted academic internet access upon authorization from their legal guardians, as part of a broader effort to ensure digital equity among young students. On the audiovisual front, the content platform PICTA, developed by the University of Computer Sciences (UCI), will incorporate highly demanded educational materials, helping integrate visual content into learning processes.

During the broadcast, Interim Communications Minister Ernesto Rodríguez Hernández emphasized that the high cost of telecommunications in Cuba is not solely the result of internal policies, but also a consequence of the U.S. economic blockade, which drives up technology costs and restricts international providers.

“Many providers have withdrawn or limited their services, including critical technical support,” Rodríguez explained. He described the updated measures as “a difficult but necessary decision to set the country on the path to recovery. It was better to act now than to wait for a worse outcome.”

From the University Student Federation (FEU), its national president Ricardo Rodríguez González stressed that student concerns mainly revolve around the high cost of data plans in relation to academic demands, particularly in science and technology fields that require frequent data usage. He underscored that statements from university faculties were issued with respect and aimed at seeking optimal solutions for both the nation and its academic community.

Regarding the choice of the 6 GB package as the baseline offer, Velázquez explained that this was based on internal ETECSA studies of average mobile data consumption among prepaid users. The goal, she said, was to establish a “representative and fair” plan that would not restrict access to essential educational or informational platforms.

The validity period for these plans will extend to 35 days, allowing unused data to roll over if a new top-up is made within that timeframe.

https://orinocotribune.com/cuba-adjusts ... ioritized/

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U.S. Diplomacy in Cuba: Subsidies and interference

“Why will there never be a coup d'état in the United States? Because there is no U.S. embassy in Washington”, says an old popular joke.

Author: Raúl Antonio Capote | informacion@granmai.cu

Author: Delfin Xiqués | xiques@granma.cu

june 4, 2025 10:06:31


U.S. Department of State: Background Notes on Cuba. Photo: Ecured

“Why will there never be a coup d'état in the United States? Because there is no U.S. embassy in Washington”, says an old popular joke.
U.S. embassies, with a long tradition in coups d'état and political subversion -Paraguay 1954, Guatemala 1954, Dominican Republic 1963, Brazil 1964, Argentina 1976, Bolivia 1971, Uruguay 1973, Chile 1973-, became the base of operations for destabilization in the continent.
The military occupation, the imposition of the Platt Amendment in Cuba and the multiple armed interventions of the United States in the internal affairs of the Island, during the first decades of the 20th century, symbolized the advent of the neocolonial Republic.
Then we had Yankee embassy in which more than ambassadors, proconsuls invested with more authority than a Spanish Captain General, bossed presidents, parliamentarians and military.
That lasted until January 1959, when the Revolution triumphed. There were no direct bilateral diplomatic ties between the two countries between 1961 and 2015, after President Dwight D. Eisenhower broke off relations with the largest of the Antilles.

U.S. Ambassadors to Cuba
Herbert G. Squiers: May 20, 1902 - December 2, 1905
- He was a fervent annexationist. He participated on behalf of his country in the signing of the first treaty on the Isle of Pines; he was such an interferenceist that he forced the U.S. State Department in 1905 to remove him from his post.

William E. Gonzales: June 21, 1913-December 18, 1919
- On August 9 he ratified the approval of the government of General Mario García Menocal, who by then succeeded that of General José Miguel Gómez, making use of the Platt Amendment.

Boaz W. Long: June 30, 1919 - June 17, 1921
- During his mission in Cuba, Enoch H. Crowder is appointed with the rank of “personal envoy” of U.S. President Warren G. Harding. The “envoy” supervised Cuban state activities and acted as the highest authority, even above the President of the Republic.

Enoch H. Crowder: February 10, 1923 - May 28, 1927
- On March 5, 1923, he presented his credentials as the first ambassador of his country in the Caribbean nation, when the Northern Legation on the Island became an Embassy.

Harry F. Guggenheim: October 10, 1929 - April 2, 1933
- He was ambassador during the dictatorship of Gerardo Machado, which he supported on behalf of his government.

Sumner Welles: April 24, 1933 - December 13, 1933
- Sent to Cuba as “mediator” between the dictator Gerardo Machado and the popular forces. His presence was declared unwelcome by the Hundred Days Government, due to his interfering attitude.

Jefferson Caffery: February 23, 1934- March 9, 1937
- He continued the same line of his predecessor and began to conspire with elements opposed to the revolutionary government to overthrow it.

Robert Butler: May 22, 1948- February 10, 1951
- On March 11, 1949, U.S. Marines, who had arrived in Havana's port, outraged the statue of José Martí. The ambassador's apology showed the Government's contempt for him; he did not even know the name of Cuba's National Hero.

Arthur Gardner: May 28, 1953 - June 16, 1957
- He was a staunch supporter of Fulgencio Batista. The CIA station in Havana had at that time more than two dozen operational officers in its embassy. During his work, the Bureau for the Repression of Communist Activities (BRAC) was created on the island.

Earl E. Smith: June 3, 1957 - January 19, 1959
- Openly supported the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, Smith resigned on January 10, 1959 and was replaced by Phillip W. Bonsal.

Heads of the U.S. Interests Section (USINT)
The U.S. Interests Section (USINT) operated from September 1, 1977 to July 20, 2015, and became the headquarters of the counterrevolution in Cuba.

Lyle Franklin Lane: 1977-1979
- He was appointed by President Jimmy Carter as the first Chief of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana.

Curtis W. Kamman: 1985-1987
- On January 29, 1987, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz warned Curtis W. Kamman about the espionage activities carried out from USINT. In the summer of that year more than one hundred CIA officers, among those stationed at SINA, were unmasked.

Joseph Sullivan: 1993-1996
- Maintained close ties with “opposition” groups, among them the “dissidents” of Concilio Cubano.

Vicki Huddleston: 1999-2002
- In 2000, USINT sought to manipulate an event of great international prestige such as the 7th edition of the Havana Biennial. Parallel to the event's activities, officials of the Interests Section developed their own plan: an aggressive operation of influence and recruitment.

James Cason: 2002-2005
- Following instructions from the White House, he used diplomatic immunity to organize meetings in his official residence with leaders of counterrevolutionary organizations. He supported “opposition” organizations with all kinds of resources, which was denounced in 2003 by Cuban television.

Michael E. Parmly: 2005-2008
- He gave continuity to the work of his predecessor. Notes exchanged between Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello and Cuban-Americans living in Florida implicated Parmly with Cuban-born terrorist Santiago Álvarez Fernández-Magriñá.

Jonathan D. Farrar: 2008-2010
- In 2010 the Wikileaks site declassified a cable from Farrar in which he acknowledged that he was in contact “with most of the official dissident movement in Havana,” whose members, he claimed, frequently visit USINT.

John Caulfield: 2011 - 2014
- On June 19, 2012, USINT culminated an Introduction to Journalism course through which about 26 counterrevolutionaries obtained their diplomas, issued by Florida International University.

All of the following served as Chargé d'Affaires a.i. at the U.S. Embassy.

Mara Tekach: July 20, 2018-July 21, 2020.
- On November 20, 2019, Tekach was charged with working closely with Cuban counterrevolutionary José Daniel Ferrer. He focused his work on the purpose of recruiting mercenaries, identified areas of the economy against which to target coercive measures, and actively engaged in defamation and open incitement to violence.

Timothy Zúñiga-Brown: July 31, 2020 to July 14, 2022
- He worked to create an artificial crisis, trying to portray as political an economic emigration caused, in the first place, by the very blockade measures designed for that purpose. He was determined, like his predecessors, to provoke an explosion on the island by any means necessary.

Mike Hammer November 14, 2024
- The “Ambassador of the Cuban counterrevolution” carries out an active provocative work with the aim of creating a diplomatic crisis that will lead to his expulsion from Cuba and justify the closing of the embassy. To that end he consciously violates everything established.

https://en.granma.cu/mundo/2025-06-04/u ... terference