US Blockade Not to Defeat Cuba, Progressive Intellectuals Say

On Thursday, a group of internationally renowned intellectuals and journalists made up of Ignacio Ramonet (Spain), Hernando Calvo Ospina (France), Atilio Boron (Argentina), and Fernando Buen Abad (Mexico) published a letter of support to the Cuban government and people. Its content is presented below.

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Some months ago we took the initiative to collect signatures from  scientists, politicians, artists and intellectuals renowned for their social leadership and their profound humanist commitment with the aim to launch a strong and worldwide denunciation of the blockade that the United States of America has been maintaining against Cuba for more than sixty years.

In these days some media are once again pointing at the four of us and explicitly mentioning our names and the petition that we organized, claiming, moreover, that we are part of the Cuban propaganda machine. That is the reason why today we reconfirm our protest and enlarge it with even greater conviction and emphasis. We are sure that all those who accompanied us with their signature, would still do so today and share our conviction.

The criminal blockade against Cuba, which is manifesting itself through hundreds of extremely malicious measures through threats, sanctions, defamation and economic-political harassment, has recently been complemented by destabilizing adventures, the funding of which is coming from the White House and from the South of Florida pointing more specifically at the Cuban youth.

The wickedness and absurdity of these acts are beyond any boundaries. It is unjust that the Cuban people is suffering from the criminal irrationality of the North-American empire and it cannot be condoned neither to keep quiet about the desperate situation to which Cuba is submitted as a result of the problems induced by the blockade and the multiple and never ending problems emanating from it. 

It is the empire’s plan to forcibly put Cuba on its knees due to hunger, lack of health care, energy cuts, scarcity of basic technology, supplies and repairs. It is the empire’s plan to erase at all cost the Cuban example of humanism and revolutionary rebellion. It is the plan of the empire for the hatred of the executioner to triumph over the dignity of the rebels, to asphyxiate the Cuban economy and to provoke the sufferings of its population as to make them revolt against the revolutionary government.

The Donald Trump government alone emitted 243 sanction measures and Joe Biden has been incapable to modify the inhumane character of these sanctions that went to the extreme of the utmost arrogance showing a complete lack of sensitivity during the worst days of the Covid-19 pandemic. Washington disdainfully ignored the annual condemnation of the General Assembly of the United Nations (UNGA) which demands to put an end to these inhumane proceedings.

From within the empire millions of dollars have been spent to buy in hordes of “dissidents”, “opponents”, “critics” under the disguise of the narratives about “human rights”, “freedom of expression” and sense of “democracy”… who are operating from some editor’s desk of “newspapers”, “journals”, “social media” selling their informative merchandise with criminal purposes in exchange for a salary.

They aspire to operate from within Cuba with the support of the “international press” with the aim to damage the image of the revolution, to underpin the application of the criminal blockade and to justify all kinds of interventions. Intending to isolate Cuba in order to turn it into the perfect crime scene that nobody was aware of.

Without any shame they spent millions of dollars to promote the internal subversion and then call it civil disobedience, anarchy and chaos, with the only aim to annihilate the current political system and to replace it by one that responds to their interests.

Washington is not at all interested in the enormous successes of the revolution in the area of science that, amongst others, allowed Cuba to be the first country in the world to have vaccinated its entire population against COVID-19, with its own vaccines, in spite of all endeavour by Washington to impede Cuba from acquiring even the syringes that are needed to inject them. We cannot remain silent in face of the inferno that Cuba is enduring. 

From within the country, individuals who feel reassured and protected by Washington, are using the difficult economic situation due to the blockade (and aggravated by the Covid pandemic, as in all other nations) as a banner to call for subversive manifestations.

They do so with disregard of the domestic legislation prohibiting any kind of political assault on the current political system, as exists in all states of the world. And even more so, when these assaults are instigated by foreign powers.

We reconfirm our statement and once again we raise our voice to call at the government of the United States to end the inhumane blockade against Cuba and to refrain from any attempt to  destabilize a nation that has never undertaken any action against their security; that has even less mingled with their internal affairs, that has never called the citizens of the United States to subvert the established order, in spite of the multiple and serious internal social problems that this world power is facing.

We reconfirm our love for Cuba because we want its people to know that we are brothers, that they are our role model, that we learn from their impressive resistance, entirety and prominence.

We want the revolutionary people of Cuba to know this, because these few lines express the clamour of millions of brothers and sisters and captures the fraternal emotions of gratefulness for the example of solidarity that Cuba is giving with all brother countries, in Angola as well as in Venezuela or in Mexico, just to mention a geopolitical and historical axe of the new generation, both in time and in space.

Emphasizing our love for the Cuban Revolution we reconfirm our statement, which is firm and progressive.