Rodolfo Benítez Verson
Cape Town - Last year on June 23, the UN General Assembly, for the 29th consecutive year, approved a resolution demanding the end of the criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the US government against Cuba in violation of the UN Charter and international law.
A total of 184 states voted in favour of the resolution.
Only the US and Israel voted against it. Once again it was demonstrated that the blockade has no international support. In its obsession to isolate Cuba, the US has isolated itself.
The blockade imposed on Cuba for more than six decades is the most severe and longest-enduring system of unilateral sanctions ever applied against any country.
The life of no Cuban family escapes the effects of this inhumane policy, as seen in the scarcities that are part of daily life for every Cuban.
US authorities have tried to sow the idea of the failure of our system and the ineffectiveness of the Cuban government; that the coercive measures do not affect the people nor are they really a significant factor in the difficulties of the national economy.
The data deny those cynical claims. From April 2019 to December 2020, the blockade produced damages of $9 157 million, $436m per month on average.
In the past five years, the losses were greater than $17 billion.
The accumulated damages in six decades reached more than trillion dollars.
Without the blockade the Cuban economy would have grown an average annual rate of 10% during the past decade. The human damage caused by the blockade cannot be measured.
What would happen to other economies, even rich countries, if they were subjected to similar conditions? What would the social or political effects be?
The unilateral blockade has always been a criminal policy and a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of all the people of Cuba.
But the cruelty of its strengthening during the worst pandemic that the planet has suffered highlights the blockade’s genocide nature.
The Trump administration deliberately and opportunistically embraced the virus as an ally in its ruthless war against Cuba and implemented 243 additional unilateral coercive measures against our country.
All these measures remain in force today under the new US administration and in full practical application and they are shaping the conduct of the current US government.
In that context it is remarkable that a small blocked island has produced five vaccine candidates, presently at different stages of clinical trials.
One of them, “Abdala'', has already demonstrated 92.28% effectiveness.
By the end of August, 70% of the Cuban population will be vaccinated against Covid-19 and the total of it before the end of 2021.
Despite the fact that the blockade is severely hampering the industrial scale of our vaccine productions, Cuba will be one of the first countries to vaccinate all its population and the first one to do that with nationally created and produced vaccines.
It is an illustrative result of the effort of science at the service of the people.
When, during the pandemic, the slanderous campaign of the US government against medical co-operation intensified, Cuba sent 57 specialised brigades of the Henry Reeve International Contingent to 40 countries, including South Africa, to assist in the fight against Covid-19. They joined the more than 28 000 Cuban health professionals that already served 59 nations at that time.
Cuba will continue its international solidarity and co-operation, and this will be to the best of our ability, in the face of the pandemic and in the provision of our vaccines to those in need.
It is neither legal nor ethical for a powerful government, such as the US to wage an endless economic war against a small nation, for decades, in order to impose an alien political system.
They dream about provoking social chaos, disorder, violence and death in Cuba in order to impose a puppet government in our country. It is no surprise, since this is a political weapon already used against other countries with fatal consequences.
Depriving the population of an entire nation of its right to peace, development, wellbeing and human progress is unacceptable. It is also unacceptable for the US government to ignore successive UN resolutions for 29 years.
Cuba’s demand is to be allowed to live in peace, without blockade and to stop the persecution of its commercial and financial relations with the rest of the world.
We are encouraged by the support of millions of people around the world who have come together to demand that the US government end the blockade.
Despite the challenges we deeply appreciate the solidarity of the friends of Cuba in various latitudes, including in South Africa. A great example of that was the massive motorcade against the blockade that took place in June in Pretoria.
Those actions of solidarity make an important difference in the present difficult times. Cuba is not alone.
* Verson is the ambassador of Cuba to South Africa, Eswatini and Lesotho
Cape Times