A march against imperial ignominy

 On December 20, the current U.S. administration will have exactly 30 days left to complete its mandate.

Far from fulfilling his electoral promise regarding relations with Cuba, President Joseph Biden, in his four years in office, has kept in force and in application almost all of the draconian economic coercion measures imposed by the Trump government, and has approved others, such as the recent legislation that legalizes the shameless theft of the Havana Club brand in the US market.

The policy of maximum pressure applied, the cornerstone of which is the reinforcement of the blockade, has had markedly damaging effects on the quality of life of the Cuban people, their access to food, health services, medicines, decent housing and numerous essential goods, and has caused the migration of thousands of people, sometimes in extremely risky conditions.

It is the rigorous concretization of the imperialist plan of action towards Cuba, outlined in the well-known memorandum of the Assistant Undersecretary of State, Lester Mallory, 64 years ago, who defined that the only way to confront the Cuban Revolution "... is through the disenchantment and dissatisfaction that arise from economic malaise and material difficulties... all possible means must be quickly employed to weaken the economic life of Cuba... a line of action that, being as skillful and discreet as possible, achieves the greatest advances in depriving Cuba of money and supplies, to reduce its financial resources and real wages, to provoke hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the Government."

The strategy has consisted, since then, not only in bringing hunger and misery to the Cuban people, but also and, above all, in trying to make it seem that the cause of such misfortunes is an "inefficient management" of the Cuban Government, and not in the so-called "sanctions" of Washington.

But the numbers are clear in showing who is holding back the necessary development of the Cuban nation. The blockade affects our people to the tune of more than 421 million dollars a month, more than 13.8 million dollars a day, and 575,683 dollars in damages for each hour of its application.

The blockade is the most comprehensive, complete and prolonged system of unilateral and extraterritorial coercive economic measures ever applied against any nation.

"No country, even with economies much more prosperous and robust than Cuba's, could face such a ruthless, asymmetric and prolonged aggression, without a considerable cost to the standard of living of its population, its stability and social justice," says the report presented by Cuba this year to the United Nations General Assembly, where the overwhelming majority of UN member countries condemned this policy of force and suffocation.

In addition to the considerable damage caused to the economy, finances and trade by this aberrant policy, there are restrictive measures derived from the decision to include Cuba, in a treacherous manner, in the infamous arbitrary and illegitimate list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism. It was a perverse move by the Trump administration, a few days before leaving the White House.

This designation is cynical, because Cuba, far from sponsoring terrorism, has been and is the victim of recurring terrorist activities financed and organized from US territory, with the consent of the authorities of that country.

Cuba has a clear and firm position to confront terrorism in all its forms. It has served as a key intermediary in the peace talks between the Colombian government, the ELN and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in the same spirit with which it called, a decade ago, the member states of CELAC to declare the region a Zone of Peace, "based on respect for the principles and norms of International Law."

It is a cruel act because it is designed to maximize the suffering of the Cuban people. The inclusion of our country on the list of nations that support terrorism not only makes international transactions difficult, has obstacles to exports and financial restrictions, or hinders assistance to the country with humanitarian aid, but also threatens or penalizes citizens of countries that enjoy the privilege of this by traveling to Cuba, which includes Cuban nationals. It also interferes with banking transactions of individuals and new non-state economic actors. It prevents the contracting of online services and restricts academic and scientific exchanges.

In May 2024, the State Department removed Cuba from the list of states that “do not fully cooperate” with the United States in the fight against terrorism, further highlighting the infamous and opportunistic nature of the 2021 designation.

In defending the rational change of attitude, Secretary of State Antony Blinken not only cited the current position of the Colombian government, but also highlighted Cuba’s police cooperation and the non-existence of terrorist elements on Cuban territory.

But this is not enough. Cuba continues to suffer as a result of its cynical, cruel, and illegal exclusion from the international economy and finance, given its continued presence on the arbitrary list of alleged sponsors of terrorism.

President Biden can end that lie and heed the call of dozens of governments, numerous former presidents and prime ministers, hundreds of parliamentarians, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders, and thousands of organizations around the world and the United States itself.

In the days remaining in his term, President Biden can remove Cuba from the List of States Sponsors of Terrorism; he has the authority to do so. If he wants to leave some decency as a legacy in the final days of his political life, he can take that symbolic step. There is still time to do so.

The Cuban people will continue to fight against unjust aggression, against the genocidal blockade, against manipulation and lies, against spurious and coercive lists, against the million-dollar funds to subvert internal order and feed disinformation operations, and will demand with all their might justice and peace for Cuba and for our world.

This is what will happen on December 20, when, in his name, the people of the capital will march in Combatant March along the Havana seafront to express, in front of the United States Embassy, ​​their demand for an end to hostility, their condemnation of imperial ignominy, and their irreducible spirit of struggle and victory.

We will march with the profound conviction, instilled by Fidel, that there is no force in the world capable of crushing the force of truth and ideas.