By Alejandra Garcia on August 10, 2021 from Havana
photo: Bill Hackwell
President Joe Biden failed to keep the promise he made so many times during his election campaign regarding his Cuba policy. He vowed before millions of U.S. citizens to bring the two peoples closer together, beginning with at least the reestablishment of embassies in their capitals.
Eight months later, his strategy has focused solely on promoting a social uprising in Cuba in order to appease right-wing republicans in Miami. Biden´s Cuba policy is really a Miami policy. He wants to win over Trump’s followers in that city, and to achieve it he set out to follow in his footsteps.
The U.S. leader added new sanctions to the list of 243 measures imposed by his predecessor. Recently, he ruled out reestablishing soon the possibility of sending remittances from his country to the island, saying that the Cuban government could “confiscate them”.
There isn’t a shred of evidence that Cuba can or would confiscate remittances, and President Biden offered none. He simply gave another false narrative.
Over the past year, both the Trump and the Biden Administrations have weaponized Covid-19 against the island. While the past two presidents of the US claim the sanctions are directed against the leaders of the Caribbean country, the real effects are suffered by the Cuban people in totality.
Cuba is having a hard time trying to access medicines and supplies to treat patients infected with the virus. The blockade imposed by the U.S. on the country for over 60 years has forced Cuban authorities to get essential goods in markets far away from our geography at three times their price.
One of the Soberana vaccine’s lead developers Vicente Verez assured the blockade has also hampered Cuba’s efforts in creating its own immunizers.
“Our manufacturer had to slow vaccine production, because it didn’t have all the necessary components. Businesses which have traded with Cuba for decades suddenly told us they can no longer continue,” he explained.
The US claims medicines can be sent to Cuba, however, facts scream the opposite, added Cuba’s Coronavirus Task Force member Mitchell Valdés-Sosa. “There’s an explicit prohibition of anything being exported to Cuba that can be used for biotech. That includes vaccines,” the expert assured.
The lack of food, medicines, and material goods tires Cubans, who have to work harder every day to get the essentials to subsist in endless lines at markets and pharmacies.
It is inconceivable that a government is willing to take medicine away from people amid an unprecedented pandemic that has put the world economy in check, Cuban-American lawyer José Pertierra noted.
“Biden plans to create a public health crisis in Cuba with the idea that maybe the people will rebel against the government to set up a Miami-like one. This is outrageous,” the lawyer said during a recent interview for Cubavision Internacional.
But the Cuban people will not rise in rebellion against their government, as the U.S. has been waiting for since 1959. One possible scenario would be that Cubans begin to migrate massively across the Florida Straits towards Miami.
If such an exceptional situation were to happen, and if Cuban authorities can’t contain it, how would the president of the United Stated react?
The situation will turn into a ‘hot potato’ for Biden, who is currently facing an unprecedented immigration crisis on its southern border with Mexico.
Following the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the U.S. during the Obama-era -in which Biden was vice president-, many Cuban emigrants saw the island’s future with hope. Those illusions are still broken.
From October 2020 to July 2021, the U.S. Coast Guard has apprehended and deported 618 Cubans approaching Florida on rafts. This number is the highest one registered since 2017 and has resulted in many tragic deaths that the policy coming from Washington is responsible for.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano