By Liset García on November 13, 2023
image by: Martirena
Immutable as a complete cynic, the U.S. government has remained just that; cynical, every time at the UN headquarters, for the past 31 years, Cuba receives the applause of almost all the nations in its claim against the blockade, while the majority of eleven million Cubans resist and reinvent themselves.
That siege began when Cuba’s Revolution was barely born in 1959 and soon became law and, later, more laws. This means that today more than 80 percent of the population has known no other Cuba than the blockaded one, which they are trying to asphyxiate, as shamelessly outlined in a memorandum dated April 6, 1960, by Undersecretary of State Lester Mallory.
Mallory indicated then that “the majority of Cubans support Castro…and the only foreseeable way to subtract from his internal support is through disenchantment and dissatisfaction arising from economic malaise and material difficulties…”
Said and done. In his brazen prescription, Mallory added: “Therefore, every possible means must be rapidly employed to weaken the economic life of Cuba… a course of action which, being as skillful and discreet as possible, will make the greatest progress in depriving Cuba of money and supplies, to reduce its financial resources and real wages, to bring about hunger, despair and the overthrow of the Government”, lines which politicians then and now revalidate mercilessly and without discretion.
There are many ways to explain the suffering caused in the daily life of Cuban families by so many obsessive attempts to comply with that memorandum, implemented with steps and stomps, with stone throwers and always with lying pretexts.
It would suffice to mention the persecution against access to fuel, bank loans, resources to produce food, pharmaceuticals, supplies… Or refer to the penalization of ships that touch ports on the island and for six months are forbidden to go to the United States, which is coded into US law in the so-called Torricelli Act of 1992, whose broad content would have strangled any medium-developed nation a long time ago.
It is also about various extensions of that siege to companies, enterprises and countries, which the U.S. watches and warns of the danger of relating with Cuba. By virtue of this abuse of power, the island is unable to buy articles produced outside its 50 states if they contain 10% of U.S. elements.
Nor can it export anything to that nation, not even what is produced in other countries, including raw materials or technologies made in Cuba. The restriction applies, for example, to steel articles containing Cuban nickel, foodstuffs made with Cuban sugar, or pharmaceutical products that still contain some Cuban ingredients.
The United States not only adjusts with high-definition mechanisms to track the smallest financial movements of Cuba and of anyone in the world, but also demands that they render an account, while threatening to penalize anyone who disobeys as it applies its imperial hegemonic dominion.
The most recent lunge by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the U.S. government was against a financial services company DaVinci Payments, from its own backyard, based in Illinois, which has agreed to pay a high sum for its alleged civil liability for violating sanctions against the Caribbean Island.
Just five years ago, the fine applied against the bank located in Paris, Société Générale S.A.,was a total value at more than 1.3 billion dollars, because according to OFAC, they carried out “796 transactions involving Cuba, between July 11, 2007 and October 26, 2010”.
This entity had to explain that such services consisted of a credit granted in 2000 to buy oil, payments related to the Cuban debt and the production, storage and export of nickel.
Without going into what it represents to have included the island on the blacklist of State Sponsors of Terrorism in 2021, other prohibitions weigh heavily, which Trump took charge of aggravating, and they continue to be in force under Biden who not only did didn’t eliminate the sanctions of Trump but has made them worse. Not even the cruise ships circulating around the Caribbean are allowed to touch Cuba, and woe be to the American who wants to travel to the neighboring island without permission.
The island’s economy is also banned from using the dollar in its international transactions, so the juggling and even the magic used to obtain supplies for its industries and ensure basic services to its population are yet to be known.
Although the so-called international community year after year defies and condemns the United States and the eleven million inhabitants of the island remain waiting for the punishment to cease and that decision to influence the improvement of their lives, the truth is that so far the majority has continued in magical resistance, despite shortages and hardships while standing up and continuing to defend its social project of justice and equity.
Liset García is a Cuban journalist and a frequent contributor to Resumen Latinoamericano.
Source: Cuba en Resumen