By Juliana Marino on August 22, 2026
A single voice, a single demand must be raised throughout the world: Oil for Cuba now!
It is unacceptable for countries to silently tolerate the paralysis of the economic and social life of any country on Earth for any reason or political issue whatsoever.
Denying the energy essential for the functioning of nations is not a “sanction”; it is not a mere “measure.” It is, within the framework of international law, the normalization of “genocide” as an acceptable weapon of war.
For those of us in Cuba who are eyewitnesses to the effects of the most brutal energy blockade in history imposed on a people, denouncing its effects—the shortages, the economic paralysis, the daily, minute-by-minute disruption of the very fabric of a society’s existence—must be at the heart of a central political, ethical, and moral denunciation.
Inflicting harm, suffering, and continuous pain on a society; making it difficult for people to feed themselves; preventing them from receiving medical care; forcing them to migrate; and halting their work, their creativity, and their individual and family life plans—all of this constitutes a transnational crime.
On the streets of Havana, empty day and night, under the intense heat, with all rhythm and movement at a standstill, we are witnessing and beginning to grasp the scale of the daily drama, imagining behind every wall, every window, every building plunged into darkness the daily hardships of securing water and maintaining a food supply.
A desolate city, a “stigmatized” country, ravaged from end to end by the most basic needs and mounting emergencies—it all seems to come straight out of a science fiction novel, a dystopian saga, a world devoid of communal morality and ethics, a humanity stripped of the highest values achieved through the customs and consensus of civilization.
August 14, 2026 Juliana Marino speaking at an REDH meeting. foto: Bill Hackwell
That is why today the Network of Artists, Intellectuals, and Social Movements in Defense of Humanity is issuing a cry of warning. What can humanity expect from this silent genocide—one without bombs but unfolding before the eyes of the world without arousing universal outrage?
No nation deserves this suffering, this tragic subjugation of its destiny, but it is even more undeserved in the case of Cuba, given its history of international solidarity, its scientific development in the service of humanity, its regional brotherhood, and its extraordinary contribution to the achievement of peace.
Cuba proudly upholds Fidel’s teachings and maintains—as he did at tremendous crossroads—its cultural life, scientific endeavors, the start of its educational cycle, and—despite hardships—its healthcare system.
The fact that its immense population demonstrates every day the heroism of which it is capable must not silence the warning and condemnation of this genocide.
It pained me to hear two dear Cuban friends—one of them very young—say to me: “How long must we look without seeing?” “How long must we tolerate the malice of a man and his empire bent on killing our dream?”
Juliana Marino began her activism in the Peronist movement in the 1970s. She served as a legislator and city council member in Buenos Aires, a national deputy, and Argentina’s ambassador to Cuba, appointed by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Source: Network in Defense of Humanity, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – US