CUBA SI! BLOQUEO NO!

Speech given by Anti-War Committee member Susan Banaszewski at the WAMM Solidarity Committee with the Americas Cuba solidarity protest on 12/19/21

I am a very numbers-based person, so I am going to start out with some numbers.

• 9,500: the amount of Cuban doctors removed from medical missions in Brazil, Ecuador, and Bolivia at the encouragement of the United States, leaving poor communities underserved when the pandemic started.
• 83%: this is the percent of the Cuban population who has been fully vaccinated, compared to 62% of . 100% of Cubans receive healthcare free of charge, and have a doctor in each neighborhood.
• 39: this is the number of detainees still being held by the US in Guantanamo Bay, 27 of which have not been charged with any crime. 
• 182: This is the number of countries in the UN that voted to demand an end to the US blockade of Cuba. Only Israel voted with the US to continue the blockade. Even most of the US’s closest allies voted against this horrific policy.

The embargo on Cuba has failed for 60 years to produce its stated purpose of regime change or even creating significant opposition to the socialist government. We can only conclude that the real purpose of this cruel blockade is to hold the people of Cuba up as an example to any country thinking of bucking the grip of US hegemony and imperialism, telling them: the US empire has no mercy and will punish you until you capitulate to our demands, until you welcome the global dictatorship of capital which we enforce with our many weapons. We will starve you, deprive you of healthcare supplies, plan literally hundreds of coup & assassination attempts & terrorist attacks. And we will keep doing it for 60 years, no matter which party is in power, no matter the results, because we know it will hurt you.

The nonsensical cruelty of this embargo is staggering. But at the same time, the innovation, internationalism, and resilience of Cuba serves as its own powerful statement to the world as well. One beautiful example is in 1975, when thousands of Cubans volunteered to fight in support of Angola against South Africa pro-apartheid forces. Cuba’s sacrifice in fighting was great, but important to the struggle for Angolan & South African liberation. In this show of solidarity, Cuba sacrificed a chance to end the embargo – Henry Kissinger had begun a process to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, but would not continue if Cuba maintained support of Angola, as US supported the Apartheid regime. Castro refused, calling the fight against apartheid “the most beautiful cause of mankind”, and the blockade continued for decades to come. Yet, even to the country that imposes the blockade, Cuba shows solidarity. They have provided hundreds of low-income, minority American students with medical education free of charge, and offered to send doctors to aid New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. While one third of the world is affected by economic sanctions imposed by the US, it’s also the portion of the world that is estimated to have benefited from Cuba’s medical diplomacy. More than 400,000 Cuban medical professionals have worked in 164 countries since the embargo began. 

Any country or individual who dares to contradict US hegemony knows they will have a friend in Cuba. Fidel Castro said, “If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism.”

The fight to end the embargo and meddling in Cuba is central to the fight against US militarism and imperialism. We must continue to fight for Cuba louder and more passionately than ever.

CUBA SI! BLOQUEO NO!