Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno RodrÃguez denounced this Friday on his social media the damaging direct effect that the oil embargo imposed by the United States is having on the supply of food and medicine on the island.
The island’s foreign minister stated that these measures imply collective punishment for the entire Cuban people, without exception, and asserted that there is a declared intention to provoke a social explosion in the country through a real energy blockade.
To illustrate the gravity of the situation, Bruno Rodriguez cited two concrete examples related to the distribution of basic goods. First, he noted that a shipment of 15,000 tons of rice donated by the Party, Government, and People of China could not be immediately transported to each province due to disruptions in the transportation of goods across the country caused by the severe fuel shortage.
Bruno RodrÃguez reported that the lack of fuel is preventing the nationwide distribution of approximately 50% of the medicines produced in Cuba in recent months. Finally, he emphasized the reality of the energy crisis, asserting that anyone who claims otherwise is lying about the reality facing the population.
Adding to this scenario is the fact that the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has 11,000 tons of nutritional products stuck in the ports of Mariel and Santiago de Cuba, in addition to another 8,000 tons of supplies stored in internal warehouses, whose distribution is hampered by fuel shortages resulting from US sanctions.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) report dozens of containers of resources stranded at the docks of the Caribbean nation due to the same operational limitations.
The situation is a result of the executive order signed by US President Donald Trump on January 29 of this year, which imposed the energy blockade. This measure threatens to impose tariffs on goods from countries that supply oil to the island, leading to fuel shortages that exacerbate the effects of the prolonged imperial blockade.
This US aggression was recently reinforced with the application of a direct sanction against the state-owned company Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET), a strangling measure that seeks to drastically restrict the island’s energy operations.
IMAGE CREDIT: A shipment of rice donated by China has not yet been distributed. Photo: @BrunoRguezP.
[ SOURCE: teleSUR ]
