By Claudia Fonseca Sosa, Enrique González Díaz (Enro)
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla denounced the smear campaign and pressure on third countries being carried out by the United States government to force them to change their long-standing position in favor of the Cuban resolution against the blockade.
On October 28 and 29, the Cuban draft resolution entitled “Necessity of ending the United States economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba” will be presented to the United Nations General Assembly.
This Wednesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez spoke to the national and international press accredited in Havana at the Foreign Ministry headquarters. He said that this session of the UNGA will take place at an international juncture characterized by the reinforcement of the blockade against Cuba and the implementation by the United States government of an extremely aggressive and intimidating foreign policy, even toward its closest allies.
“We have reliable information about the intimidating and deceptive pressure being exerted by the United States government on several countries, especially in Latin America and Europe, with the aim of forcing them to modify the traditional and historical position they have assumed and maintained in support of the resolution against the blockade,” the foreign minister denounced.
He added that the United States government combines this policy of extreme pressure with a totally unusual, perhaps unprecedented, deployment of information on this issue in all latitudes, along with a slanderous and biased campaign of information poisoning.
“This campaign is aimed not only at distorting Cuba’s image, but also at generating pressure on third countries regarding their position on the blockade against our homeland. Its objective is to create a climate of disinformation and confusion, to try to provoke demoralization, and to generate a feeling of insecurity or fear among United Nations member states,” Rodríguez Parrilla emphasized.
The United States government pursues an extremely aggressive and intimidating foreign policy against Cuba and its allies. Photo: Enrique González Díaz/Cubadebate
The foreign minister showed the press irrefutable evidence of the U.S. campaign, “which has developed with extraordinary intensity in the last two weeks.” He referred to the Reuters news cable, which, based on State Department documents to which it had access, revealed the department’s active strategy to coerce several governments into changing their position or vote in the General Assembly.
According to the foreign minister, this was a timely revelation by Reuters, which included excerpts from the State Department’s communication to the governments.
The State Department document in its entirety—said Rodríguez Parrilla, showing it to the press—”has a very curious structure.” He described the text as “a lying, slanderous communication that lacks respect for the sovereignty of independent states,” and noted that “it includes gross pressure and threats if they maintain their vote in favor of Cuba.”
First, the State Department’s text “presents a fraudulent, mendacious, and shameless approach,” the minister emphasized. “On the one hand, it seeks to demonstrate—this is one of the subtitles—that ‘the Cuban regime does not deserve its support,’ which is a complete fallacy.
“This is directed at governments that have consistently and forcefully voted for decades—some for more than thirty years—in favor of lifting the blockade, restoring the rule of international law, and against what is a crime of genocide, as defined in the corresponding convention,” he said.
Bruno Rodríguez added that “these governments (that historically vote in favor of Cuba) comprise the overwhelming majority of United Nations member states, a position that also reflects the thinking and stance of the vast majority of American citizens—who are the ones who pay the American emissaries and diplomats involved in this effort.”
“These governments (which historically vote in favor of Cuba) comprise the overwhelming majority of United Nations member states, a position that also reflects the thinking and stance of the vast majority of American citizens—who are the ones who pay the American emissaries and diplomats involved in this effort—and which, furthermore, reflects the majority of Cubans residing in the United States, all of whom are, in turn, victims of this policy of aggression, hostility, and blockade.”
According to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the document’s approach reflects ignorance and that the State Department does not feel the need to seriously argue with governments why they should act contrary to the position they have maintained for years regarding the blockade against Cuba. “It seems they think that brutal pressure and acts of threats are enough,” he opined.
“I read the document and realize that its purpose is not, seriously, to convince anyone, but rather to intimidate and pressure,” he emphasized. He emphasized that, contrary to what the document would have us believe, the blockade is the main obstacle to Cuba’s economic development and constitutes a violation of the human rights of the Cuban people. “We are willing to debate this issue with experts,” he said.
Regarding the alleged human rights violations in Cuba, alluded to in the State Department text, he said: “This is being said by a country that is practically the perpetrator, not just an accomplice, of genocide in Palestine; of atrocious acts and human rights violations in other countries; that has its own pattern of massive, flagrant, and systematic violations of human rights, especially against minorities, as seen in the large demonstrations; a country whose government is facing blackouts and has had its administration shut down, among other things, due to protests against cuts to social and healthcare policies. This is being said by a country that currently has a brutally anti-immigrant, repressive, and racist policy; this is being said by a country that is systematically and repeatedly carrying out extrajudicial executions in its military deployment in Venezuela and throughout the Americas.”
But the most ridiculous part of the document, said Bruno Rodríguez, is the last chapter, which describes Cuba as “a threat to international peace and security.” “This seems like a mockery (…) Respect our intelligence, respect our seriousness,” he commented.
The island’s foreign minister then said that the proposals included in the State Department document “are shamefully biased and shifting messages.”
“To accuse Cuba, whose capital was the place where the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace was signed by the heads of state of all of our America; to accuse Cuba, which is a country of peace; to accuse Cuba, which is a country under attack, which has suffered even direct aggression from the United States, is extraordinarily brazen,” he emphasized.
The foreign minister affirmed that “what the State Department, its Secretary of State, and some other Undersecretaries are doing is not diplomatic. It is pressure with arguments they believe, but that no one will believe, to try to alter the debate that will take place on October 28 and 29.”
“It’s a way of diverting the issue to other matters, putting pressure on others, diverting the topic from the main issue: the abuse committed by the United States government, a great superpower, against a small, noble, hardworking, supportive, and peaceful people,” he added.
He denounced the United States’ objective “to prevent the international community from focusing on the serious violations of Cuban human rights that the blockade constitutes; to try to divert attention from the crime being committed and causing deprivation, suffering, difficulties, and shortages for our people today, like those you share with us every day.”
“They are trying to prevent our people from continuing to denounce that, behind the blackouts and the fragility of our national electrical system, is the U.S. persecution of fuel supplies,” he stated.
He added that the pretext that Cuba is a threat to the United States is nonsense, but “it is a very dangerous nonsense, because that is how aggressive actions begin that can have incalculable consequences, as has been seen in the past with numerous countries in various regions, or as is happening now in the southern Caribbean with an extraordinary and unusual deployment that threatens the entire world.”
Cuba’s top diplomat emphasized that the campaign against Cuba “has not only been carried out by officials paid by American taxpayers—such as the Secretary of State and others—but also by the toxic platform of anti-Cuban congressmen.”
“Some anti-Cuban American congressmen, some from Florida, instead of addressing issues that should be their priority—that is, working for what American taxpayers pay them very generously to do, such as trying to open the United States government, which is closed (tens of thousands of government employees are not receiving salaries)—instead of working to find solutions on issues that matter to the American people, as seen in recent demonstrations—for example, the right to health care—instead of trying to vote once and for all and open the government, no, they are dedicated to harassing Cuba.”
“They are dedicated to persecuting their migrant constituents or the families of their constituents,” the foreign minister explained, referring to Cuban, Latin American, Caribbean, and other migrants, “whom they helped emigrate with their policies.”
Instead of doing their part as representatives of their constituents before the government, what they do is “send letters to a bunch of countries, threatening letters, even linking those countries’ votes on resolving the blockade to issues that have nothing to do with them: issues related to the ties between those countries and Cuba, between those countries and the United States, their private companies and the American economy, among their foreign policy interests, among their interests in peace, security, and national and regional stability in relation to the United States.”
The foreign minister was emphatic in rejecting the use of elements such as terrorism and drug trafficking for their mendacious purposes. “What are they talking about? Terrorism, drug trafficking, in short, the same lie on which the military threat against the region is built, linking and conflating terrorism and drug trafficking with a military deployment.”
He denounced that the US objective is to prevent the international community from focusing on the serious human rights violations of Cubans that the blockade constitutes. Photo: Enrique González Díaz/Cubadebate.
In closing, the foreign minister asked: “What could be the reason for this irrational anxiety of the US State Department, if not the conviction that the blockade, at a legal level, causes total isolation and profound discredit to US foreign policy, and that they will once again be punished by absolute isolation, by singling out, by criticism, and by direct appeals from governments around the world to lift the blockade?”
He noted that this anxiety reflects the United States government’s awareness that the international community, by a vast majority, believes in and supports the need to end the blockade.
“I am absolutely certain that this will happen on the 29th. I am sure that the overwhelming majority of member states will vote once again for the truth and with the truth, for justice and with justice. They will vote to demand, to demand the end of the blockade,” he said.
And the Cuban foreign minister concluded: “I am sure that the truth will prevail over pressure, blackmail, and slander. I am convinced that the result will be humanity against the policies of the United States government. The United States government will be isolated, perhaps with a few lackeys.”
For more than thirty consecutive years, the majority of the international community has supported the Cuban resolution demanding the end of the blockade. In 2024, the text received 187 votes in favor, two votes against (the United States and Israel), and one abstention (Moldova).
IMAGE CREDIT: Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. Photo: Enrique González Díaz/Cubadebate
[ SOURCE: CUBA DEBATE and PRENSA LATINA ]
