Havana, Mar 12 (Prensa Latina) Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez denounced that the Helms-Burton Act codifies the blockade and is an economic aggression by the U.S. government against Cuba, on an international scale and in a comprehensive manner.
Rodriguez stressed in his account on X that the criminal punishment imposed by that legislation on Cuban families violates Human Rights and International Law, and also evidences the failure of the U.S. policy towards the Revolution.
The Helms-Burton Act typifies limitations on trade, transactions, travel to and from the national territory, as well as restrictions on the purchase and sale of properties in which Cuba or its citizens have an interest.
With its enactment, it eliminated the unilateral possibility of lifting the blockade on the island and established that it would remain in force until there is in Cuba, what Washington calls a transitional government certified by themselves.
The third and fourth sections of the Helms-Burton Act remained inactive until 2019, when President Donald Trump authorized its implementation, to make the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States impossible.
According to specialists, the Helms-Burton Act constitutes, together with the Torricelli Act (signed in 1992), an enormous obstacle to a stable, institutionalized, lasting and irreversible relationship between both peoples.
They are also a violation of the principles of sovereign equality and non-intervention in the internal affairs of a State, which are mandatory norms under international law.
Havana, Mar 11 (Prensa Latina) The Cuban Music Institute (ICM), founded in 1989, is celebrating its 35th anniversary nationwide.
On its X and Facebook profiles, the institution expressed gratitude to all those who in one way or another have contributed and dedicated themselves to music and culture.
The ICM recalled its founding mission: to organize, promote, sponsor and protect the Cuban musical movement.
Among the main events organize by the ICM are the International Choir Festival, the International Jazz Festival, and the Havana International Guitar Festival and Competition.
Other outstanding events are the “Cubadisco” International Record Fair, the “Benny Moré” International Popular Music Festival, the “Luis Casas Romero” International Concert Music Festival, the “Matamoros Son” Festival, and the International Electroacoustic Music Festival.
San Jose, Mar 11 (Prensa Latina) Community projects in Cuba and Costa Rica will unite and share initiatives, especially in culture, to strengthen the bonds of friendship between the two nations.
The National Confederation of Community Development Associations (CONADECO) of Costa Rica and the Socio-Cultural Community Project “Soñarte” in Cotorro municipality, southern Havana, Cuba, signed a letter of intent to promote solidarity between the two nations from the local level and develop community events to share experiences.
The initiative includes the links, usual objectives, and interests to work together in actions and issues of mutual benefit and with the interest of deepening cultural exchanges, says a note from the Cuban Embassy in Costa Rica.
The Cuban diplomatic mission in this capital aims to implement community initiatives to exchange experiences between both parties, with culture as a fundamental prism.
The Socio-Cultural Community Project “Soñarte” in Cotorro municipality teaches values and seeks human quality more than artistic quality, with systematic work in the development of cultural events, sports disciplines, and differentiated preventive work, aimed at family as the fundamental cell of Cuban society.
It its currently holding on workshops on theater, dance, music, and plastic work in several modalities and tries to involve all age groups.
Havana, March 11 (Prensa Latina) President Miguel Díaz-Canel today highlighted the work of Cuban doctors and scientists in the face of Covid-19, recalling the detection of the first positive case on the island four years ago.
“Four years ago, all of Cuba began to rely on life. They were hard and sad times that we all overcame,” the president wrote on the social network X.
On that platform, he highlighted that scientists and health personnel saved the Caribbean nation, “a feat yet to be written that reminds us of how much we can do for the Homeland,” he said.
Díaz-Canel shared on the social network a publication by the Minister of Public Health José Ángel Portal in which he underlines that although facing the pandemic was extremely complex, the workers in his sector, with the support of all the Cuban people, grew with integrity. in defense of life.
Cuba developed three vaccines and two vaccine candidates against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, which causes Covid-19.
According to data from the Ministry of Public Health, to date, 10 million 794 thousand 432 people have received at least one dose of one of the Cuban vaccines Soberana 02, Soberana Plus and Abdala.
Ten million 48 thousand 390 people have a complete vaccination schedule, a figure that represents 90.9 percent of the Cuban population.
Washington (Prensa Latina) In order not to admit the lack of will to change its policy on Cuba, the Government of the United States continues to appeal to demagogic reasons, distortion and deceptive manipulation of pretexts.
By Deisy Francis Mexidor, Chief correspondent in the United States
The statement was made by Johana Tablada, deputy director general of the United States Directorate at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, who is working in this capital, in an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina.
At present, not only the government, but also the most conservative or anti-Cuba sectors in US society use pretexts such as the presence of military bases from foreign countries in Cuba or that the Cuban Government is in a program to send soldiers to Ukraine, she said.
“It is absolutely false and has been denied, as has the accusation of the Chinese bases that The Wall Street Journal puts forward every week with total impunity and without any foundation in evidence,” Tablada stressed.
The diplomat referred to the “permanent deception with the issue of human rights in which the United States Government grants privileged treatment to those people who have been the objective or recipients of its financing projects for its intervention programs in Cuba’s domestic politics.”
These individuals “are then presented as the heroes they are not, since they have no support in our society,” she added.
Tablada emphasized that by favoring these people, many of whom do not even live in Cuba, the objective is to justify the permanent and real violation of the human rights of millions of Cubans, children, women and the elderly, who are being deprived of their fundamental rights by design.
They are also deprived of their right to have a normal relationship with the rest of the world, a normal relationship with the United States, and to develop to their real and maximum capacity, the official warned.
When referring to relations between the two countries, Tablada explained that “the policy of the Joe Biden Government has essentially followed the policy of the Donald Trump administration.”
Most or the vast majority of the measures are maximum pressure, extreme, inhumane measures, aimed at preventing sources of sustenance from entering the Cuban economy and our population with the purpose of destabilizing the country and eventually causing the overthrow of the Revolution, she noted.
She recalled that with this position, Biden “is even failing to fulfill the electoral promise that those inhumane measures that affected the Cuban family were going to be lifted.”
In 2024, there is still the possibility of a second term for President Biden, but also that in January 2025, what I call ‘President Trump’s demolition team’ will return,” Tablada said.
She considered that the sad legacy of this administration “would be the largest migration wave in the history of Cuba, which has been very unfortunate for the Cuban population, for the Cuban family.”
The diplomat warned that this situation is “the result of that irrational bet, insensitive and disconnected from reality, of thinking that by depriving people of their livelihood, by cutting off all sources of income to the Cuban economy, it will derail a process of independence and sovereignty like ours.”
She reiterated that this is a policy that has been enforced since 1959, when the Cuban Revolution triumphed, and it has not worked in that main objective of breaking the Cuban people’s will to move forward.
“We must recognize and admit that they have succeeded in deteriorating the standard of living of Cuban men and women, that they have succeeded in causing a difficult situation for our population,” Tablada pointed out.
DIRECT LINK
The truth is that every day, it is more difficult, if not impossible, to hide that there is a direct link between the impact of Trump’s maximum pressure measures maintained by Biden and the migration wave caused since Cuba was fraudulently, unjustly, included on the State Sponsors of Terorism (SSOT) list, Tablada pointed out.
“As we know, it is not just another slander, that is a measure that goes directly to the jugular of the Cuban economy,” the diplomat stated when referring to the arbitrary designation of Cuba as a State sponsor of terrorism.
The Government of the United States has not been successful in applying that twisted logic that if the blockade is tightened it will finally cause a situation of revolt, of destabilization of our population, to blame the Cuban Government for the impact of the measures taken by them, she said.
But we do have to admit that there has been a very severe, very painful impact on the standard of living of the Cuban family, which today sees its basic basket, transportation fares, the possibility of eating the food that is needed, and their idea is that this is because Cuba is a failed state, that is the narrative that is repeated, she noted.
Tablada informed that data on the fines applied by the Department of Commerce to Cuba’s trading partners have been gathered “and they have broken the record of previous years.”
Among the measures taken in full force against Cuba is one of the most criminal and ignoble measures implemented by the Government of the United States, the disinformation operation regarding Cuba’s medical cooperation.
The US Government also excluded Cuba from the review of unilateral coercive measures that affected the ability of States to fight Covid-19, she added.
But it is important to make a separation between the position of the US Government, the same one that has turned its face to the growing calls within American society, including Congress, and the academic, economic, political, social, scientific, human rights, youth and solidarity movements.
More than 108 resolutions have been adopted in the United States to remove Cuba from the SSOT list, to lift the blockade, to cooperate with Cuba in health areas, which should be the object of collaboration. and not persecution, she insisted.
Tablada reiterated that Cuba is subjected to a deceptive operation, to a logic “in which I do everything I can to suffocate your economy and at the same time I am financing a permanent and systematic disinformation operation with hundreds of millions of dollars to hold the victim of the impact of those measures responsible.”
The curious thing about this is that the same organizations and platforms that receive high contributions from the US Government are the protagonists of this disinformation operation, she stated.
MAJOR SPRINGS
“The people of Cuba trust much more in the solidarity that is very great, in the decency and decorum of those institutions that will always extend their hand to a country that like few others has been extending its hand to help everyone who has needed it,” she added.
With more than 30 years of diplomatic career and extensive knowledge about this country, Tablada explained how she has been able to distinguish very well that one thing is the old-fashion and failed policy of the US governments, with the purpose of breaking the will of Cubans, and another one is the stance of the people of the United States.
She mentioned the United States with its universities, its scientific centers, its sectoral or union groups, farmers, professors, teachers, who, even amid the narrative that Cuba is a dictatorship and is a totalitarian State, invite to a civilized relationship between both sides.
I ask who prevents Americans from traveling to Cuba or Cubans from traveling to the United States, who today can only come to emigrate; who has the list of hotels where they cannot stay; or the companies from third countries with which you cannot have relations either because they may be sanctioned.
It is very clear and I think that Americans for electoral political reasons, due to the corruption of the US electoral system, where a small group can take over an issue as important as foreign policy to preserve privileges.
This is the case with the proposal of Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, who wants to perpetuate Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, “which is a disaster and I am sure that this will not be approved,” she predicted.
But we also don’t know who will come in January or who will control, this is a country where they are very polarized, where there are emerging forces of nearly a fascist nature, and where even barbaric values that are anti-civilizing, such as racism, xenophobia and discrimination, are in fashion.
She summarized that in this week of work in Washington DC she has held more than 20 meetings in different sectors, in universities with institutions that are interested in doing business with Cuba and Cuban residents here as well.
In addition, she commented that she has met with representatives of institutions that want to cooperate with Cuba, as happened with the lung cancer vaccine, and “many would like to expand that.”
The deputy director general of the United States Directorate at the Cuban Foreign Ministry also met with members of Congress, both from the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Tablada pointed out that the number of Americans who traveled to Cuba in 2023 is still not like that of 2018, which was a record year, but more than 200,000 Cubans went and more than 100,000 Americans were in “our country although individual visits are not allowed.
She stressed that they have traveled “even though they cannot stay in hotels because it is part of that policy of pressure and extortion, and on the other hand, I believe that many excuses and pretexts, and the masks of politicians who have made their careers on the basis of torturing a country that they do not know, where the vast majority of them were not even born nor have they visited, have fallen apart.
“The Cuba issue is used for political reasons to get benefits, contributions and to distribute the money approved by the US Government over the years,” she stated.
The diplomat emphasized that all of this is for the purpose of “intervening in internal affairs to approve regime change projects and to finance disinformation and fake news operations.”
I do not lose hope, I leave optimistic not that there is any sign, because we honestly do not see real will and this policy of abuse, of extreme measures cannot be changed if there is no political will for it, but on the other hand, yes, we see a lot of pressure and interest in various sectors of US society, she stressed.
We have repeated to the Government of the United States and to our counterparts here that the position of the Cuban Government to move towards a civilized relationship remains valid, to meet at any conversation table where there is a topic on which there is common interest.
“In 2023, it is not a secret to anyone, certain spaces for cooperation and exchange with the US Government were reestablished, even though the harshest measures that affect the lives of Cubans have been maintained,” the Foreign Ministry official said.
For Johana Tablada, this also demonstrates the Cuban Government’s good will in total coherence with the aspirations of the people, to live in peace with their closest neighbor.
Caracas, Mar 8 (Prensa Latina) Venezuelan airline Rutaca is inaugurating a new commercial route on Friday to connect the Simón Bolívar International Airport in Maiquetía, Venezuela, with the Frank País International Airport in the eastern province of Holguín, Cuba.
This charter flight will operate on Tuesdays and Fridays and connect the South American country with the eastern region of Cuba, known for its intense cultural life, beautiful natural landscapes, and paradisiacal beaches.
The trip will allow more than 60 tourism professionals from 38 leading travel agencies in Venezuela and 20 press members to learn about the unique experience and enjoy the region’s attractions for their subsequent marketing of this growing destination.
The new route will also serve to market the tourist facilities of the historic and attractive Santiago de Cuba province.
Basse-Terre, Mar 7 (Prensa Latina) The president of the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (Inder) of Cuba, Osvaldo Vento, met today with senior officials of the sector on the island of Guadeloupe, French overseas department.
Vento had an important meeting with Chantal Cusset-Gaydy, director of the Resource Center for Sports Experience and Performance (Creps), as part of an intense working day in this island, where he arrived on Tuesday from Paris, according to the digital media Jit.
Inder and Creps signed a cooperation agreement in several areas, with emphasis on sports and academic exchange.
Along with Gisleydi Sosa, director of international relations of Inder, the top Cuban sports leader visited the University of Guadalupe, which included a tour of its facilities and a meeting with professors and students.
The university leadership requested Cuban literature specialized in sports and physical culture, to which the representation of Inder responded affirmatively.
Djibouti, Mar 8 (Prensa Latina) Doctors of the Cuban brigade working in Djibouti reportedly assisted those injured in the Barbados-flagged bulk tanker called True Confidence, which was attacked by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Wednesday.
According to the Havana Embassy in this capital, the commercial ship’s crew was rescued by the Djiboutian Government through a humanitarian rescue and assistance mission involving Cuban physicians, who aided four injured and operated on two others at the Peltier Hospital in this city.
Health Minister Ahmed Robleh Abdilleh thanked the Cuban medical brigade for its cooperation.
The attack on the Greek-owned cargo ship “True Confidence”, in the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, 70 nautical miles off Djibouti, also left three people dead, 1 Vietnamese and two Filipinos.
On November 19, the rebels, grouped in the Ansar Allah movement, announced their decision to attack Israeli ships in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea in response to the Zionist attacks on Gaza.
The Houthis took over northern Yemen, including the capital, after taking up arms against the government in 2014, an event that sparked a civil war that currently continues.
Havana, Mar 7 (Prensa Latina) A look at the challenges and strengths of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) in the last five years marked the beginning today of the eleventh congress of the women’s organization, which will be held in Havana until tomorrow.
At the opening of the event, it was highlighted that during that period several public policies were approved to stimulate the incorporation of the sector to employment, the expansion of home support and care and the empowerment of women.
The secretary general of the FMC, Teresa Amarelle, explained that the balance sheet presented at the congress represents the closing of a complex stage for the country in socioeconomic matters, in which women have been a fundamental pillar.
The report details that the FMC has boosted the exchange with Cuban families on issues related to social indiscipline, crime and corruption.
It specifies that it is a strength of the organization to be able to count on 91.47 percent of integration, a figure higher than that achieved in the previous edition of the congress and which evidences the sustained growth of the membership, especially of young women who reach 14 years old in all provinces.
It emphasizes that the houses of orientation for women and families were consolidated as a space of resistance and creativity for the FMC, by improving its work with the increase in the number of people advised and the preparation for employment through training programs.
At the same time, it warns that instability and delays in the completion of structures still persist in some grassroots organizations, as well as apathy, passivity, disinterest and insufficient knowledge of the diagnosis of the community, of the problematic motivations that affect women and their families.
More than 300 delegates throughout the country are debating this Thursday on how to revitalize and strengthen the role of the organization, in a context marked by the tightening of US blockade imposed on the island.
Santiago, Chile, Mar 7 (Prensa Latina) Aleida Guevara, ambassador of the Global Campaign for the Right of Return to Palestine, on Wednesday welcomed the Chilean Government’s decision to prevent Israel’s participation in the upcoming Aerospace, Defense, and Security Fair.
I think it is an excellent attitude that Chile has prevented the Israeli Army from coming here to show its weapons, the Cuban doctor said at a press briefing at the National Congress in Valparaiso.
The daughter of Argentinean-Cuban revolutionary fighter Ernesto Che Guevara, and South African Parliamentarian Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, grandson of former President Nelson Mandela, met with Ricardo Cifuentes, president of the Chilean Chamber of Deputies, on Wednesday.
They also met with the Chile-Palestine inter-parliamentary group of the legislative body, the Cuban Embassy in Chile reported on its X platform.
Also present at the meeting was Physician Pablo Sepúlveda, grandson of late Chilean President Salvador Allende.
As the United Nations has not been capable of stopping the genocide against Palestine, all nations must join forces to make Israel realize that it is becoming the highest criminal of humanity at this moment, Aleida said.
Since October 7, 2023, Tel Aviv’s bombings and attacks on Gaza have killed 30,000 and injured more than 70,000, mostly women and children.
