Cubans Suffer as Relentless U. S. Sanctions Take Tolls

 

    This Washington Post photo was used to illustrate an article that headlined this fact: "Cuba's Cascading Crises Mean Milk Shortages for Children." It is an interesting and honest photo that enhances an interesting and honest problem that direly concerns two neighboring nations -- Cuba and the United States. While six+ decades of U. S. sanctions designed to destroy the Cuban economy have mostly impacted Cubans like the little girl shown above, Americans for decades have condoned the sanctions without seriously asking who they benefit in the U. S. and whose lives in Cuba do they most harm...and surely considering the ongoing generations of Cuban children who are harmed the most simply have never factored into the equation.

     While the Washington Post photo and article got little traction, the Voice of America photo and article shown above  got more attention. The caption to the photo explained that it was an anti-Cuban protest in the Little Havana section of Miami.

     The best revelations of Cuba in the western world actually are from a few great journalists/authors who actually report from Cuba...such as the great Marc Frank.

     As the month of December of 2022 arrives, the Marc Frank article shown above is being sent around the world by the London-based REUTERS News Agency. It updates the dire trip Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel made to China, Russia, Algeria, and Turkey hoping to get financial help that might enable the island nation to survive tragic obstacles such as the U. S. sanctions.

       As Reuters Marc Frank explains in the first sentence shown above: "Cuba has little choice but to ask friends for help." In the second paragraph above, Marc Frank points out that the U. S. sanctions deprive Cuba from engaging with entities such as "the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, where many countries are seeking post-pandemic relief."

      From the Marc Frank and Reuters revelations about Cuba's updated hurdles heading into December of 2022, let's go back to that Washington Post photo of the little Cuban girl's face as she was finally getting some of the powered milk her mother said that neither she nor the Cuban government had been able to provide her. Indeed, this little Cuban girl is a victim. And indeed...as Marc Frank explains in his latest reflections, "Cuba has little choice but to ask friends for help."

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Cuba's Superstar Minister

Alejandro Gil is an important Cuban. 

    It appears that Alejandro Gil Fernandez is Cuba's most out-spoken and perhaps its most important official at this point in time as the ever-tightening U. S. economic Embargo/Blockade leaves the island in a historic predicament. First off, Gil says, "Let me state what others don't have the courage to say, and that is this: If the U. S. had a desire to dominate either Canada or Mexico, and used its unchecked power to accomplish it for the last 60-plus years, Canada or Mexico would have likely capitulated many years ago. So, relate that to us and admit that much-smaller Cuba has refused to submit to such pressure. Then if you have the courage and fairness to admit that, also admit that Cuba has the right and obligation, if it is to survive as a sovereign nation, to ask for assistance from nations we believe also believe that we have the right not to be owned or dictated to by a foreign power. And that is why, in November of 2022, Cuba had the right to partake in four official state visits in countries that agree that we have the right to be a sovereign country too."

     During the 4-nation trip in November of 2022 to Algeria, Russia, Turkey, and Xi-Jinping's China, all four nations bucked the U. S. Embargoes/Sanctions and agreed to help Cuba during its latest economic crisis. As shown above, all four nations...especially China...lavishly heralded ceremonies celebrating the visits of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel. And behind the scenes, Cuba's Economic Minister Alejandro Gil orchestrated some serious help for the island.

   As confirmed by the Chinese media {above}: "Cuba's Deputy Prime Minister Alejandro Gil, who is is also economy minister, said China had also donated US$100 million to help Cuba cope with basis good shortages and an energy crisis worsened by Hurricane Ian, which decimated western Pinar del Rio province in September."

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President's Trip Was Important

    On his four-nation trip seeking help from Algeria, Russia, Turkey and China, Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel was warmly...even lavishly...received by the four key foreign Presidents -- Tebboune, Erdogan, Putin, and Xi. But most observers have concluded that the promises that China's Xi Jinping personally gave to President Diaz-Canel are the most important.

     The USA's top News Agency, the Associated Press, as you can see above, reported from Beijing just how important Xi Jinping's promises to Miguel Diaz-Canel were, stressing that China now says that Cuba's economic survival is considered one of China's "core interests." The AP explained it this way: "China generally defines core interests as the defense of its economic and political development aims, along with control over territory it claims, especially self-governing Taiwan. No specific issues or other countries were mentioned in the Chinese government news release. Diaz-Canel's visit is a further sign of how China is trying to jump-start its in-person diplomacy after a virtual shutdown of such exchanges during the pandemic." China is generally considered the prime...or only...threat capable of overtaking the United States as the world's economic and military Superpower.

       The AP article above also said: "Diaz-Canel was quoted as saying his visit 'shows that we attach great importance and attention to the friendly and cooperative relationship between Cuba and China.'" And the AP also concluded: "China is Cuba's second largest trading partner after key oil producer Colombia, and has provided buses, locomotives and other equipment for the island's drive to upgrade its decrepit infrastructure. Chinese firms have also invested in mineral extraction in Cuba but on a limited scale."

    Today is November 25th-2022. On November 25th-2016 revolutionary icon Fidel Castro died at age 90 in Havana.

    On the anniversary of his death on November 25th-2016 millions of Cubans are remembering things such as...Fidel Castro's revolutionary victory in 1959, many of his quotations, his defense of his revolution at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, the world-record assassination attempts that he survived before dying of old age at 90 in 2016, etc., etc., etc.

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Yes, Cuba Seeks Help From Non-US Nations

 

    In November of 2022 Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel believed that the ageless, 6-decade-old U. S. Embargo/Blockade was increasingly starving the nation's vulnerable economy as well as more-and-more beginning to starve the masses of Cuban people themselves. Thus he embarked on a long, expensive journey to four nations -- Algeria, Russia, Turkey, and China -- that he believed were able to help Cuba and, moreover, will not be too afraid to displease the economic and military Superpower United States. The photos above showing President Diaz-Canel being powerfully welcomed to Moscow by President Vladimir Putin has, not surprisingly, angered the U. S. government and the U. S. media the most.

     But non-U.S. sources -- such as the Spanish media giant EL PAIS -- are much less biased and more sympathetic to President Diaz-Canel's 4-nation mission. As shown above, EL PAIS even explained that Cuba did not vote in the UN to support Russia's invasion of Ukraine but Cuba has few options in its quest to survive the U. S. blockade and therefore must seek help wherever it can...including Putin's Russia.

     But all four of the powerful Presidents of Algeria, Russia, Turkey, and China have hosted President Diaz-Canel this week even more lavishly and extravagantly than expected -- including China's ultra-powerful President Zi Jinping. For sure, China is the biggest threat to replace the United States as the world's top economic and military Superpower. Like the other three strong presidential hosts, President Zi strongly gave President Diaz-Canel a military salute...and President Zi also took time to formally introduce President Diaz-Canel to top Chinese Ministers that he said will help Cuba survive the Blockade.

     This photo shows President Zi introducing President Diaz-Canel to key Chinese officials that presumably will help Cuba survive the U. S. Blockade of Cuba.

     In all four nations -- Algeria, Russia, China, and Turkey -- Cuban President Diaz-Canel was allowed to make long speeches on both television and to legislative sessions.

     The major speeches by President Diaz-Canel on his four-nation tour were also carried live on newscasts back in Cuba.

     Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune loudly told President Diaz-Canel and the world that, "The blockade against Cuba is a criminal calamity of historic proportions." 

    Turkey is an ultra-powerful member of NATO and President Racep Tayyip Erdogan, while sitting next to President Diaz-Canel, told his legislature and a nationwide television audience, "Our cooperation and solidarity with Cuba must be increased because for much too long NATO's strongest nation, the United States, has been allowed to intimidate the world and continue for all these decades a genocidal program against the everyday people of a tiny nation, our friend Cuba."

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US Media Wants Cuba to Stop Trying to Survive

 

     While barely having enough finances to try to keep its electricity on and to keep its 11 million people from starving, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel this week felt obliged to fly thousands of exhaustive and expensive miles to seek help from four possibly supportive nations -- Albania, Russia, Turkey, and China. Of course, Diaz-Canel would prefer staying much closer to home while hoping Miami and Washington would finally show some concern and compassion for everyday Cubans in Cuba instead of continually tightening the SIX-DECADE-OLD Embargo-Blockade that, starting in 1962, began with the purpose of starving, depriving, and making miserable Cubans on the island to persuade them to rise up and overthrow their revolutionary government. The ploy has not worked but, with the compliance or cowardice of the American people, after six+ decades, it continues!!! 

     Meanwhile...on November 23rd-2022...above are the TOP Cuban Headlines circling around the world, all designed to suggest that Cubans in Miami and Washington are saintly creatures while Cubans in Cuba are deserving to be...starved, deprived, and made miserable. Such propaganda for over six decades has made this worldwide image of the United States totally acceptable to the gullible, uncaring American people:

    Until...or if...the U. S. has a generation of more caring and more sensible people, this image will never be permitted to shame the American people.

    On his long, expensive trip this week in the last days of November-2022, Cuba's President Diaz-Canel felt it necessary to seek some help from Russia's President Putin. With Russia's ongoing War in Ukraine angering the world, Putin is aware that Cuba refused to support the war in a UN vote...but, as expected, he greeted Cuba's leader cordially.

     But, of course, photos this week in Moscow showing Diaz-Canel shaking hands and smiling with Putin are used as more fodder for the western media to tell the world how saintly Cubans in Miami are and how worthy of blackouts and starvation Cubans in Cuba are. A more unbiased media in the U. S. and elsewhere would, of course, at least mention that President Diaz-Canel -- who is popular with most Cubans in Cuba -- has very few options left in his quest to keep the Cuban people in Cuba from starving, being deprived, and made miserable.

Miguel Diaz-Canel's Cuba is next door to Miami.

In other words, geography is Cuba's problem.

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A Legend Dies in Cuba

 As Cuba's President Seeks Foreign Economic Help

     Today -- on November 22nd-2022 -- this interesting photo was taken in Moscow. It shows Presidents Diaz-Canel and Putin right after they had placed red roses before a famous statue in the Russian capital. The statue is of Cuba's revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.

     This photo today was sent around the world by the London-based Reuters News Agency. It shows Cuban President Diaz-Canel and Russian President Putin after they placed a plethora of red roses at a statue of Fidel Castro in Moscow.

   As the tightened U. S. Embargo/Blockade coupled with other recent disasters such as the Pandemic and drastic explosions that have plagued the island, continue to strangle Cuba's already fragile economy, President Miguel Diaz-Canel is on a vital 4-nation trip designed to seek help from four more friendly nations. Today, on November 22nd-2022 -- the two photos above show Diaz-Canel speaking before the Russian legislature in Moscow. His long speech was repeatedly punctuated with strong applause.

      And meanwhile, Cubans on the island today are deeply mourning the death of musical  legend Pablo Milanes. Since his teenage years he has thrilled Cubans as a singer, songwriter, and guitar player. Renowned internationally for his unique talents and his steadfast devotion to the Cuban people, Pablo Milanes will never be forgotten in Cuba.

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