Vienna, February 3. The Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) has issued a strong statement rejecting the new escalation of coercive measures by the United States against Cuba, describing the recent order for a total blockade on oil imports as an attempt to “finally strangle the small Caribbean island.”
In its statement entitled “Trump tries to strangle Cuba,” the party contextualizes the new aggression within the more than 65-year-old economic blockade, which it attributes to Cuba's sovereign decision “not to be a colonial appendage” and to build an alternative to the capitalist system.
The KPÖ warns categorically that “a total oil blockade threatens to quickly turn into a humanitarian crisis,” stressing that electricity production, hospital operations, and food production on the island are critically dependent on this supply. The statement rejects the US justification—the alleged Cuban threat to national security—as “absurd.”
In its statement, the KPÖ calls for international solidarity in response to the aggression and urgently appeals to the international community, and in particular to European states and Austria, to translate their annual votes against the blockade at the UN into action and to ensure "that Cuba can live in peace, thus defending international law.
A united front of condemnation in Austria
With this statement, the Communist Party of Austria (KPÖ) joins the growing chorus of political and social forces within the country that have publicly condemned the latest US aggression. Previously, organizations such as the Communist Youth (KJÖ), the Youth of the Labor Party (Jugendfront), the Austrian Labor Party (PdA), the Communist Trade Union Initiative (KOMintern), and the Austria-Cuba Friendship Association (ÖKG) had already expressed their solidarity with the country and demanded that the Austrian government take a firm stance against unilateral coercive measures, especially those applied against Cuba.
The KPÖ's position reinforces a unified message from Austrian progressive forces, demanding an active response from national and European diplomacy to what they consider a policy of economic suffocation that endangers the well-being of the Cuban civilian population.
(EmbaCubaAustria)