Pretoria, 27 June 2019.- Message by Ambassador of Cuba Rodolfo Benitez Verson to the National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (NEHAWU) National Policy Conference.
Dear Comrades:
First of all, on behalf of our people and government I thank the leadership and members of NEHAWU for inviting Cuba to be present in this important National Policy Conference.
We which you great success in the review of your Strategic Policy Framework, and in this context we welcome your intention to develop a plan for the next decade in relation to working class internationalism.
In our region, Latin America and the Caribbean, we are living dangerous times. The US Government has announced and is very aggressively implementing a regime change policy against Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. They accuse our countries, among other things, of threatening the US National Security by promoting socialism in the region.
Since Donald Trump took office, he very quickly reversed the process towards the normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States outlined by Barak Obama. Instead of dialogue, the Trump government is intensifying to unprecedented levels the economic, financial and commercial blockade against Cuba.
Let me just mention a few examples of the new unilateral sanctions being implemented against Cuba to collapse our economy:
- Aggravate impediments to entering the United States faced by executives and families of companies that legitimately invest in Cuba, in properties that were nationalized
- To allow legal action to be taken in U.S. courts against Cuban and foreign entities.
- To significantly reinforce restrictions for US citizens to travel to Cuba.
- To prohibit all kinds of boats and vessels from the United States to travel to Cuba.
- To ban cruise ships from visiting our Island.
- To establish limits on remittances that Cuban residents in the U.S. send to their families and friends in our country.
- To impose additional financial sanctions to Cuba and companies that has contacts with our country.
- Intensification of the persecution of Cuban international financial transactions.
I think that give you an idea of the situation we are facing today.
Dear Comrades:
Washington intends to justify these measures accusing Cuba, among other things, of having military troops in Venezuela and being responsible for the current situation in that sister country. They are lying!
Cuba does not have troops or military forces in Venezuela, while the accuser is the only country in the world that keeps over 250 000 soldiers on 800 military bases all over the world, including in the territory illegally occupied by the Guantanamo Naval Base in Cuba, which must be returned to our country.
The nearly 20 thousand Cuban collaborators in Venezuela, more than 60% of them women, fulfill the same tasks that are currently performed by 11,000 other professionals of our country in 83 nations, including South Africa: they contribute to provide basic social services, mainly health care.
The firm solidarity with Venezuela and other sister countries like the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic and Palestine, is a sovereign right of Cuba. No threat or blackmail of the current US government will divert the internationalist behavior of the Cuban nation.
It is worth remembering that threats and ultimatum were already used in the past, when Cuba's internationalist effort supported the liberation movements in Africa, while the United States supported at that time the despicable Apartheid regime in South Africa.
It was also intended, then, that Cuba renounce its solidarity commitments with the African people in exchange for promises of forgiveness by the US. At that time Cuba rejected the blackmail, as we reject it today, with the greatest contempt.
The sovereignty and independence are not negotiable. For Cubans, betrayal is not an option.
The additional sanctions imposed by the US will have very negative economic effects and will generate greater difficulties and shortcomings for the Cuban people. But they will not change our firm determination of resistance.
Even with its immense power, imperialism does not have the capacity to break the dignity of a united people, proud of its history and freedom.
The Cuban Revolution has the firm determination to defeat this new aggressive escalation. As it has happened with 11 previous US Administrations in the last 60 years, the policy of confrontation against Cuba of the Trump government will fail once again.
Dear Comrades:
Despite the difficulties created by the imperialism, we are committed in Cuba to build a fair and equitable society.
Our aspiration is to demonstrate that even with very limited resources it is possible to create a society by the workers and for the workers, based on human solidarity and social justice.
We do not intend the Cuban Socialist Revolution to be considered a model to anyone. But neither do we accept the existence of a unique or universal model, much less the imposition as a model of the capitalist system. Capitalism will never be historically sustainable. We are convinced that Socialism is the future.
Cuba is not perfect. Like anywhere we face problems. But there are also many achievements.
815 million people in the world suffer today from chronic hunger. None of them is Cuban.
760 million adults are illiterate. None of them is Cuban.
Every day 18 000 children die in our planet as a result of poverty and 325 million children do not attend school. None of them is Cuban.
We are proud to be a country that provides high quality health care for all our population, completely free of charge.
We are proud to be a country where life expectancy rate is almost 80 years of age, higher than in many wealthy countries.
We are proud to have the highest number of doctors per capita in the world and the best infant mortality rate in the Western Hemisphere.
We are proud that the whole Cuban population receive totally free high quality education at all levels, including university.
We are proud to be a nation with deep African roots that practices true solidarity, which mean we share with many other countries the limited resources we have, not what we have in surplus.
To preserve those achievements and many others, the Cuban Revolution build by Commander Fidel Castro is and will remain a Revolution of the working class.
Let me conclude, dear Comrades, by emphasising that in the present context of increase aggression by the imperialism, we need more international solidarity.
The imperialists will always try to neutralize and isolate those who challenge them and defend sovereignty and the interests of the working class. We should act together in solidarity. In isolation, we will be swallowed by the strength of the powerful.
As your beautiful slogan says: “An injury to one is an injury to all”. Deepening revolutionary and working class solidarity across the world is an urgent imperative.
The criminal measures adopted by the US Government to impose a regime change and defeat the Cuban Revolution must not go unchallenged.
We call on all friends of Cuba, the solidarity movement, the international working class, to reject the irrational and aggressive escalation of the Trump government against our country and other countries of the world.
We will forever be thankful to NEHAWU for supporting our demand to end the criminal blockade against Cuba. We thank you for supporting our right to self-determination, our right to decide the political and social system of our choice.
The Cuban people count on your solidarity in these difficult times. You can always count on Cuba.
Thank you.