AUCKLAND, New Zealand — Luis Morejón Rodríguez, Cuba’s ambassador to New Zealand, called for support from a gathering of 25 people here April 27 for Cuba’s fight against the “economic strangulation” imposed by the U.S. rulers’ 60-plus-years of economic war against Cuba’s people and their socialist revolution.
He also protested the reinclusion of Cuba on Washington’s notorious “State Sponsors of Terrorism” list by the administration of President Donald Trump. Morejón condemned Washington’s continued occupation and use of the prison it maintains at Guantánamo Bay, a part of Cuba occupied by U.S. military forces since 1903. Today the U.S. government is imprisoning immigrants there who have been deported from the U.S. for return to Venezuela and elsewhere.
Held at the Workers First Union hall, the meeting and dinner was sponsored by the Cuba Friendship Society.
In the context of the embargo, “the challenges Cuba faces are numerous and cannot be solved overnight,” Morejón said. Severe power blackouts in 2024 affected working people all over the island. They were the result of the U.S. embargo preventing “investments in thermoelectric plants and international contracts, due to the lack of access to foreign currency.”
Morejón said that Trump has been focused on the U.S. rulers’ deepening conflict with China, and has been silent about U.S. policy toward Cuba. But Secretary of State Marco Rubio has led the way in threatening Cuba, and said Washington will enact new sanctions against governments in the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere that request vital assistance from volunteer Cuban medical workers.
In the lively discussion that followed his remarks, Morejón noted that tourism, Cuba’s biggest source of foreign currency, has only partially recovered from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“But it’s not all bad news!” he said, pointing to the spirit of solidarity that has marked the revolution since its victory in 1959 and how it is reflected in the tens of thousands of doctors who voluntarily serve abroad. This revolutionary solidarity is slanderously dismissed as “forced labor” by Rubio.
“The United States deploys military forces in foreign countries, whereas Cuba sends an army of white coats — medical professionals — who go out of conviction,” he added. “These professionals receive their salary in Cuba, where their families continue to be paid, and they also earn additional compensation for their international work.”
Morejón encouraged participants to join in events around the world over the next year to mark the 100th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s birth, Aug. 13, 2026.