Excellencies, Distinguished Delegates,
We extend a special greeting to Ms. Alena Douhan, who, during her tenure as Special Rapporteur, made a significant contribution to the Human Rights Council’s mandate on unilateral coercive measures and carried out a highly valuable official visit to our country in November 2025.
The Special Rapporteur was able to witness the brutal impact of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the Government of the United States against Cuba, through an extensive programme of bilateral meetings, field visits and exchanges, including with civil society.
As she rightly states in her visit report, the unilateral coercive measures imposed on the Cuban people have a devastating and growing impact.
Since the date of that visit, the US blockade has been tightened to unprecedented levels, particularly through the imposition of an energy blockade amounting to a naval blockade, which constitutes an act of war, as well as through the addition of secondary sanctions. All of these measures inflict collective punishment on the Cuban population.
To the unjustifiable continued inclusion of Cuba on the fraudulent list of countries allegedly sponsoring terrorism are added the Executive Orders of 29 January and 1 May 2026, as elements defining the policy of maximum pressure against our people, anchored in the absurd justification of considering Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security of the United States.
How can a small country, subjected to a blockade for almost 70 years, represent a threat to the world’s greatest nuclear military power, the United States?
Several Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council, as well as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, have expressed concern that these actions by the US Government put essential services in Cuba at risk, including water supplies, sanitation and food systems.
Dear friends,
The blockade and the energy blockade, in addition to constituting a flagrant, massive and systematic violation of the human rights of our people, amount to collective punishment of the Cuban population.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 on International Humanitarian Law establishes that collective penalties are prohibited. There can be no doubt that the Cuban people as a whole are being subjected to precisely such a situation through the aforementioned energy blockade.
Allow me to share just a few figures that illustrate this reality:
The energy blockade and the shortage of resources resulting from the extreme tightening of the blockade have severely affected the capacity of hospitals. The surgical waiting list exceeds 96,000 patients, of whom 12,000 are children.
The infant mortality rate has risen to 9.9 per thousand live births, compared with 4 per thousand in previous years. This means preventable deaths that, under other circumstances, could have been avoided had the necessary equipment, devices and appropriate treatments been available. A total of 1,780 newborns died for this reason.
The number of people dying from cancer has increased. In the case of children and young people, the survival rate has fallen from 85% to 65%.
Excellencies,
Despite this situation, our Government and healthcare personnel work tirelessly to ensure the best possible care for patients, particularly girls and boys. We provide care to vulnerable individuals and communities.
The transition towards renewable energy is being accelerated through the installation of photovoltaic panels in hospitals and polyclinics, maternity homes and homes for the elderly.
The same protection is being provided to children with health conditions that require an uninterrupted electricity supply.
We are working intensively to expand the production of medicines, reagents and diagnostic systems. New economic and social transformations are being implemented to expand the population’s access to medicines and other social policies.
Between May and June of this year, the 65th annual national childhood polio vaccination campaign was carried out. We do not cease our efforts to find alternatives to ensure vaccination for all our girls and boys.
We have reorganized hospital services, prioritizing emergencies and primary healthcare, while reorganizing personnel across the territories. The Maternal and Child Health Programme, haemodialysis and radiotherapy services, follow-up care for patients with chronic diseases, and epidemiological surveillance have remained priorities.
Work is also underway to install photovoltaic systems with batteries in isolated homes, as well as in schools and other educational institutions, with particular emphasis on water-pumping equipment.
Despite the policy of suffocation against Cuba, we continue to advance in the promotion and protection of human rights. The Cuban Government will always place the well-being of its people first.
Neither the blockade, nor the energy blockade, nor pressure from the United States will achieve their objective of subduing or forcing us to surrender. We will continue to confront this aggressive policy with determination and creativity.
On 27 and 28 October, Cuba will once again present to the United Nations General Assembly the resolution calling for an end to the blockade against Cuba.
Once again, we will have the valuable and overwhelming support of the international community in defence of international law, justice, and the right of the Cuban people to live in peace.
We will defend our sovereignty and self-determination, whatever the necessary cost.
The blockade punishes; we want to live in peace! Cuba is not a threat; the blockade is!
Thank you very much.