One of the guiding principles of a journalist’s work is a commitment to the truth, which requires presenting facts accurately, verifying them, and reporting them honestly.
As you wrote, and I quote: “When I write about Cuba and its failures, I receive emails from people asking why I don’t mention the U.S. trade embargo, which went into effect in the 1960s. That embargo has been so watered down and has so many exceptions that it is no longer an embargo.”
It is rude and frankly dishonest, especially in the current context, to make that claim. It might be made by someone who is completely out of touch with reality, but not by a person who works for the media and who should be reasonably informed about the events happening around him.
According to his view, the U.S. President’s executive order of January 29, which designates Cuba as a “threat” to U.S. security and imposes tariffs on anyone supplying fuel to Cuba—a measure that in practice halted fuel supplies for three months—is a fabrication by the Cuban government.
It also seems to be a fabrication that Cuba is cruelly deprived, in every corner of the world, of the use of banking systems to make collections and payments, and that it suffers from atrocious financial persecution, intensified by its inclusion on the spurious list of “state sponsors of terrorism”—a designation not recognized by any international body but which has a deterrent effect on banks and financial actors. A simple test: try sending a transfer, no matter how small, from your native Sweden to Cuba, and then tell me the result.
Last year alone, the blockade caused Cuba some $7.556 billion in material damages. This impact is comparable to the nominal gross domestic product of at least 30 countries, according to World Bank data.
The United States has attempted to spread the idea—to which you subscribe—that the blockade is a justification used by the Cuban government to hide its inefficiencies or the shortcomings of its development model.
This political campaign relies on a communication operation that, through disinformation and euphemisms, seeks to create the perception that the blockade does not exist or does not affect the population.
What is most striking, in fact, is that the very promoters of the blockade and the policy of maximum pressure boast of its destructive effect and its ability to undermine the standard of living of an entire people. One need only review the statements of the U.S. Secretary of State, the President himself, and the politicians who have built their careers and fortunes by attacking Cuba.
It is highly hypocritical that while the Cuban people face serious daily hardships—power outages, lack of transportation, disruptions in education and healthcare, limited access to essential medications, and thousands waiting for surgeries—you pejoratively state that “the economic mismanagement of recent decades has also caused the sinking of the revolution’s flagship.”
Ask yourself instead how it has been possible to maintain health indicators on par with those of developed countries, despite being a poor and blockaded nation, by allocating approximately one-fifth of the budget to public health—which is nearly double the global average, according to the World Health Organization.
Ask yourself how it has been possible, even under the current complex circumstances, to equip 282 polyclinics, 78 nursing homes, 97 maternity homes, 74 senior care centers, and 15 hospitals with solar panels, to make them independent of potential outages in the national power grid.
I know these questions do not interest you; you prefer to avoid addressing who is responsible for the current situation. It is easier to go along with the narrative of certain media outlets, which, by the way, are paid to speak ill of Cuba.
In any scenario, in the face of so many adversities, as always, we will emerge victorious.
Raúl Delgado Concepción
Cuban Ambassador to Sweden