By Sergio Martínez González. Ambassador of the Republica of Cuba in Antigua and Barbuda.
When we were children and even later, we enjoyed the children's stories that our parents read to us before going to bed. One of the most popular was the well-known children's story of Pinocchio, which our parents often used as a moral to teach us to be honest and not to lie, because our noses might grow. Apparently, the parents of the current US Secretary of State never taught him the children's story of Pinocchio when he was little and that honesty is one of the most important qualities a human being should have.
I say this because, in his sick desire to cause more and more suffering and harsh living conditions for the Cuban people, the Secretary of State of the “all-powerful neighbor to the north” does not stop using all kinds of lies and infamy to justify the criminal measures of the blockade and the economic suffocation that he has promoted against Cuba for years. In recent days, during his questionable tour of a group of countries in the region, Marcos Rubio again attacked Cuba and other countries such as Venezuela and Nicaragua that do not submit to Washington’s imperial designs, pointing out that these countries “constitute a threat and danger to humanity.” Among the many lies he used, he had the shamelessness to accuse Cuba of “imprisoning and torturing children.”
In few countries in the world, children and young people have so many legal and society-wide guarantees for all their rights: the right to health, to education, to be respected and loved, to a happy childhood and youth, among many others. Their full rights are guaranteed by the Cuban Constitution, by one of the most modern and comprehensive legal instruments that currently exists, such as the Family Code approved in Cuba in 2022, and many others judicial instruments.
If there is one place in this world where the rights of children and young people are violated, it is precisely in the United States. According to the statistics of the American Penitentiary System, in 2010, 7,000 children and young people under 17 years of age were confined in prisons for adults. In 2016, 200,000 minors were tried in adult criminal courts and more than half of them were sentenced and sent to serve their sentences in adult penitentiary centers. According to a study by the well-known American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), more than 10% of minors sentenced by courts in the United States were held in solitary confinement or in so-called punishment cells (sadly known as the hole). Of these data, those who bear the brunt are children and young people of African-American or Hispanic origin. According to a report by the National Council on Crime, although children of African-American descent represent 16% of the total child population in the United States, they constitute 58% of minors sentenced to prison. Eight out of 10 minors serving life sentences in the US are of African-American or Hispanic origin. According to studies published by the James Madison Institute, Florida (the state for which the Secretary of State has been a senator and which is home to the largest number of politicians who are part of the crusade against Cuba) is the state within the US where the largest number of children and adolescents are held in adult prisons.
With what moral authority does the US Secretary of State intend to accuse Cuba of violating the rights of the most sacred and important thing that exists in our country today? He should at least have a minimum degree of shame and dignity, and look inside the US to see a system that really violates the most basic rights of children and young people without any shame. Like the children's story of Pinocchio, if the Secretary of State continues with so much falsehood and lies, he will run the risk of having his nose grow to such a size, that not even the best plastic surgeon in the US or the rest of the world can do anything for him.
Cubaembassy Antigua y Barbuda.