The deputy director for the United States of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Johana Tablada, was visiting Washington and offered an interview to CNN in Spanish, which we share below.
QUESTION: How is the relationship between the US and Cuba?
Well, relations are not going very well, but we do maintain a mix of visits by US officials to Cuba and by Cuban officials to the United States.
For our part, we are always trying to improve relations, move towards a more constructive position of a civilized relationship and trying to change the areas of confrontation into areas of cooperation and exchange and trying to raise awareness among our counterparts in the government and in civil society. in the United States Congress of the urgency we have to change the United States policy towards Cuba at least in some of the aspects that are most difficult today and that have a greater impact on the lives of citizens, Cuban women and the Cubans.
QUESTION: What is happening in Israel after the attacks that began on Saturday by Hamas, terrorist attacks that left thousands dead, Israel's response that left thousands dead, Cuba's position on the matter.
There is a note published by the Cuban Foreign Ministry immediately that this very serious situation has begun. Cuba's position is a position that calls for an immediate ceasefire, that calls for a peaceful and negotiated solution, calls for an immediate end to these clashes and that also reminds the United Nations Security Council of the importance of putting these into force. resolutions that for so many years the state of Israel has not allowed to be implemented.
That is the essence, from the first moment Cuba is quickly calling for a negotiated solution and to stop the fire due to the seriousness of the conflict and the victims it has caused and we also attribute it to the 75 years in which it has not been allowed or recognized the rights of the people of Palestine.
QUESTION: Johana, Cuba was once again elected to the United Nations Human Rights Council, countries like Russia did not reach the minimum vote to do so, but there is a debate in the United States. There are those who say that Cuba does not deserve to be in that body that defends Human Rights because they say that Cuba does not respect Human Rights.
Look, Cuba was actually the country in the region of the Americas that obtained the highest number of votes, 146 votes above the other three countries that were opting for that candidacy. And that speaks of an international recognition of Cuba's important contribution to Human Rights not only of the people of Cuba but also of Cuba's historically supportive behavior with the world in development, of a project of social Justice that of course is not perfect and that we continue to transform every day under very adverse conditions.
I understand that you tell me that there is a debate here and it is logical because the issue of Human Rights has been used to the point of abuse, to the point of exhaustion, to justify the policy of States towards Cuba.
That is, the United States policy towards Cuba, of blocking unilateral coercive measures, additional to the blockade carried out by the Trump and Biden governments, which are impossible to justify, unless falsehoods or extremely misleading distortions are used that They do not truly reflect the reasons why today the United States maintains, so many years later, a policy that has been unable to achieve the main objective of overthrowing the Cuban Revolution, which is a legitimate process and still enjoys the majority of the support of the Cuban population that approved its Socialist Constitution by more than 86% and that has carried out a broad process of political, democratic, and economic transformations for which the United States has had no other response than to continue strangling and suffocating the economy, for purposes of domination and also with issues that are directly linked to the electoral politics of the United States.
QUESTION: Let's talk about the issue of migration. Cubans are one of the groups that is arriving the most at the border with the United States. You are receiving flights of deportees coming from the United States and there is an issue about the process that many of them face, an immigration board determined that they will not be able to benefit from the Cuban Adjustment law. Why are so many Cubans coming out? How are they doing to be able to finance that trip that from the island to the border with Mexico is very dangerous and not cheap to finance at all?
Your question is very important and it has also been the subject of our exchanges with counterparts from the United States government, non-governmental organizations here in Washington that follow the immigration issue that follow Latin American issues and also with members of Congress that we have visited among other counterparts. . The issue is that there is a direct and unadmitted relationship between precisely what I had said before and the accumulation of unilateral coercive measures by the United States against Cuba. There can be no coincidence that from 2019 to now, when the unilateral coercive measures that were called maximum pressure against Cuba have been carried out, even under the government of President Biden, the largest wave of migration from Cuba to the United States has been recorded.