Truthdig
Cubas Formal Response to Trumps Speech on Policy Changes
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/statement_by_the_revolutionary_g
overnment_of_cuba_20170618/
Posted on Jun 18, 2017
Havana. (Andrew Wragg (https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewwragg/) / CC
BY-NC-ND 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/) )
Below is the full statement
(http://www.minrex.gob.cu/en/statement-revolutionary-government-cuba-0)
released Friday by the Cuban government.
On June 16, 2017, US President Donald Trump delivered a speech full of
hostile anti-Cuban rhetoric reminiscent of the times of open confrontation
with our country in a Miami theater. He announced his governments Cuba
policy, which rolls back the progress achieved over the last two years since
December 17, 2014, when Presidents Raúl Castro and Barack Obama announced
the decision to re-establish diplomatic relations and engage in a process
towards the normalization of bilateral relations.
In what constitutes a setback in the relations between both countries,
President Trump, gave a speech and signed a policy directive titled
National Security Presidential Memorandum, which provides the elimination
of private educational people-to-people exchanges and greater control over
all travelers to Cuba, as well as the prohibition of business, trade and
financial transactions between US companies and certain Cuban companies
linked to the Armed Revolutionary Forces and the intelligence and security
services, under the alleged objective of depriving us from income. The US
president justified this policy with alleged concerns over the human rights
situation in Cuba and the need to rigorously enforce the US blockade laws,
conditioning its lifting, as well as any improvements in US-Cuba bilateral
relations to our countrys making changes inherent to its constitutional
order.
Trump also abrogated Presidential Policy Directive Normalization of
Relations between the United States and Cuba, issued by President Obama on
October 14, 2016. Although said Directive did not conceal the
interventionist character of the US policy nor the fact that its main
purpose was to advance US interests in order to bring about changes in the
economic, political and social systems of our country, it did recognize
Cubas independence, sovereignty and self-determination and the Cuban
government as a legitimate and equal interlocutor, as well as the benefits
that a civilized coexistence would have for both countries and peoples
despite the great differences that exist between both governments. The
Directive also conceded that the blockade is an obsolete policy and that it
should be lifted.
Once again, the US Government resorts to coercive methods of the past when
it adopts measures aimed at stepping up the blockade, effective since
February 1962, which not only causes harm and deprivations to the Cuban
people and is the main obstacle to our economic development, but also
affects the sovereignty and interests of other countries, which arouses
international rejection.
The measures announced impose additional obstacles to the already very
limited opportunities that the US business sector had in order to trade with
and invest in Cuba.
Likewise, those measures restrict even more the right of US citizens to
visit our country, which was already limited due to the obligation of using
discriminatory licenses, at a moment when the US Congress, echoing the
feelings of broad sectors of that society, calls not only for an end to the
travel ban, but also for the elimination of the restrictions on the trade
with Cuba.
The measures announced by President Trump run counter to the majority
support of the US public opinion, including the Cuban emigration in that
country, to the total lifting of the blockade and the establishment of
normal relations between Cuba and the United States.
Instead, the US President, who has been once again ill-advised, is taking
decisions that favor the political interests of an irrational minority of
Cuban origin in the state of Florida which, out of petty motivations, does
not give up its intent to punish Cuba and its people for exercising the
legitimate and sovereign right of being free and having taken the reins of
their own destiny.
Later on, we shall make a deeper analysis of the scope and implications of
the announcement.
The Government of Cuba condemns the new measures to tighten the blockade,
which are doomed to failure, as has been repeatedly evidenced in the past,
for they will not succeed in their purpose to weaken the Revolution or bend
the Cuban people, whose resistance against aggressions of all sorts and
origins has been put to the test throughout almost six decades.
The Government of Cuba rejects political manipulation and double standards
in human rights. The Cuban people enjoy fundamental rights and freedoms and
can proudly show some achievements that are still a chimera for many
countries of the world, including the United States, such as the right to
health, education and social security; equal pay for equal work, childrens
rights as well as the rights to food, peace and development. Cuba, with its
modest resources, has also contributed to the improvement of the human
rights situation in many countries of the world, despite the limitations
inherent to its condition as a blockaded country.
The United States are not in the position to teach us lessons. We have
serious concerns about the respect for and guarantees of human rights in
that country, where there are numerous cases of murders, brutality and
abuses by the police, particularly against the African-American population;
the right to life is violated as a result of the deaths caused by fire arms;
child labor is exploited and there are serious manifestations of racial
discrimination; there is a threat to impose more restrictions on medical
services, which will leave 23 million persons without health insurance;
there is unequal pay between men and women; migrants and refugees,
particularly those who come from Islamic countries, are marginalized; there
is an attempt to put up walls that discriminate against and denigrate
neighbor countries; and international commitments to preserve the
environment and address climate change are abandoned.
Also a source of concern are the human rights violations by the United
States in other countries, such as the arbitrary detention of tens of
prisoners in the territory illegally occupied by the US Naval Base in
Guantánamo, Cuba, where even torture has been applied; extrajudicial
executions and the death of civilians caused by drones; as well as the wars
unleashed against countries like Iraq, under false pretenses like the
possession of weapons of mass destruction, with disastrous consequences for
the peace, security and stability in the Middle East.
It should be recalled that Cuba is a State Party to 44 international human
rights instruments, while the US is only a State Party to 18. Therefore, we
have much to show, say and defend.
Upon confirming the decision to re-establish diplomatic relations, Cuba and
the United States ratified their intention to develop respectful and
cooperative relations between both peoples and governments, based on the
principles and purposes enshrined in the UN Charter. In its Declaration
issued on July 1, 2015, the Revolutionary Government of Cuba reaffirmed that
these relations must be founded on absolute respect for our independence
and sovereignty; the inalienable right of every State to choose its
political, economic, social and cultural system, without interference in any
form; and sovereign equality and reciprocity, which constitute inalienable
principles of International Law, as was established in the Proclamation of
Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed by the Heads of
State and Government of the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States
(CELAC), at its second summit held in Havana. Cuba has not renounced these
principles, nor will it ever do so.
The Government of Cuba reiterates its will to continue a respectful and
cooperative dialogue on topics of mutual interest, as well as the
negotiation of outstanding issues with the US Government. During the last
two years it has been evidenced that both countries, as was repeatedly
expressed by the President of the Councils of State and of Ministers, Army
General Raúl Castro Ruz, can cooperate and coexist in a civilized manner,
respecting the differences and promoting everything that benefits both
nations and peoples, but it should not be expected that, in order to achieve
that, Cuba would make concessions inherent to its sovereignty and
independence, or accept preconditions of any sort.
Any strategy aimed at changing the political, economic and social system in
Cuba, either through pressures and impositions or by using more subtle
methods, shall be doomed to failure.
The changes that need to be made in Cuba, as those that have been made since
1959 and the ones that we are introducing now as part of the process to
update our economic and social system, will continue to be sovereignly
determined by the Cuban people.
Just as we have been doing since the triumph of the Revolution on January
1st, 1959, we will take on every risk and shall continue to advance
steadfastly and confidently in the construction of a sovereign, independent,
socialist, democratic, prosperous and sustainable nation.
Havana, June 16, 2017.
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