Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister: Deliberate U.S. Policy of "Destroying Cuban Economy" Drives Migration

this is democracy Now democracynow.org The War and Peace report I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez high level migration talks between the US and Cuba were held in Washington last week the twice annual meetings were suspended during the Trump presidency but resumed in 2022 by the Biden Administration the US restarted deportation flights to Cuba last year after a 2-year pause since then the US has been sending one flight with Cuban Deportes to Havana each month Cuba's long blamed us sanctions for strangling the Cuban economy and the 1966 Cuban adjustment act which grants special entry rights to Cubans and support upon arrival for encouraging its youth to immigrate we're joined now in our New York Studio not far from the United Nations by Cuba's Deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernandez Deo welcome back to democracy now it's great to have you with us if you can start off by talking about what happened in those talks last week well thank you for having me uh last week we had one of the regular sessions that we have as part of the implementation of the several agreements in migration that exist between Cuba and the United States the aim of those agreements is to secure a safe regular and orderly migration between the two countries and they have several issues that have to be implemented for that but there's a given reality that is difficult to disconnect which is the economic conditions of the people of Cuba push them to to migrate and an important factor in provoking those conditions are us deliberate policies of destroying the Cuban economy and make it unworkable therefore we insist and we put a lot of emphasis in saying that there will continue to be a potential of Cuban migrants wanting to reach the co the borders of the United States as long as this policy continues to push people out of the country and as long as the United States has a inviting policy for Cubans with which are enjoy a privilege when they try to enter irregularly in the United States and foreign minister I wanted to ask you the uh United Nations every year votes uh to oppose us sanctions against Cuba I think in the LA the latest vote only two nations in the entire general assembly were opposed that was Israel and the United States uh can you talk about the impact of this continued uh blockade and and sanctions against your country the impact is overwhelming the United States does not have and no country has a more comprehensive system of economic course of measures against any country nor has it been applied for as long as it has been applied against Cuba which is over 63 64 years ago and if you just look at the asymmetry between the two countries the size of the US economy and the modest dimensions of the Cuban economy you can try to understand the impact it has it is a policy of economic Warfare trying to destroy not only the Cuban economy but the system of social justice on which depends the well-being of the majority of Cubans and I wanted to ask you in recent in recent years there's been a greater migration of Cubans from uh uh the island to the United States than at any time in US history even more than in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution in the 1960s uh and also the migration has shifted from going across the Straits the Florida Straits into uh Central America and Mexico to the US border could you talk about why that has happened during the the the especially during the Trump and Biden years there's a combinational factors you have the fact that there are more Cubans living in the United States and therefore there are more family connections more friendly connections so people find that is it's a place where they will find uh families and groups that they know secondly the United States has a policy that privileges cubas uh in a way that it does not privilege the citizens of any other country in the world therefore Cubans believe that if they reach the border of the United States by whichever means they have a he a very high possibility of entering now if you add to that that the US has a standing policy of deliberately attacking the well-being the standard and the living standards of the people of Cuba attacking the economy it is logical for it to be a push now Cubans don't see any possibility at the moment of a change in US policy increasingly they see that the United States plans to continue to punish their country and therefore a group of Cubans not all Cubans but a part of our citizens leave the country you have the half half of Puerto Rico have left Puerto uh that the island to come to the United States because of the economic conditions of that island and yet that Island does not suffer a policy of aggression as Cuba does from the government of the United States I want to ask you about the continued effects of the Embargo against Cuba and also in November the UN General Assembly called for the 31st time on the United States to end that decades long trade embargo against Cuba every country approved the unbinding resolution except the United States and Israel oh and Ukraine abstained from the vote your response this resolution has been approved for the past 31 years or 32 years at the UN so it's not new the US has been totally isolated I believe that there's no other example of isolate consistent isolation by a country in the UN as this one the other one would be Palestine perhaps is the only other subject in which there's such level of isolation it's a moral message because the UN does not have the capacity to Lift Us Coes of measures against Cuba but in addition to the resolution over 34 heads of delegations at the general assembly last year at the general debate specifically requested the US to take Cuba out of a a very arbitrary list of the state department that alleges that Cuba is a country that sponsors terrorism no official in Washington I've spoken with many even takes a trouble of explaining to me why Cuba should be in that list and the slander is not the main problem the problem is that being in that list automatically triggers a set of additional Coes of measures that makes Cuba have very serious problems to conduct our trade our financing in any corner of the world including countries that have a very friendly relationship with Cuba like what what are these issues that do banks would not give us loan Banks would not participate in trade so we've had companies for with which we've traded for years to supply for our Electrical uh infrastructure for health care for transportation that cannot trade with us anymore because the banks that they use are not ready the the banks that the use do not want to challenge the intimidating impact of US policy against Cuba and they say look we have nothing against you but we don't want to suffer the consequences in the United States I wanted to ask you uh about Cuba's view of what's going on in the um in the presidential race here in the United States uh clearly under the Obama Administration there was an an attempt to normalize relationships between Cuba and the US uh but uh neither president Trump nor President Biden have done much to pursue uh the Obama policies I'm wondering your sense of uh the stakes for Cuba in terms of the presidential race in this country and and who ends up winning I would say that the Trump and the Biden Administration have done more they've not only not done much but they've done a lot to try to derail the progress between the two Nations and that were celebrated by the peoples of both countries to improve our relationship and to work towards a respectful relationship the impact for Cuba is tremendous now we don't we're not involved in US elections and what we try or what we wish would happen what we're hoping for is that whoever is elected in January will try to take a more reasonable approach toward Cuba one that is fair that will lead the government of the United State to do something is correct that is correct and allow the people of Cuba and the people of the United States to be able to engage with each other without restrictions in the US any link by Americans with Cuba is prohibited you need a permission of the government to relate with Cuba to travel to Cuba to invest in Cuba when if you travel to Cuba you need a permission of the government that will tell you where you can stay and where you cannot stay to play golf to play baseball you need a permission from the US government we wish there for there to be a policy that would allow Americans to freely engage with our country as the citizens of any country do or As Americans can do with any other country so let me ask you what's happen because Obama began normalizing relations of course President Obama's vice president is pres Vice President Biden so is he going back on this and number two I'm wondering as you listen to our broadcast and you don't need to just do that to see what's happening in the streets of the United States around uh the protests around Gaza um 300 people just arrested in Brooklyn um at a Sader uh especially uh Jewish activists who are concerned about the US support of Israel um the Palestinians Arab Americans the massive youth concern about Gaza what your perspective is and the perspective overall of the global South on this issue so two different questions uh on the first the we expect the the the the government of the United States the the Biden Administration not to Faithfully follow the measure the coercive measures of rein enforcement that were put by the Trump Administration and that is what has occurred we were surprised that we didn't think that there was going to be such loyalty by the Biden Administration to the measures that were put in place by the Trump Administration that was surprising for us and for what I gather surprising for many Americans now regarding Gaza our positions are very strong there have been also very massive a lot of rallies in Cuba the difference is that our president and our political leadership has been at the Forefront of those rallies joining them and being a participant with the rest of the people we have a very strong and critical position uh against the massacres that occurring in in pal in Palestine today we see it as a a brutal manifestation of what has been happening there for the past 75 years the killings the kidnappings the displacements of the people of Palestine this is just a very brutal manifestation of a a very long history and Israel can only do that because they have the financial the military and the political support of the US I wanted to ask you about some historical matters most people are not aware that uh anesto chado one of the the founders of the July 26 revolutionary movement visited Gaza in 1959 uh do you know why did Chay visit Gaza back then and how did his visit spark a global solidarity with the Palestinian struggle he visited in solidarity with the people of Palestine at the time we still have had diplomatic relations with the government of Israel but we believe that we we owed to the people of Palestine our solidarity you have to you have to remember that in 1947 Cuba and this is before the Revolution had a very strong position when the state of israels were created about the dangers that this could have if it was not managed uh correctly by the UN when they took uh the decision so it's not surprising that in the early months of the Cuban Revolution one of our main leaders chear visited Gaza and to and more recently I wanted to ask you about the protest that erupted in March after some uh blackouts uh electricity blackouts in Cuba in the Second City of Cuba Santiago uh the the what has what has developed since then and and uh the Cuban government was suggesting that the United States was somehow or other stoking or supporting uh those protests the US government invests millions of dollars every year to try to create an opposition in Cuba to destabilize the country to provoke people to act against the government on March 17th a group of people in Santiago as you're saying uh came out to the street to protest the protest because there were blackouts they protest because of the they're demanding food but the food that they were demanding is not the moon that's the food that's in the in in in the stores in private stores normally they were demanding and rightfully so the food that is subsidized by the government powdered milk bread electricity which is also subsidized in Cuba because they they they are accustomed to a system of social justice that our government uh provides and that the US government is trying to destroy we know as a fact that the US invested in those protests to be larger to be violent and to be in in in many C it was a failure for the US government people protested peacefully and they have a right to do so on a separate issue um Deputy foreign minister of Cuba I wanted to ask you about Cuba's position on Mexico cutting diplomatic ties with Ecuador after Ecuador raided Mexico's Embassy in keto um where the Ecuadorian vice president Jorge glass had taken refuge for months what's cu's position we respect um Mexico's decision the violation o of their Embassy is something unprecedented for some reason the International Community has always respected the immunity of foreign diplomatic missions because if not there cannot be contact there cannot be official contact between countries and for some reason the International Community regardless of the ideological uh uh Trend have always respected that this this was a brutal violation of the Vienna convention and it established a very dangerous presence for every country so we respect Mexico's position and finally I wanted to ask you about something that's been in the in the media now for several years here in the United States the so-called Havana syndrome uh of diplomats uh from the United States suddenly becoming second in uh uh in uh uh uh in Cuba could you talk about what you know about this the So-Cal 30 seconds The so-call Havana syndrome is a fable it was created to derail the relationship between Cuba and the United States they needed an excuse the big question is who invented this the media has not gone far enough to say who invented how was this theory that challenges science challenges physics challenges the academic Community around the world how was that invented and how did the government of the United States decide to Incorporated in its agenda in fact us diplomats say that they they're getting sick around the world and we don't question the symptoms that people might have what we question is the explanation that began by Sonic and then they're saying that it's a concussion without a concussion having occurred scientists say that do does not test a threshold of any academic or scientific approach we want to thank you so much for being with us Cuba's Deputy foreign minister Carlos Fernandez deil and for those of you who who speak Spanish you can go to democracynow.org Spanish website to see our interview in Spanish I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez for another edition of democracy Now

Channel: Democracy Now!

Views: 84,847

Keywords: Democracy Now, Amy Goodman, News, Politics, democracynow, Independent Media, Breaking News, World News

Id: B0iqcN4riQU

Length: 16min 49sec (1009 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2024