Havana, June 30 (Prensa Latina)
Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez today denounced a campaign of lies by the United States to justify its aggression against Cuba, while reaffirming the island’s peaceful vocation and its rejection of Washington’s military threats.
In a press conference, the Foreign Minister displayed documents that are circulating clandestinely and which, he said, form the basis of the pressure that Washington is exerting on governments and diplomats to prevent the UN General Assembly session against the blockade, scheduled for July 7.
Rodríguez denounced a document entitled “The regime has to be reformed” that contains “mendacious, slanderous chapters, offensive to the dignity and sovereignty of any State.”
Another document, he noted, presents Cuba as a belligerent party in the war in Ukraine, “full of lies, without a single piece of evidence, without a single fact.”
The foreign minister categorically rejected the military threat from the world’s largest military and nuclear power against Cuba and reiterated that there are no foreign military bases on the island.
“The only foreign base that usurps territory from our country is the US base that occupies territory in Guantanamo,” he stated.
Rodríguez emphasized that Cuba has been, is, and will be a country of peace, and recalled that Havana was the place where the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace was signed.
He denounced that in recent days, the United States government tried to prevent the UN World Food Programme from approving $116 million in humanitarian food aid for Cuba, using procedural and dirty maneuvers.
“Despite procedural trickery, the United States government was completely isolated in a democratic vote on the World Food Programme. It was joined by only one other state,” Rodríguez stated.
The Cuban diplomat contrasted this behavior with the United States’ offer of $100 million in humanitarian aid to Cuba, which he described as “fanfare” that has not materialized.
Rodríguez recalled that the blockade has caused accumulated damages of 170 billion dollars and that in the last year alone the damages were calculated at 7.556 billion, almost 50 percent more than the previous year.
“The human damage is incalculable. The suffering, the deprivation, the anguish, the blackouts, the difficulties with food, the difficulties in obtaining medicine, cannot be quantified in numbers,” he stated.
The foreign minister stressed that Cuba is a nation that loves peace and dialogue, and that firmly believes in multilateralism and the central role of the United Nations.
“For Cubans, the free, sovereign, dignified, and independent homeland is sacred. For that ideal, several generations of patriots have paid the ultimate price and endured every sacrifice. Now will be no different,” he stated.
