Cubans struggle under US barrier

HAVANA – So far, the economic blockade on Cuba has caused damage worth more than $144.413 million, as the country marks 60 years under the embargo that has deeply affected the communist nation’s fortunes and shows no signs of being lifted.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Cuban government has repeatedly accused US administrations of blocking the island’s access to medicines, equipment and medical supplies.

Decreed by US president John F. Kennedy on February 3, 1962, the embargo on all bilateral trade came into effect four days later.

Its purpose, said Kennedy’s executive order, was to reduce the threat posed by the island nation’s “alignment with the communist powers.”

First imposed by President John F. Kennedy, the embargo was intensified during the Trump administration, which banned US flights to Cuban cities except for Havana, barred US cruise ships and yachts from visiting the Caribbean nation, and limited remittances that Cuban-Americans send to their families on the island.

US domestic politics also play a role, with the vote of a large and vocal anti-Havana Cuban expat community holding the potential to swing battleground states such as Florida. Somewhat relaxed under a brief period of detente under Barack Obama, sanctions were strengthened by his successor Donald Trump, who added 243 new measures.

And despite campaign promises, current President Joe Biden has done nothing to relieve the blockade, instead announcing new measures against Cuban leaders in response to a clampdown on historic anti-government protests last July.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said that the Cuban people would continue demanding the end of the US unilateral policy toward the Caribbean nation.

“The revolutionary government, on behalf of the Cuban people, emphatically demands the end of the blockade imposed by the United States. Our denunciation will remain firm and invariable until this inhuman and illegal policy ceases,” he said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Fabio Fernandez, a senior professor with the School of Philosophy and History at the University of Havana, said that the Caribbean nation is determined to successfully overcome the obstacles posed by the embargo.

Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis in 30 years, with inflation at 70 per cent and a severe shortage of food and medicines as the Covid-19 pandemic dealt a hefty blow to a key source of income: tourism.

Long lines for essential goods are common, as food imports have been slashed due to dwindling government reserves. Havana blames the sanctions for all the island’s woes.

The message that “the embargo is a virus too” has been hammered home by authorities for months, as they organise caravans of cars, bikes and motorcycles to criss-cross the country and denounce the sanctions. But detractors say inefficiencies and structural problems in the economy controlled by the one-party state are also to blame.

A monetary reform launched a year ago to try and alleviate pressures on Cubans brought about a significant wage increase in a country where most workers are employed by the government, but further fueled price inflation.

China, Russia support

Cuba has little productive capacity and relies on imports for about 80 per cent of its food needs. Since 2000, food has been excluded from the US blockade, and between 2015 and 2000, Cuba imported some $1.5 billion worth of food from its neighbour.

But the purchases have to be paid in cash and upfront, onerous conditions for a country with limited reserves.

Instead, Cuba has looked to US rivals such as China and Russia for support.

Recently, Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin discussed “strategic partnership” in a phone call.

And Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Riabkov said Moscow would not rule out a military deployment to Cuba, just a few hundred kilometers (miles) from Miami in the US state of Florida, if tensions with Washington over ex-Soviet state Ukraine escalated.

For some, such posturing recalls the Cold War and the Cuban missile crisis between the United States and the former Soviet Union, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear warfare and was a major motivation for the blockade against Cuba.

Conflict was averted when Moscow agreed to remove Soviet missiles from Cuban soil.

Cubans condemn embargo

Thousands of Cubans condemned the US trade embargo on the island, 60 years after its proclamation.

“The real blockade was imposed by the Cuban state,” said activist Rosa Maria Paya of lobby group Cubadecide, which she directs from exile.

The embargo would only be lifted, she believes, through “a transition to representative democracy.”

According to Carlos Gutierrez, a Cuban-American and former US Secretary of Commerce, the embargo has proven to be “counterproductive.”

“Absolutely nothing has been obtained from Havana” in response, he said.

The US blockade started out as a “strategic and military instrument” in the context of war, said political scientist Rafael Hernandez.

And although the Cold War is over, it is still the United States’ “geopolitical interests” that determine its stance towards Cuba, he said.

For the US administration, said James Buckwalter-Arias of the Cuban-American Association for Engagement, “electoral considerations weigh heavier than humanitarian duty.”

Cuban driver Reinerio Gonzalez struggles to maintain his classic American car running smoothly on the streets of Havana.

The 49-year-old would have liked importing car parts and accessories from the United States, were it not for the six-decade U.S. embargo on the island.

“I keep this car running with parts that were never meant for it,” he said. “The US unilateral policy toward the island has forced me to innovate and be creative.”

Mercy Herrera, who works as an electrical engineer at a state company on the outskirts of Havana, told Xinhua that the US embargo affects different fields of Cuban society.

“US coercive measures are limiting our development,” she said. “The cost of living has gone high and made us seize the day.”

With input from Xinhua and AFP