To all of humanity, to the world’s mothers, to Doctors without Borders, to honourable journalists, to the governments who still believe in justice…
My name is the same as millions of others. I don’t have a famous surname nor an important responsibility. I’m an ordinary woman. A daughter, a sister, a patriot. And I’m writing this with my soul in tatters and hands shaking, because what my people are living through now is not a crisis. It’s an assassination – slow and coldly calculated from Washington.
The rest of the world has watched in silence for weeks, months, and years.
Proclamation for my grandparents
I proclaim that in Cuba, there are people of all ages who are dying before their time because the blockade is preventing chemotherapy, lifesaving medication and vaccines from arriving, being produced or being administered.
It’s not a shortage of resources. It’s a deliberate ban. Governments seeking to provide oil to Cuba are threatened with tariffs. Meanwhile, a Cuban grandparent clutches her heart and waits. Death doesn’t give a warning. The blockade does.
Proclamation for my children
I proclaim that in Cuba there are incubators which have to be manually ventilated in the blackouts. There are newborns fighting for their lives while the government of the United States decides which countries can sell us oil and which cannot. There are Cuban mothers who have seen the lives of their children placed in danger because an order signed in an office in Washington is worth more than the cry of a child 90 miles from its coast.
Where is the international community? Where are the organisations that protect children? Or don’t Cuban infants deserve to live?
Proclamation against intentional hunger
I proclaim that the blockade is a hunger programme. It isn’t that food is lacking, because it is there. It is that food cannot be moved from Cuban farms to markets. It is because electricity is scarce, so food is spoiling in warm refrigerators. Sanctions impact businesses which sell us grain, chicken, and milk.
Hunger in Cuba is no accident. It is the policy of the Government of the United States, refined over 60 years, carried out by successive governments, worsened by Donald Trump and carried out viciously by Marco Rubio.
They call this “economic pressure”. I call it “terrorism by hunger”.
Proclamation for my doctors
I proclaim that our doctors, those who saved lives in the pandemic while the entire world was collapsing, today struggle to get “gloves, sutures, or IV catheters”. They cannot operate X-ray machines without power. This is not because we don’t know how to produce these supplies or because we don’t have talent. It is because the blockade prevents us from accessing the components, supplies and electricity.
Our scientists created five COVID-19 vaccines. Five. With help from no one. Through thick and thin. Against the blockade and the lies. And even so, the Empire punishes us for having succeeded.
I say to the world…
Cuba isn’t asking you for charity.
Cuba isn’t asking you for soldiers.
Cuba isn’t asking you to love us.
Cuba is asking you for justice. Nothing more. Nothing less.
I ask that you stop normalising the suffering of my people.
I ask that you call the blockade by its title:
A crime against humanity.
I ask that you stop deceiving yourselves with tales of “dialogue” and “democracy” while we are being strangled.
We don’t want charity. We want to be allowed to live.
To those complicit governments who remain silent:
History will judge you.
To the media who lie:
Truth will always find a way through.
To the torturers who sign sanctions:
Look at Cuba. Look at what you are doing to us.
And ask yourselves:
What side of history do you want to be on?
From this little island, with a huge population, an ordinary Cuban woman who refuses to surrender
Comments? We want to hear them. Please write to editor@westenglandbylines.co.uk
