Once again, shamefully, the U.S. government voted on Oct. 29, as it has done every year since 1992 against the UN General Assembly resolution calling for the lifting of the U.S. blockade of Cuba, which has been in effect since February 1962. In a vote of 187-2 with 1 abstention, the U.S., allied only with Israel, backed a policy which denies Cubans access to food, fuel, medicine and technology—genocide in intent and effect.
In an interview published Oct. 23 with Argentina’s Página 12, Cuban Ambassador to Argentina Pedro Pablo Prada explained the role of the blockade in producing the total blackout of the island that occurred on Oct. 18, when the thermoelectric power plan in Matanzas, Cuba went offline and engulfed the island in darkness. While Western financial ghouls from The Economist and the New York Times guffawed that Cuba’s alleged incompetence and embrace of “state planning” was responsible, Prada provided shocking details of what Cuba is forced to go through just to obtain spare parts in order to service the aging machinery that makes up its energy-generating system. The case is similarly difficult with obtaining food and fuel.
Ambassador Prada commented that the U.S. election will make no difference to Cuba. “Biden has continued applying the brutal policies of the Republican government of Donald Trump. This has happened more than once in history, and the issue isn’t Republican or Democratic. The issue is that the U.S. political class has to learn to live with an independent, free and sovereign Cuba. That is our right,” he stated.
