Images via the Communist Party of Cuba
By Katherin Hormigó Rubio, translated from the Spanish
"It was serious, important and a step in the right direction, although very limited and late," is how Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla described on Wednesday the decision of Joe Biden's government to remove Cuba from the list of states that, according to Washington, sponsor terrorism, in a statement made to the national and foreign media.
Cuba's presence on the State Department's list "lacked credibility, but its practical effects are extraordinary in the financial sector" and are aimed at "causing harm to the Cuban family," he said.
The Cuban foreign minister responded to questions that, since Washington's announcement on Tuesday, people have been asking on social networks, the primary of which is why the Biden administration is taking these measures: "My opinion is that he has taken them because his plan has failed." "The final objective of defeating the Revolution, through measures aimed at causing a total collapse of the economy and social instability, has failed," he said.
Rodríguez Parrilla commented that the Biden administration "has made these decisions based on the recognition that the policy it applied towards Cuba is an obsolete, failed policy, which does not contribute to the objectives or national interests of the United States, nor does it have the support of the American people, nor of the Cubans residing in that country."
He also added that "it is an acknowledgement that this failed policy causes very serious international isolation, discredit to its foreign policy, and that it damages instruments that the United States government supposedly needs to achieve certain objectives."
He commented that, despite the difficult circumstances in which the country lives today, "the support of the Cuban people for the Revolution, for the constitutional order that has been chosen in a sovereign manner and through the exercise of self-determination, has been maintained."
The head of MINREX added that Biden's decisions "occur thanks to the creativity of our people, thanks to their daily heroism, thanks to their nobility, which attracts admiration, respect, support and solidarity on an international scale and within broad sectors of the United States."
He said that this State Department list is "an instrument of political coercion against sovereign states." "Cuba should never have entered that list, it was fundamentally wrong because of its status as a victim of terrorism," he stressed.
Insisting that Cuba will continue to defend its rights as a sovereign state and has always been and will continue to be open to respectful dialogue -- on the basis of equality and in line with the principles of international law -- in this regard, Rodríguez Parrilla emphasized: "the most correct thing would be to lift the blockade."
Among the questions he raised was why now: "We should ask the U.S. government why it has waited until this moment to do what it could have done – and what many of its voters, including citizens of Cuban origin – have expected since its election?"
He recalled that President Biden, in his electoral platform, was committed to adopting significant changes in U.S. policy toward Cuba, taking into account the serious setback in bilateral relations caused by the Republican government that preceded him to the advances that had been achieved between 2014 and 2016.
"Our willingness to hold a dialogue remains intact," Rodríguez Parrilla said, adding that it is something that "we will reiterate to the next government."
A third recurring question to which the minister responded on Wednesday was whether these Biden decisions could be reversible: "Yes, they are executive measures that can be reversed in an executive manner," he said. However, he pointed out that, according to the opinion of some U.S. politicians, "it will take time and work to reverse them, and this includes even "some of those who participated and played a major role in causing the setback in the bilateral relationship."
In his appearance, the foreign minister indicated that the coercive and unilateral measures that the U.S. nation has applied for more than six decades against the island only cause "very serious isolation" to the United States, and act as a "discredit to its foreign policy."
"The next step is to continue lifting elements of the blockade, lift the blockade as a whole and let Cubans live in peace," he said.
In his opinion, the blockade is an "obsolete, failed policy, which does not contribute to the national interests" of the United States.
On January 14, the government of President Joe Biden announced the decision to remove Cuba from the State Department's list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism, a measure that Washington had maintained since January 12, 2021, when it was signed by then-President Donald Trump.
The Biden Administration also decided on Tuesday to make use of the presidential prerogative to prevent action from being taken in U.S. courts against lawsuits filed under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, and to eliminate the list of restricted Cuban entities that designates a group of institutions with which U.S. citizens and institutions are prohibited from carrying out financial transactions.
This work was translated and shared via a License CC-BY-NC
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