Image via the Communist Party of Cuba
Declaration of the Cuban National Assembly of People's Power, translated from the Spanish:
The Fourth Ordinary Session of the National Assembly of People's Power of the Republic of Cuba, in its Tenth Legislature, begins at a time when our people are facing, at a very high cost, the consequences of the unprecedented intensification of the cruel and inhumane blockade of the Government of the United States against Cuba, and its policy of maximum pressure and economic asphyxiation.
In the course of the past year, the United States Government has not only maintained the laws and provisions related to the embargo against Cuba and the traditional practices for its implementation, but its actions have also been aimed at identifying and pursuing, surgically and through a perfected coercive design, the main sources of income of the Cuban economy, in addition to the application of the provisions of the so-called Helms-Burton Act, including those that stipulate its extraterritorial scope.
The declared and historical objective remains the same, to depress the economy and wages, to generate material shortages and damage to public services, to provoke dissatisfaction and despair in the population, with the ignoble purpose of breaking us and subverting the constitutional order legitimately established by the Cuban people through the exercise of their right to self-determination.
Among the most severe measures are Cuba's continued continued inclusion on the U.S. State Department's unilateral and arbitrary list of countries allegedly sponsoring terrorism; the possibility of taking action in U.S. courts to bring claims under Title III of the Cuban Democratic Freedom and Solidarity Act (Helms-Burton Act); sanctions or threats of sanctions against shipping companies, carriers, insurers or reinsurers involved in the supply of fuel to Cuba; the intense and thorough persecution of Cuban financial transactions and the consequent obstacles to the provision of basic resources to the population and the functioning of the economy; the defamatory campaigns against the solidarity cooperation that Cuba offers, particularly in the field of health; as well as the continuity of other unilateral lists, which entail the application of coercive measures against our country.
The United States Government sustains this real economic war with methods of unconventional warfare and systematic disinformation operations, which seek to hold the Cuban Government responsible for the consequences and damage caused by the blockade itself, which constitutes a dishonest act of extreme cynicism, coming from the same Government that applies a policy of premeditated asphyxiation of the Cuban economy.
The world knows what they were able to do against Cuba between 2019 and January 2021, generating unprecedented shortages and an increase in emigration that harmed the Cuban family. Anyone who does not recognize the economic, commercial and financial blockade and its entire network of unilateral coercive measures as the main obstacle to Cuba's economic and social development is not being truthful. No country in the world, even with economies much more prosperous and robust than Cuba's, could face such ruthless, asymmetrical and prolonged aggression, without a considerable cost to the standard of living of its population, its stability and social justice, which we will never renounce despite the blockade.
Our people, the main victims of this policy, are well aware of the intentions of successive United States Governments with regard to Cuba. However, at the price of great sacrifices, they have been able to resist and overcome the serious obstacles that this policy of hostility generates. That has been and will be our determination.
The U.S. blockade against Cuba violates international law. It is contrary to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations. It constitutes a violation of the right to peace, development and self-determination of a sovereign state. It also violates the sovereign rights of other states, due to its extraterritorial nature.
It is, in its essence and its objectives, an act of unilateral aggression, a permanent threat to the stability of the country. It qualifies as a crime against humanity, an act of genocide and a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of all Cubans. It is a cruel policy of punishment that has no justification whatsoever.
The demand of this National Assembly of People's Power, on behalf of the people of Cuba, is that the blockade of the United States be lifted once and for all, that the government of that country cease the persecution of our economic and financial relations with the rest of the world, that it eliminate millions of dollars in funds from the federal budget used to subvert internal order and feed disinformation operations against Cuba, and that the country be removed from the arbitrary and unilateral list of state sponsors of terrorism.
That is also the growing call of the American people, of the most diverse actors in all corners of the world and of the international community reflected in the 32 resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on the "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba".
The policy of blockade and subversion against our country is not supported by the majority of the American people, as shown, among other things, by more than a hundred resolutions approved by cities in that country demanding an end to the economic, commercial and financial blockade and that Cuba be removed from the list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
As the highest authorities of our government have expressed, Cuba maintains its willingness to build a civilized and respectful relationship with the government of the United States, despite our differences. We will continue to be open to exchange and work with all counterparts and interlocutors of U.S. society who wish to move forward with Cuba in the search for a mutually beneficial relationship. Their government knows that a respectful and civilized relationship with Cuba is in the best interest of the American people.
We will not cease in denouncing the blockade, with the conviction that this criminal policy will have to be eliminated once and for all. We will defend our independence, sovereignty and self-determination and we will firmly and forcefully confront every act of interference in the internal affairs of our people and every aggression.
Great are the challenges that our people face in the desire to build an increasingly better, more prosperous country where greater social justice is achieved. In this endeavour, we reaffirm the determination to continue advancing along the path of Socialism, with or without blockade.
The National Assembly of People's Power, in reiterating its most energetic and resounding condemnation of the maintenance of the criminal policy of economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on us by the government of the United States, calls on the international community, solidarity movements and parliaments of the world to make a common front in denouncing the hardening of the economic war, the operations to discredit Cuba and the major attempts to interfere in our internal affairs. You can trust that the people of Cuba will once again resist and prevail.
On the eve of a new anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution that made us truly free, independent and sovereign, and which we will never renounce, we call on all Cubans to the March of the Combatant People on December 20.
Homeland or Death! We will win!
This work was translated and shared via a License CC-BY-NC
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