Statement from the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society on Ongoing Imperial Interventions Attempting to Undermine the Sovereignty of Cuba
This morning, members of ACFS across Australia awoke to the news of subversive actions against Cuba's sovereignty by actors working on behalf, and at the behest, of the United States. Accompanying media campaigns, calling for a humanitarian intervention in Cuba under the banner SOS Cuba or SOS Matanzas, are yet another example of targeted misinformation aiming to undermine the sovereignty and independence of the Cuban nation. After the embarrassing recent failures of the USAID, National Endowment for Democracy and other US State Department and Central Intelligence Agency funded propaganda campaigns, such as the San Isidro Movement and ZunZuneo, the United States and its puppets in Cuba are once again attempting to undermine the revolutionary independence of the Cuban people.
Taking advantage of the worsening of pandemic conditions across the Americas and the world, a situation worsened in Cuba by the terrible effects of the criminal sixty-year United States blockade, is particularly galling. However, it comes as no surprise. As the US State Department have said themselves: "The majority of Cubans support [the Revolution]… The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. If the above are accepted or cannot be successfully countered, it follows that every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” This remains the policy of a United States government — regardless of political stripes — that is intent on crushing movements for liberation in their own backyard and beyond. Cuba, as a beacon of hope in a neocolonial world order, deserves the strongest possible worldwide solidarity.
The ACFS firmly condemns these terrorist actions against the Cuban Revolution, its government and its people, as well as the ongoing criminal actions of the United States government. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel is at the vanguard, taking to the streets with fellow Party members in declaring that Cuba is a sovereign nation and that the streets belong to the revolutionaries. As the President noted “those who are encouraging demonstration in Cuba, don’t want health for Cuba… their principles, their model, is the neoliberal model, it’s the privatisation of health services, the privatisation of medical services, privatisation of education… we’re not going to allow any counterrevolutionary, mercenary, sold to the US, sold to empire, receiving money from US agencies.”
The ACFS is heartened by the response of thousands of Cubans taking to the streets in response to these counterrevolutionary elements. The ACFS lends the Cuban people its strongest possible solidarity and will continue to actively support the fight against COVID-19 and the cessation of the criminal United States blockade. ACFS demands the end of the criminal US blockade on Cuba! At a time in which the world is suffering from the effects of COVID-19, Cuba has developed five vaccines and has committed to supporting the least-vaccinated nations of Latin America, Africa, Asia and the world. The genocidal United States blockade — mandated by a regime that has sat back and watched at least 600,000 of its own people die during the pandemic — has prevented Cuba from syringes and other basic medical supplies for administering them. It is time for the world to ask: who is the criminal here?
In solidarity,
Australia-Cuba Friendship Society
12 July 2021
#LaCalleEsDeLosRevolucionarios #CubaIsNotAlone #UnblockCuba