The Workers’ Party of Ireland condemn the attempts by the U.S. to capitalise on the recent protests in Santiago de Cuba in a further attempt to destabilize and overthrow Cuba’s socialist system.

There is no denying that the situation in Cuba is extremely difficult and has been for some time. And it is quite understandable that shortages of basic necessities cause unrest and dissatisfaction amongst the general population. However, it is also clear that these shortages are a direct consequence of the United States’ ‘long war’ against Cuba which has included attempts at military intervention, assassination attempts against prominent Communist Party officials, and the various economic and political sanctions that constitute the ongoing blockade. U.S. funded NGO’s such as the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID are also part of an ongoing and well funded propaganda campaign to undermine the socialist system and with it the independence and sovereignty – limited though it may be – of the Republic of Cuba. The ultimate goal is to destabilize and overthrow the socialist system which would see Cuba revert from a sovereign, independent state to its pre-revolution status of holiday island for wealthy U.S. elites. Based on these facts alone the denial of complicity in the recent unrest by the Biden Administration is contemptible.

The United States has maintained this blockade based on the risible pretext of ‘human rights violations’ . However, the fact remains that the only human rights violations on the island of Cuba occur at Guantanamo Bay, the military base controlled by the U.S. Additionally, while the current hardships faced by the Cuban people including shortages of food, fuel and medical supplies can indeed be characterised as violations of human rights, these too are a direct consequence of the blockade imposed by the United States. In spite of all these externally imposed hardships Cuban people have for seven decades refused to bend the knee to the dictat of the imperialists.

Behind the ‘humanitarian’ rhetoric the stark fact remains that what the imperialists cannot abide above all is any serious exercise in independence and sovereignty by any nation-state. The ‘humanitarian interventions’ of the United States across the Middle-East, Africa, Latin America, Yugoslavia and Eastern Europe are in essence indistinguishable from the blockade on Cuba. However in the case of Cuba the imperialists are happy to slowly strangle the independent Cuban Republic with the Cuban people as collateral damage. This surely gets less headlines than the usual policy of carpet bombing recalcitrant third world states but both the underlying motivations and end goals are roughly the same.

The blockade is not simply an attack on the Communist Party but an attack on the Cuban people and their existence as a sovereign, independent nation-state. And the fact that the sovereignty and independence of the Cuban state and the socialist system led by the Communist Party are inextricably linked should not divert attention from this basic truth.

Cuba, si! Yanquis no!

Hands off Cuba!

No mas bloqueo!