Bruno Rodríguez Parilla’s statements to the press on the exclusion of Cuba from the IX Summit of the Americas, in English.
At a press conference on Monday, Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodriguez Parilla, denounced the exclusion of Cuba by the United States from the preparations for the IX Summit of the Americas scheduled to be held in Los Angeles June 8-10, calling it what it is: a US manipulation of public opinion on the issue of invitations.
The Minister’s speech covered issues of the pandemic and high number of deaths in the hemisphere, including in the United States, Cuba’s Covid vaccines and the help of medical brigades in over 50 countries, Cuba’s medical scholarships for low-income Latin American, Caribbean and American youth at the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM), the Milagro operation that restored sight to millions of low-income people, the blocking of Cuba from acquiring amplatzer pediatric catheterization devices, the tragic consequences of the blockade against Cuban children because of those effects, the deprivations that Cubans have suffered during the pandemic because of the hardening of sanctions, migration, and the daily cost of the U.S. sanctions its economy, among other topics.
What is the Summit of the Americas?
From the website of the Summit of the Americas, defining its function as a regional conference:
"The Summits of the Americas are institutionalized gatherings of the heads of state and government of the Western Hemisphere where leaders discuss common policy issues, affirm shared values and commit to concerted actions at the national and regional level to address continuing and new challenges faced in the Americas."
The Minister’s statement on Monday:
“Thank you very much, I thank you all for your presence. I must denounce that the government of the United States has decided to exclude the Republic of Cuba from the preparations for the IX Summit of the Americas to be held in Los Angeles from June 8 to 10, and is currently exerting extreme pressure on numerous governments of the region that privately and respectfully oppose such exclusion.
The U.S. government is misleading public opinion and the governments of the hemisphere by claiming that it has not yet decided on the invitations. I respectfully urge Secretary of State Blinken to say honestly whether or not Cuba will be invited to the IX Summit of the Americas.
A main axis, according to the preparations for the event, will be health and I must inform our people and international public opinion that at this time negotiations are being conducted in an opaque manner, with many neoliberal elements and with many shortcomings, in relation to the real needs of the peoples with respect to the Covid-19 pandemic, to the structural causes of precarious health systems that led to tragic consequences and caused an extremely high number of deaths in our hemisphere, including in the United States of America, and which evades substantial cooperation and basic financing to be able to address those consequences, a plan, a so-called Plan of Action on Health and Resilience of the Americas until 2030, is being negotiated at this time in an opaque manner.
I must say that these negotiations are being held in an obscure manner with the exclusion of Cuba and other member states of the Pan American Health Organization that are participating in these processes in contravention of their own mandates.
Cuba, always in a modest but altruistic and persistent manner, has provided the possibilities of international cooperation in the field of health that is recognized worldwide. The Latin American Covid vaccines are Cuban, the medical brigades that attended the Covid emergency in the region, in the hemisphere, in more than 50 countries of the planet, have been Cuban.
The Cuban medical presence in the face of natural disasters and previous epidemics, the provision of tens of thousands of medical scholarships for low-income Latin American, Caribbean and American youth, the existence of the Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana, the Milagro operation that restored sight to millions of low-income people, Cuba’s capacity to establish cooperation, transfer state-of-the-art technology, provide pharmaceutical products, vaccines and innovative treatments, the ability to share protocols and advanced medicines in the field of health, would make it convenient and would benefit our peoples if they were taken into account in this process.
With the United States itself, Cuba has supported and proposed on numerous occasions cooperation actions in the field of health. I remember in the case of Haiti at various times, particularly after hurricanes and earthquakes, in El Salvador, in Pakistan in disaster situations. We offered and established health cooperation with the United States in Liberia during the Ebola epidemic and with other countries in West Africa. When the terrible events of September 11, 2001, the Republic of Cuba immediately offered medical cooperation, we offered plasma for the wounded, we offered antibiotics in the face of Anthrax threats, we supplied antibiotics to the then U.S. Interests Section in Havana, we offered equipment and personnel to use the ultramicroanalytical system developed by Cuba to carry out mass screenings in the face of the Anthrax outbreak as well. When the devastating Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, Cuba also offered medical personnel and baptized its contingent, which today is known worldwide, with the name of the young American fighter for Cuban independence, Henry Reeve.
American students have studied and are studying medicine in Cuba and in view of the recent and curious offer of the government of the United States of a million vaccines against covid, at a time when the country had already vaccinated its entire population, we offered the government of the United States to develop a triangular project with vaccines and health personnel from both countries for the benefit of the needy nations of our region, which to date has had no response from the U.S. government.
The United States sends soldiers and not doctors, its pharmaceutical transnationals have profited obscenely with the Covid pandemic. The mechanism that the United States promoted, Covax, has not been able to satisfy its objectives.
The U.S. government has also made political use of its vaccines. In relation to Cuba, it maintained the blockade, which was intensified to extreme levels during the pandemic, and took Cuba as a tactical ally. The blockade prevented the arrival in Cuba and the acquisition of pulmonary ventilators at times of greatest demand, hindered the acquisition of materials and supplies indispensable for the industrial scale-up of Cuban vaccines against Covid and it was clearly established during the days of the oxygen supply crisis in our country, at the peak of the pandemic as a result of a breakdown of our main plant, that in order to import oxygen from the United States, specific licenses are required and exceptions to the blockade must be met.
Cuba never received any offer from the U.S. government in relation to the pandemic. This is not surprising because the ruthless and cruel application of the blockade in the field of health has been one of the most questionable and notorious elements of the blockade against Cuba. I always remember, I carry in my heart the cases of Cuban children affected by the blockade, some at the cost of not having the appropriate treatment or suffering pain and prolonged hospitalization. I remember the denunciations at the United Nations General Assembly for the prohibition of Cuba from acquiring amplatzer pediatric catheterization devices. I remember the cases of Cuban children whose eyes, affected by retinoblastoma due to the effects of the blockade, we were able to save but not preserve. I remember the cases of children, one of whom died recently at the age of 13 with bone cancer, who could not receive extensible prostheses.
The blockade is suffocating our economy and has also been accompanied, in a shameless manner, by a campaign of the United States government against Cuba’s international medical cooperation and pressures against third countries to try to deprive them of it.
Another main axis of the Summit that is intended to exclude Cuba is that of emigration. A document with a long title: Letter of Understandings on Migratory Management and Protection of Migrants, is also being negotiated behind the backs of international, US, Latin American and Canadian public opinion. It is a code that seeks to force Latin American and Caribbean states to repress migration, to absorb the migrants that the United States decides to process outside its territory, that incorporates elements of the racist, xenophobic and plundering American vision of our migrants, that does not address in any way the real causes of migration but that does, however, offer palliatives, stimuli, financing and economic incentives to the countries that send migrants to the United States and closer to its border in order to attenuate this process.
With Cuba, however, its recipe is the extreme tightening of the blockade, causing hardship to Cuban families, the application of the stark memorandum of Undersecretary Mallory: depressing wages, causing hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government, is the U.S. recipe in relation to Cuba.
The blockade is the fundamental cause of the problems of our economy and the policy of maximum pressure applied by President Donald Trump and applied today with equal rigor by President Joseph Biden, including the 243 extreme measures of recent years or the brutal escalation that occurred in 2019, are determinants of the problems faced daily by our people, the deprivations they suffer, the shortages, the blackouts, the queues, the difficulties in transportation, the prices.
I am now releasing a new figure with the calculations up to the first half of 2021 of the damages caused by the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the government of the United States against Cuba. The accumulated damages at current prices total 150.41 billion dollars. Taking into account the depreciation of gold in the international market, these damages amount to 1,326,432 million dollars, 1 million million plus 326,432 million dollars for a small and underdeveloped economy like the Cuban one, more than 12 million dollars a day, more than 365 million dollars a month is the impact of the blockade and of course this reality is also reflected in the daily life of all our families and of course it is also one of the causes of emigration from Cuba, which, as everywhere else, is fundamentally economic; But in the face of this fact, paradoxically and with deep cynicism, the conduct of the United States government in migratory matters has been to cut off the regular channels of migration of Cubans to that country, to cut off the regular channels, to cut off the safe channels and to prevent the migration and travel of Cubans to the United States.
This policy is different from that of any other country on the planet; it is selective and discriminatory. The U.S. government fails to comply with its legal obligation, according to the immigration agreements signed and in force, to grant a minimum of 20,000 visas per year to migrants. Under incredible pretexts, it has closed consular services in Havana, forcing Cubans to travel to Guyana to obtain migrant visas with exorbitant prices imposed by that trip and the requirements demanded there, in addition to a long stay. It has also cut off the channels of travel to and from third countries, it follows a policy of imposing obstacles on transit countries, of reducing visas for Cuban citizens.
The U.S. government has also severely restricted flights to Cuba, particularly out of Havana, shortened visa terms and pursues a policy of denying visas to Cuban travelers. What is new is that in recent months it has imposed, on third countries, the imposition of transit visas discriminating against Cuban travelers and forcing them to reduce the number of such visas.
On the other hand, with its policy, its propaganda, its legal instruments and its own migratory practice, the government of the United States encourages illegal migration and treats irregular Cuban migrants in a privileged manner and with crude political manipulation. The Cuban Adjustment Act, which also costs lives, is in full force.
Its misleading propaganda and persistent political manipulation in digital networks, particularly some accounts of the State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Havana, constitute a constant encouragement to irregular, disorderly and unsafe migration.
With this policy, the U.S. government deceives Cubans who wish to emigrate. It is not the transit countries, it is the U.S. government that has imposed the difficulties that our travelers and migrants suffer, even to arrive or transit regularly to third countries.
It is paradoxical because, nevertheless, we have just had official migration talks that are, without a doubt, a positive sign. The recognition made by the U.S. government of the full validity of the agreements is undoubtedly correct and positive. The acknowledgement made by the U.S. delegation to these migration talks that its government has been failing to comply with the migration agreements, that it has discontinued its compliance and the announcement that it wishes to resume the observance, application and compliance with said agreements are positive signs. So is the resumption of consular services in Havana, although it has been said that they are going to be extremely limited, which is totally unfounded, but this incoherent, contradictory policy of tightening the blockade and wanting to restrict migration, of pretending to discuss these issues hemispherically and excluding Cuba, which would have much to say about them and therefore, I ask the government of the United States, when will they comply with the obligation of the 20,000 visas? How many visas for Cuban migrants will be granted in the year 2022, why will the great majority of them have to continue traveling to Guyana, how long will it be necessary to travel to a third country to obtain migrant or traveler visas, and what will happen with family reunification?
A third axis of the Summit of the Americas is that of democracy and human rights. In the shady negotiations taking place today, the intention is to impose that the Organization of American States (OAS) certifies all elections in the region. This is the same OAS of the coup in Bolivia and it is the intention of the United States historically responsible for coups d’état in our region and also responsible for the coups of recent decades against progressive governments.
How can there be a summit focused on democracy, having excluded certain Latin American and Caribbean countries at the arbitrary whim of the host? Can anyone think of anything more anti-democratic? The blockade of Cuba is a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of Cubans, of Cuban families in the United States and also of Americans.
The United States has no moral authority whatsoever to set itself up as a model in this matter or to criticize others. Health rights, the population below the poverty level, the right to education, to food, repressive policies against emigration, the lack of protection and attention to low-income sectors, the repression of minorities, the restriction of union rights, the exploitation and repression of native peoples and cultures, the lack of gender equality, racism and discrimination against African Americans, police brutality and the more than 1,000 deaths in the past year of people shot by police, labor exploitation in private prisons, violence and firearms, repression of reproductive rights and family planning, wars, secret prisons, kidnappings, extrajudicial executions, and the use of torture.
The United States is the only country that is not a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. According to the Census on Poverty in the United States, published by the Organization in defense of children in 2019, more than 10 million children, 14.4%, lived in poverty, almost half in extreme poverty. 71% of American children living in poverty are black, 4.4 million children without care or health insurance. According to the U.S. institution Juveniles Sentenced to Life Without Parole and the Juvenile Justice Center, there are currently 2,600 prisoners in the United States serving life sentences of life imprisonment since they were minors. According to another U.S. institution, the Children’s Defense Fund, there are 10,000 U.S. minors under 18 years of age in U.S. prisons. The American Civil Liberties Union, also in the United States, reports that there are 60,000 people under the age of 18 deprived of liberty in the United States. In the year 2021, and on average in previous years, there have been between 600,000 and 700,000 arrests of minors in the United States per year, according to the Children’s Defense Fund.
The U.S. government will be able to show little about democracy in this incomplete Summit, after the last presidential campaign, the last presidential elections, the assault to the Capitol, the calls of politicians to sedition and the corruption of politics. I offer the U.S. government to discuss these issues bilaterally, multilaterally or even at the Summit itself and ask the State Department if they will allow civil society in the hemisphere to participate without exclusions or will it be those on the OAS list, which are non-governmental organizations funded by the U.S. government, who will be allowed access to Los Angeles.
Will environmentalists, disarmament activists, including nuclear disarmament, pacifists, minorities, trade unionists, feminists, indigenous and popular movements be able to attend? I ask directly whether non-governmental organizations, whether representatives of Cuba’s rich civil society will receive visas to allow them to attend.
The IX Summit of the Americas could still be an opportunity if, in an inclusive manner and on equal terms for all countries, it would debate, without exclusions and with sincere commitment, the most pressing problems affecting the continent.
Cuba supports genuine efforts to foster dialogue, ties and cooperation between our America, the Bolivarian and Martí America, and the United States, between the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the government of the United States.
The anticipated exclusion of Cuba would constitute a serious historical setback in relation to the two previous summits, in which Cuba participated on an equal footing, with its firm, truthful, but always serene, respectful and constructive voice. It was invited as a result of the firm demand that many governments of Latin America and the Caribbean are now making to the government of the United States to prevent the exclusion that I denounce.
It would be surprising for President Joseph Biden to depart from the policy of the government of which he was already vice president and which for the first time invited Cuba to a Summit, and even more astonishing and paradoxical, to depart from the policy of Republican President Donald Trump who also invited Cuba to the Lima Summit. He will have to explain himself, I suppose, to his constituents.
The host country of the Summit has no right to impose arbitrary exclusions. It would be a politically motivated decision with no support other than false accusations and the use of double standards to hide the true nature of this exclusion, linked to the internal and electoral politics of the United States.
We support the firm and legitimate decisions of the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of Nicaragua to withdraw from the OAS and the Summit. We oppose the exclusion of any country or the participation of illegitimate and spurious representatives imposed by the United States government.
The U.S. government should understand that the region of Latin America and the Caribbean has changed forever and that there is no room for the reinstatement of the Monroe Doctrine and the Pan-Americanist vision against which José Martí fought and against which we will continue to fight with firmness and loyalty.
Cuba, which firmly defends unity within the diversity of our America, is deeply grateful today to the peoples and governments that maintain a courageous, dignified and supportive position demanding that the government of the United States not exclude Cuba from the Ninth Summit of the Americas.
Thank you very much.”
