Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel denounced today the effects of the U.S. blockade on the population’s health. During the First International Colloquium “Fidel: Legacy and Future.”
Before the 1,500 participants at the event, the president offered concrete figures on the humanitarian impact of the economic embargo: 98,500 surgeries are on hold. Only 30% of basic medicines are available, and 67,000 infants still lack up-to-date immunizations.
“The immense suffering of Cuban families is confirmed by statistics. Deaths caused by the lack of medicines that the country produced and distributed free of charge for decades,” he added.
Díaz-Canel also denounced the impact of the energy blockade. Which prevents fuel from reaching the island, due to the executive orders imposed by the Trump administration.
“If we had the 1,400 megawatts of distributed generation that we have recovered with enormous effort available every day. We could significantly alleviate the blackouts,” he stated.
The Cuban president emphasized that, faced with this reality, resistance is not passive but creative.
“In the midst of the crisis, we developed our own agreements that allowed us to face the pandemic as survivors. We have known how to turn scarcity into opportunity,” he stressed.
Díaz-Canel recalled the method bequeathed by Fidel Castro for confronting adversity:
“Fidel didn’t leave recipes, he left a method. When he formulated his speech of October 16th, 1953. With the five revolutionary laws, he had developed a program that diagnosed the structural ills of an underdeveloped and dependent economy,” he noted.
“That method—rigorous diagnosis, programmatic proposal, and decisive action—was repeated at every stage: in the Sierra Maestra. In 1960 with the nationalization of the subsoil, and in 1961 demonstrating that an armed and conscious people could defeat imperialism,” he added.
He also called on young people to take up the revolutionary mantle. On the intellectuals present to spread the truth about Cuba and transform solidarity into concrete actions.
“In a world where the mainstream media fabricates lies. You have the responsibility to be the heroes of the reality that Cubans live,” he stated.
At the same time, he reaffirmed Cuba’s commitment to defending its sovereignty and building a more just world in the face of imperialist aggression.
With information from Prensa Latina
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