Cuba demands the end of the blockade
The anti-imperialist March of the Combatant People
The Cuban National Assembly of People’s Power, the highest legal and constitutional authority in the nation, elected directly and indirectly by the people, unanimously approved on December 18, 2024, a Declaration calling for an end to the sixty-five-year-long blockade of the government of the United States against Cuba. It declared:
The demand of this National Assembly of People's Power, in representation 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 the millions of dollars in funds from the federal budget to subvert internal order and feed disinformation operations against Cuba, and that it remove our country from the arbitrary and unilateral list of State sponsors of terrorism.
The Declaration observes that the U.S. government has in recent years maintained a policy of identifying and persecuting the principal sources of income of the Cuban economy, including the persecution of entities in third countries, such as shipping, transportation and insurance companies and banks and financial entities, with particular emphasis on those related to the supplying of fuel. The stated objective is “to depress the economy and wages, to generate material shortages, to impair public services, to provoke dissatisfaction in the population, and to generate discouragement and despair, with the ignoble purpose of bending us and subverting the constitutional order legitimately established by the Cuban people in the exercise of their right to self-determination.” The Declaration described the U.S. policy as a “true economic war,” carried out in accordance with the strategy of unconventional war formulated in U.S. manuals, in violation of the principles of the UN Charter. It characterized the policy as dishonest and cynical.
The Declaration maintains that the blockade has been “the principal obstacle for the economic and social development of Cuba,” and that its intensification in recent years has generated shortages without precedent, provoking an emigration that damages the Cuban family, separating mothers and fathers from their sons and daughters. It further asserts: “No country in the world, even with economies far more prosperous and robust than that of Cuba, could face such ruthless, asymmetrical and prolonged aggression, without a considerable cost to its population's standard of living, its stability and social justice.”
Nevertheless, the Declaration affirms, at the price of great sacrifices, Cuba will never renounce its determination to resist and overcome the serious obstacles imposed by the U.S. policy. Cuba affirms its “determination to continue advancing along the path of Socialism, with or without a blockade.” It assures the international community and solidarity movements and parliaments of the world that they can trust that the people of Cuba will continue to resist and will prevail.
Cuba remains, as it has been since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, disposed to establish normal relations with the United States. “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.”
The Declaration concluded by convoking all Cubans to the March of the Combatant People on December 20.
According to the Cuban daily Granma, more than 500,000 participated on December 20 in the March of the Combatant People, which was initiated at the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Tribunal by the Havana seawall, adjacent to the U.S. Embassy. At the beginning of the March, President Díaz-Canel addressed the marchers.
The Cuban President began with the observation that the Biden Administration has continued with the intensification of the blockade that was initiated by Trump. “The current U.S. administration. . . has done nothing to move away from the policy of reinforcement of the blockade and of economic asphyxiation of Cuba, left as a legacy by the Republican administration that returns to the Oval Office in January. Applying [Trump’s] 243 additional measures and maintaining Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism, Biden followed with discipline and cruelty the policy that Trump approved during his term.”
Díaz-Canel noted that there have been numerous calls in recent weeks from personalities in the USA and the world for the removal of Cuba from the spurious list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism, inasmuch as Cuba should never have been placed on such a list. The accusation that Cuba is terrorist is false, but it is doubly immoral “when the accusation comes from U.S. territory, where paramilitary groups—that organize, promote and finance terrorist actions against social and economic structures in Cuba—are currently being trained.”
Díaz-Canel observed that some enemies of the Revolution located in the United States have disseminated in social media the idea that the march is against the people of the United States. This is false, he declared. “Against the American people we do not have the slightest feeling of hatred or animosity. To the noble citizens of that country, we express our respect, with our hand always extended to strengthen the bonds of brotherhood between the two peoples. It is the same hand that we have extended to all the governments of the United States, from the triumph of the Revolution until today, proposing a serious, respectful relationship on equal terms.”
The March, Díaz-Canel clarified, is against imperialism, “against North American imperialism and its intention to impose itself on Cuba, by force or seduction.” He declared that “if the United States persists in its efforts to break our sovereignty, our independence, and our socialism, it will only find rebellion and intransigence!”
No substantial police or military presence was necessary to protect the U.S. Embassy from the marchers. As they passed by the Embassy, they did not shout slogans, hostile or otherwise, toward the building. Quite the contrary, the March possessed a celebratory mood.
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