blockade

Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs speaks to the UN Security Council – US violates international law and sovereign rights

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From the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores

Statement by H.E. Mr. Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, at the General Debate of the Eighty First Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. New York, September 26, 2026.

Mr. President of the General Assembly;

Madam Deputy Secretary-General:

In approximately three hours, exactly 66 years will have elapsed since Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, in a memorable speech from this rostrum, said, and I quote: “Let the philosophy of plunder disappear, and the philosophy of war will have disappeared! Let the colonies disappear; let the exploitation of countries by monopolies disappear; and then humanity will have reached a true stage of progress!”.

However, the advance of expansionism, usurpation, conquest as well as military and economic aggressions are alarming. The US government aspiration to impose peace through force is absurd and unrealizable. The fundamental pillars of International Law and the United Nations Organization, such as the sovereign equality among States, are under permanent attack.

The genocidal crime of Zionism against the Palestinian people; the pirate attacks against vessels and the extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean Sea and some areas in the Pacific; the military aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and the war against the Islamic Republic of Iran are new expressions of this atrocity.

They are also a reflection of the crisis of identity and relevance imposed on this United Nations Organization, and even on the General Assembly, the most universal, democratic and representative body of the international community.

We are convinced of the indispensable need to preserve and strengthen the United Nations, as we make it more democratic and effective; and of placing it closer to the peoples.

As is well known, in Cuba we are facing a multidimensional aggression from the United States government; a permanent, abusive and ruthless hostility that has lasted for almost seven decades already. Since January, 2026, this aggression has strengthened and become crueler and more dangerous, with the imposition of an energy blockade that, by resorting to intimidation and coercion, prevents any country from exporting fuel to Cuba -an equivalent to a naval blockade-, which is classified by International Law as an act of war.

Through the adoption of successive measures, the government of the United States has been applying new prohibitions on all countries with regard to products and services that cannot be exported or transported to Cuba. More than 7 thousand containers remain stranded in different ports; many of them are loaded with foodstuffs, medicines and medical devices or have even been paid for by Cuban private companies.

It is an unusual and unprecedented action. A superpower unilaterally deprives all States of their right to export the commodities that they wish to the country that they wish and continuously and comprehensively violates freedom of trade and navigation.

Added to this is the intimidation of entrepreneurs of different countries so that they abandon, against their will, their investments and businesses in Cuba; the obstacles and tricks to prevent the arrival of absolutely legitimate commercial shipments; the pressures to prevent the entry of visitors and tourists; and the efforts aimed at restricting as much as possible Cuba’s legitimate access to financing, technology and markets.

The United States has gone as far as to exert unsuspected pressures on sovereign governments so that they renounce the medical services they requested from us for the benefit of their respective populations and which are offered altruistically by Cuban professionals, because the US government is opposed to such cooperation, regardless of the impact and harm this may cause to those populations if they are deprived of free, quality medical care; that is to say, deprived of an elemental human right. On Thursday last, while this General Assembly was in session, the State Department convened a humiliating meeting, specifically with the States that are the recipients of this cooperation, in order to exert pressure and make threats.

According to the Secretary of State, the US official policy is to shut down every relief valve, block every possible way out and eliminate any form of survival for Cuba.

The impact of such an iron-clad and ruthless siege has a human face. The economic warfare is aimed against the people. It harms the Cuban people as a whole. It takes a toll on human lives. It causes individual and collective pain; it causes anguish. It is not “collateral damage”. It is a policy deliberately designed to wound the deepest sensibilities of Cuban families; disturb their wellbeing and hurt the dignity of the people.

It is an act of collective punishment; a crime proscribed by International Humanitarian Law. The obvious short-term goal pursued by such policy is to induce a humanitarian crisis in Cuba, which is also a crime.

The government of the United States and the US State Department have been forced to recognize the suffering inflicted on the Cuban people, but they have the impudence and cynicism to insist in putting the blame on the government of Cuba. The executioner blames the victim.

They are following the formula recommended by the State Department since 1960 in the infamous Mallory Memorandum, which established as an official policy, [in] force up until today, the overthrowing of the Cuban government through the economic suffocation and the extreme suffering of the Cuban people out of material shortages, hunger and desperation.

A few days ago, the President of the United States declared in this podium that Cuba was ‘a failed State’. If that were the case, why did they have to impose a fuel blockade? Why did they impose secondary sanctions? Why do they have to threaten, persecute and exert pressures on every State on the planet? He also recognized that his government is putting on Cuba the biggest pressure ever applied against any other State. A few months before, he had said that “all that is left is to go in and destroy everything.”

The threat of the use of military force against Cuba persists. This behavior is a violation of International Law and an infringement of the San Francisco Charter.

Should it materialize, it would be a major crime. It would cause the death of Cuban and American youths as well as huge destruction. We expect it never happens. Cuba will exercise, with utmost resolve and energy, its legitimate right to defend itself. This aggression is being accompanied by a brutal media and cognitive warfare aimed, not only against the Cuban people, but also against the US citizens and the international public opinion. It is characterized by its gross and brazen attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of Cuba, which likewise is another international crime.

We are often asked what is the US pursuing with such an aggressive behavior, and the question usually surprises us, because the representatives of that government have outrightly declared their purpose to take Cuba, control the country and dominate the economy. In other words, nullify, through an aggression or economic suffocation, the national sovereignty which several generations of Cubans have struggled for since the nineteenth century -first to achieve it, and later on, after conquering the full freedom in 1959, to tenaciously defend it against the biggest risks, including that of a holocaust.

The US behavior relies on the fallacy, proclaimed early on this year, that Cuba is an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and the foreign policy of the United States -a nonsense shamelessly repeated by that government. In a futile attempt to substantiate such an assertion, the US government inundates its huge communication platforms with false claims using the spokespersons and publications it hires and pays, taking advantage of the increasing control exercised by its government over them. The US President himself repeated it a few days ago in this room.

Any minimally informed observer would understand the unrealistic and evil intention to portray a relatively small and developing nation like Cuba, with a modest economic performance, as a threat to the biggest nuclear, military, technological and economic power in the planet.

This Organization and its member States have abundant evidence of the fact that we are a peace-loving country; of the efforts of Cuba in favor of international cooperation, understanding and the peaceful settlement of disputes as well as of the active role that we have played in support of the United Nations.

Cuba is not a threat, the blockade is!

Cuba is not a threat; the blockade certainly is!

We have always been and we will continue to be ready to engage in a dialogue with the government of the United States to try to find a solution to bilateral differences, on the basis of responsibility, respect, sovereign equality, the observance of International Law, without any interference in the internal affairs of States and without preconditions.

We are open to trade and business relations with United States companies, just as we are with those of any other country.

We are aware of the immense challenge our country faces in terms of its security, survival, the wellbeing of the people and the destiny of the homeland. We are not facing this challenge passively. We are doing it firmly and with dignity. Based on that, we are moving on in a process of changes that would lead to profound transformations of the economic and social model of the country, based on our historical experience.

On July 30 last, during the Seventh Session of the National People’s Power Assembly, President Miguel Díaz-Canel said: “In view of the complex situation I have described, how can we prevail in the construction of socialism? How could we find the material and financial resources needed to preserve the social achievements attained by the Revolution? As it already happened on former occasions, when we were faced with particularly complex situations -such as the Special Period-; when, under the guidance, first of Commander in Chief, and later of Army General Raúl Castro, the economic model was transformed to adapt it to the challenging foreign circumstances demanded by the times, under the leadership of the Party, in a collective and democratic way, in consultation with the people, without compromising the independence, the national sovereignty or the social achievements of the Revolution”, end of quote.

At that session, the National People’s Power Assembly adopted a new program, with new practices, actors and economic concepts. All of that is being done in accordance with the Constitution in force -. which was adopted through a free and universal referendum- and the conception of our socialist State of law and social justice.

As was pointed out by the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, the most important thing will be, and I quote: “the appropriate and timely implementation process, with well-defined priorities and the conscious participation of the people.”

This process relies on the strengths that we have built; the potential of our human resources and the determination to respond to the needs of the people with the greatest possible social justice, without ceasing in our efforts to defend, with utmost vigor and resolve, the sovereignty and the right to self-determination.

We know that we count on the support of the international community and the solidarity of millions, among them, an increasing number of US citizens.

That is reflected in the numerous gestures and statements in support of Cuba and against the abusive aggression. It is reflected in the fraternal material assistance received by our people, seeking to mitigate the huge damage caused to the Cuban economy and society.

That spirit of solidarity and empathy is also expressed with particular special emphasis among Cubans who reside permanently or temporarily outside the national territory and among their descendants, particularly here in the United States.

Mr. President;

We reject the Monroe Doctrine and its Corollaries as much as we refuse every attempt of imperialist militarization, intervention or domination in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region that was proclaimed as a Zone of Peace in 2014, precisely in Havana.

As a Small Island Developing State, we stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters who share a similar condition and with their warning about the worrying and inexorable advance of climate change.

It is necessary to promote a governance that makes a more intensive use of the new ICTs, particularly the disruptive technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

We reject the implementation of unilateral coercive measures. We express our support to and solidarity with each and every nation which are victim of them.

We ratify our solidarity with the Government of National Reconciliation and Unity of Nicaragua.

We reiterate our support to the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence.

The sister nations of Africa and the Caribbean deserve a fair and differentiated treatment, as well as the reparations for the horrors of colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

We reaffirm our solidarity with the Saharan people and their right to self-determination.

We ratify our support to the “One China” principle.

We strongly believe that the current trend of international relations of disrespect for International Law and the United Nations, the imposition of the unilateral will of the mightiest over other countries by means of intimidation and coercion, is dangerous and unsustainable. The law of the jungle cannot be the future of humanity.

To prevent those practices, in addition of promoting peace and justice, the preceding generations founded the United Nations and for decades developed and tried to enrich its activity. Let us recover its role today, when we are perhaps in time to do so, before the Organization goes down in history as an unrealized dream of great promises.

In the year of the centennial birthday of Fidel Castro Ruz, the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, let us be confident, as he was, that if we struggle with resolve, a better world will be possible.

Homeland or Death!

We Shall Overcome!

https://news.un%5Bdot%5Dorg/en/story/2026/09/1168458 — video

https://www.facebook%5Bdot%5Dcom/CubaMINREX/posts/-statement-by-he-mr-bruno-rodr%C3%ADguez-parrilla-minister-of-foreign-affairs-of-the-/1538902638275672/

Also
https://www.c-span%5Bdot%5Dorg/program/washington-journal/cuban-deputy-foreign-minister-carlos-fernndez-de-cosso-on-us-cuba-relations/685796
Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío talked about the Trump administration’s approach to U.S.-Cuba relations, September 27, 2026

Cuba Is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State

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From UNAC / Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad
May 22, 2026

We Need to Build a Unified Resistance to Sanctions and War

The statement below is a response to the ongoing blockade against Cuba and the propaganda derived from it.   We hope you will endorse this statement, but we also hope you will commit to emergency actions if the Trump Administration follows through with their threats to invade Cuba.

At this critical junction in world history when the Cuban Revolution is being threatened by US hegemon, it is essential to come to its defense. Cuba is the hope of humanity.

  • Sign On to  “Cuba is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State”
  • Register your Emergency Action

We defend Cuba by combating the intentionally negative stereotyping of a failed state. The problems Cuba faces under blockade conditions should not be portrayed in such alarmist ways that it reinforces Washington’s propaganda. We need to combat this defeatist approach.

Cuba is being sanctioned for the crime of being a good example

That Washington continues to intensify its six-decade campaign against the Cuban Revolution testifies to the island’s resilience and strength.

Washington’s regime-change campaign has taken a heavy toll. Responsible Statecraft describes US policy as “bent on breaking the island.” The Guardian reports “an epidemic of flies, rats, waste and foul odors.”

These accounts portray Cuban hardship but intentionally overlook Cuban social achievements. Even statements from Congressional leaders advocating for an end to the blockade by focusing on the crisis it has created, can feed into Washington’s self-serving narrative that Cuba is a “failed nation.”

When descriptions of the humanitarian crisis caused by the escalated blockade do not question the ideological assumption that accepts capitalism as the natural state of humanity, they can be used to depict socialism as an abortive failed experiment.

This is why solidarity activists must take special care to highlight the incredible achievements of Cuba, even under blockade conditions, all while waging an active campaign against the sanctions and gathering supplies to take to the island in solidarity.

Doing so much with so little

The Center for Economic and Policy Research documents a dramatic increase in infant mortality from 4.9, now rising to 9.9 per 1,000 live births, attributable to deteriorating living conditions caused by the US economic war.

Yet, even under this intentional strangulation, Cuba’s infant mortality rate remains among the lowest in the region. Cuba has free public, personalized healthcare for every Cuban from birth and throughout life.

Surrounding countries that are not facing any U.S. sanctions but are forced to survive under capitalist relations have consistently higher infant mortality rates. Panama (11), Dominican Republic (16), El Salvador (12), Honduras (15), Guatemala (20), Jamaica (12), Haiti (45-50).

Most stunning is that Cuba’s infant mortality figures under a ruthless blockade are still lower than for African Americans in the U.S. (10.9).

This reflects the demonstrated success of Cuba’s social medicine model, even under the most challenging of circumstances.

Using Cuba’s example of people-centered healthcare, Nicaragua dramatically reduced their infant mortality from 29 deaths per thousand in 2005 under a right-wing, pro U.S. government  to 9 under the Sandinistas and with the assistance of Cuban doctors.

This is why the Trump administration is determined to block Cuban medical staff from providing medical care in the Caribbean. A dozen countries have acquiesced to demands from the U.S. to end medical agreements with Cuba.

  • Sign On to  “Cuba is Not a Failed State – It Is a Besieged State”
  • Register your Emergency Action

Cuba’s medical staff focuses heavily on underserved areas in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa. They provide more doctors and medical staff than the World Health Organization and most western nations combined. The United States calls Cuba’s medical internationalism “human trafficking” – but it’s really an internationalist lifeline for the Global South.

Cuba is not alone, as it receives significant solidarity aid from allied states.  China, for example, is helping  address Cuba’s fossil fuel dependency by supplying 49 solar farms (20% of all its energy needs) and fleets of electric buses, cars, and scooters. Our solidarity movement should highlight and encourage such international cooperation.

Among Cuba’s public health achievements are its international medical brigades, excellence in advanced research, response to the pandemic, service to underserved populations, south-south cooperation initiatives, and the world’s highest doctor-to-patient ratios.

The Cuban socialist model has also produced notable successes in sports and public education.

Writing from Cuba, Carlos Fernandez de Cossio defended the country’s accomplishments over the past decade despite the “intense economic war,” including:

  • sustaining the national electrical system while expanding renewable energy
  • strengthening telecommunications and expanding internet access
  • supporting vulnerable populations through food cultivation
  • improving water infrastructure in underserved communities
  • developing COVID vaccines and other medicines
  • expanding domestic industry including the assembly of electric vehicles

For a small, natural resource-poor island, Cuba has achieved so much with so little and under such extraordinarily adverse conditions. The nation asks only that the jackboot of imperialism be lifted so that it may truly flourish.

International people’s solidarity must not allow these incredible achievements to be overlooked as we advocate for relief from the cruel blockade. We should describe this crisis  the same way that the Cuban leadership describes it – acknowledging the harms of US imperialism, but always stressing the achievements of the Cuban revolution and the power of solidarity and cooperation.

¡Venceremos!

Leading Organizers from the Following Organizations support this Cuba statement and the Call to Action.  

United National Antiwar Coalition, Cuba Si NY/NJ, International US-Cuba Normalization Conference, Venezuela Solidarity Network, US Peace Council, Alliance for Global Justice, SanctionsKill! Campaign, Resist U.S. Led War Movement, Black Alliance for Peace, International League of Peoples Struggles, Americas Without Sanctions, Chicago ALBA Solidarity, Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition, Task Force on the Americas, International Action Center, Veterans For Peace, Code Pink NY, National Lawyers Guild, Anti War Action Network, Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Bronx Antiwar, Compas de la Diaspora, Struggle for Socialism Party, Alberto Lovera Bolivarian Circle, Diaspora Pa’lante Collective, Workers World Party,
(This statement was initiated by the SanctionsKill Campaign.)

Add your support and help to circulate this statement.

Sign here: https://unac.notowar.net/cuba-is-not-a-failed-state-it-is-a-besieged-state/#Endorse

The US kills babies in Cuba; CBS hides the truth

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From Global Research

May 4, 2026
Michelle Ellner
CODEPINK

When the lights go out in Havana, the foreign cameras arrive to film the darkness.

They come for the blackout glow: candles in apartment windows, families sleeping on balconies, mothers fanning infants through another airless night. They come for the line outside the pharmacy, the bus that never comes, the refrigerator gone warm.

They come for the darkness.

A recent CBS segment on Cuba offered viewers a familiar script: a “failed” island, an aging revolution, refugees in Florida, and Washington once again contemplating what to do with the place 90 miles away. But the segment was also built on an omission so large it swallowed the truth: that while these cameras speak of shortages and collapse, babies are dying under a policy designed to create both.

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research has found that the expansion of U.S. sanctions beginning in 2017 was likely the primary cause of a dramatic rise in infant mortality in Cuba. According to the report, Cuba’s infant mortality rate surged by 148 percent from 2018 to 2025. Had the rate remained stable, approximately 1,800 babies who died during those years would likely still be alive. 

Read that again. Babies. 

The report links the rise to the tightening of unilateral U.S. coercive measures under the first Donald Trump administration, the continuation of most of those measures under Joe Biden, and further escalation under the second Trump administration. Instead of telling that story, prime-time segments like CBS recycle Cold War clichés.

In this segment, people are invited to remember pre-revolutionary Cuba as a lost paradise. But beyond the casino lights were cane cutters, domestic workers, rural families without doctors, children without schools, Black Cubans denied the full rights, dignity, and opportunities the government claimed to promise, workers, surviving in an economy where much of the wealth flowed upward. For many Cubans, the revolution was a rupture with dependency.

It is common in U.S. media to shrink the Cuban Revolution into one beard, one speech, one man. As if millions of lives, shaped by inequality, dictatorship, and foreign domination, could be reduced to nothing more than a personality cult. Fidel Castro was central to Cuba’s history, but so were peasants who wanted land, teachers who crossed mountains to teach literacy, doctors who stayed in poor neighborhoods, workers who believed sovereignty meant something more than a flag. 

Like any other country, Cuba has real internal problems. Bureaucracy exists. Economic errors exist. Frustration is real. Emigration is real. And yet, these realities are routinely seized upon by Washington as the ready-made justification for intervention, pressure, and policies that deepen the very conditions they claim to condemn.

For decades, the United States has built an external wall around the island brick by brick. Sanctions. Financial penalties. Shipping restrictions. Fuel pressure. Banking obstacles. Threats against companies that trade. Punishments for third countries. Obstacles to medicine, parts, credit, investment, and entrepreneurs. Policy papers described the logic openly generations ago: create hardship, provoke desperation, generate political unrest.

This is where media like CBS plays a critical role by showing the suffering while obscuring the system that produces it. By rendering U.S. policy as background noise rather than as an active force shaping the very reality being filmed. And this is not an isolated editorial choice. It is a pattern.

But when infant deaths rise sharply during a period of intensified external strangulation, honesty demands more than repeating those talking points. It requires naming cause and responsibility. And it requires asking a more uncomfortable question: If the Cuban system is truly destined to fail on its own, why has so much power been invested in making sure it does?

You don’t spend decades trying to suffocate something that poses no alternative. Why isolate, sanction, and punish a model you believe is irrelevant? Unless the fear is not that it will fail. Unless the fear is that it might, even with all its contradictions, suggest a different way of organizing society. One where people are not reduced to clients, markets, or consumers to be captured, but honored as human beings to be nourished, protected, and allowed to flourish.

When I walked through Havana during a blackout, I saw neighbors calling across courtyards, playing dominoes by candlelight. Someone on the corner had a speaker with half a battery and enough music for three buildings. Two young people kissed along the Malecón. Someone cursed the government. Someone cursed the blockade. Someone cursed both. Someone laughed. I saw human beings remain stubbornly human. 

Why does CBS not cover that? Because they film the darkness. But the real story is not the candle in the window. It is the hand that cut the fuel, the policy that constricted the hospital, the silence that normalized preventable deaths, and the infants whose names will never appear in the broadcast.

Michelle Ellner is a Latin America campaign coordinator of CODEPINK. She was born in Venezuela and holds a bachelor’s degree in languages and international affairs from the University La Sorbonne Paris IV, in Paris. After graduating, she worked for an international scholarship program out of offices in Caracas and Paris and was sent to Haiti, Cuba, The Gambia, and other countries for the purpose of evaluating and selecting applicants.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/cuba-they-film-darkness/5924811

China and Russia have long endured massive threats. War hawk JFK against China, Russia, and Cuba

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So many myths have been fed to the American people. Here’s more information about the real John F. Kennedy. [1] 
–
From Global Research
–
By Shane Quinn
February 15, 2018
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In April 1962, the Kennedy administration ordered nuclear missiles to be sent to Japan’s Okinawa Island. The weapons were directed at the People’s Republic of China, a nation the Americans had “lost” to Communism 13 years before.

President John F. Kennedy‘s decision to aim missiles at China occurred six months before the Cuban Missile Crisis, known as the October Crisis in Cuba. The missiles Kennedy directed at Mao Zedong’s China were “near identical” to those aimed at the US, after the Soviet Union sent nuclear-armed weapons to Cuba in October 1962.

The American missiles on occupied Okinawa – an island just over 500 miles from China’s coast – were “over 75 times the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima” in August 1945. The nuclear weapon that leveled Hiroshima killed about 80,000 people initially, mostly civilians. However, further tens of thousands later died after succumbing to severe radiation poisoning.

In the early 1960s, China possessed by far the world’s largest population, at almost 700 million. Any order obeyed to fire such destructive weapons at China would have killed unprecedented numbers. Yet the American missiles on Okinawa remained hidden from public knowledge, and has only come to light in recent times. The reason for Kennedy’s order for missiles to be readied on Okinawa, can be traced to intense friction between two of Asia’s largest countries.

A 1962 aerial photograph shows Okinawa’s first Mace missile site at Bolo Point, Yomitan. (Source: Larry Johnston via APJJF)

During 1962, antagonism soared between China and American-backed India – primarily over border disputes along the Himalayas. It culminated in the Sino-Indian conflict, starting on 20 October, with much of the fighting occurring at over 4,000 meters. This forgotten conflict also began in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, as the Americans were entirely distracted with Cuba. After a month of bloody fighting, China emerged victorious having secured territorial gains.

History, up to the current day, suggests the US holds the right to erect weapons wherever it chooses, ignoring the potential consequences. For example, in 1961, president Kennedy positioned intermediate-range “Jupiter” nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey – this time aimed at Russia. The Turkish border is little more than 300 miles from Russia, separated alone by diminutive Georgia.

None of this was lost on the Russians. In May the following year (1962), the Soviet president Nikita Khrushchev complained to a confidant that the Americans “have surrounded us”. Kennedy’s reckless deployment of missiles was also a crucial factor leading up to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Behind the thinking of his Cuban missile decision, Khrushchev explained following his retirement that the Americans

“would learn just what it feels like to have enemy missiles pointing at you; we’d be doing nothing more than giving them a little of their own medicine”.

The enormous threats against Russia also had a deeper psychological impact. Over the past century and more, Russia was repeatedly invaded and almost destroyed by invading armies. From Napoleon Bonaparte’s 1812 offensive, through to Operation Barbarossa overseen by Adolf Hitler in 1941.

The intimidation of Russia, a long-time nuclear power, has continued apace to the present day. One significant menace is the continued existence of NATO as an organization – and the presence of its troops and weapons along Russia’s frontiers. NATO receives much of its funding from America, so is in reality a tool of imperialism, posing a significant global security threat.

In more rational times Dwight D. Eisenhower, NATO’s first supreme commander, wrote in 1951 that NATO

“will have failed” if “in 10 years all American troops stationed in Europe… have not been returned to the United States”.

Eisenhower would become a re-elected US president (1953-61), so his was not a voice without weight. It would be interesting to gauge his reaction if he knew that, by 2018, American troops were still present on European soil. This reality may have disturbed George Kennan too, the farsighted former US ambassador to the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, himself no dove. In 1996 Kennan described NATO expansion eastwards, in continued violation of agreements, as “a strategic blunder of potentially epic proportions”.

Meanwhile, a further critical element in the placing of Soviet missiles in Cuba, was the Kennedy administration’s assaults on the island nation. There was the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, which ended in a Cuban rout of US-backed forces. Stung by this embarrassment, in January 1962 Kennedy outlined that “the Cuban problem” is “the top priority in the United States government”.

The ensuing Operation Mongoose brought the “terrors of the earth” to Cuba – a quote attributed to Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Kennedy’s top Latin American advisor. In the months before the missile crisis, Cuba was subjected to widescale terrorist attacks directed from America. This included the bombing of Cuban hotels and petrochemical plants, poisoning of crops and livestock, attacks on fishing boats, the tainting of sugar exports, etc.

In March 1962, it was made clear that the assaults were to lead to “final success” which would “require decisive US intervention”. The renewed invasion of Cuba was dated for October 1962 – it is no coincidence that Khrushchev sent his missiles to Cuba during the same month.

As the missile crisis peaked, the world came perilously close to a nuclear war, largely due to Kennedy’s hegemonic policies. This was all concealed from the American public, who were repeatedly informed the blame lay squarely with the USSR and its Cuban ally.

Image result for posada and bosch

Bosch and Posada (Source: Cuba Headlines)

Following the de-escalation in late October, the US immediately recommenced terrorist operations against Cuba. These murderous acts continued for decades in various forms. This included American support for the Cuban exiles, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, two of the worst international terrorists of the post-World War II period.

Posada Carriles and Bosch are most infamously remembered for masterminding the 1976 destruction of a Cuban airliner, killing all 73 people aboard. However, the duo were also responsible for countless other terrorist attacks on embassies, consuls, tourist industries, ambassadors, civilians, etc. – not just in Cuba – but across Latin America.

Furthermore, the US continues its blockade of Cuba, which has lasted for more than five decades – despite opposition from virtually the entire world. The embargo was first introduced by Kennedy himself in October 1962.

After visiting Cuba two years ago, then president Barack Obama said he and Raul Castro “continue to have serious differences, including on democracy and human rights”. One could forgive the Cuban leader for being somewhat perplexed by this statement. Not mentioned by Obama was America’s efforts to bring “democracy and human rights” to Cuba, in the form of vicious terrorist assaults and economic strangulation.

Nor did Obama highlight Cuba’s central role in liberating southern Africa from apartheid. South Africa’s racist regime was heavily supported by the US, yet it appears trivial facts such as these are not worthy of mention by Obama, or indeed, the mainstream press.

Since the 1950s, the American record in introducing “human rights” and “freedom” to the world makes something of a mockery of its projected image. Instead, it is Cuba that has long been vilified by Western elites for supposed human rights abuses.

*

Shane Quinn obtained an honors journalism degree. He is interested in writing primarily on foreign affairs, having been inspired by authors like Noam Chomsky. 

The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Shane Quinn, Global Research, 2018
–
[1] Also, for those with the stomach, there is  The Dark Side of Camelot by Seymour Hersh about the Kennedy presidency.

Plotnitsky: Donbass still plans to join Russia

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March 18, 2017 – Fort Russ News –
RIA Novosti – translated by J. Arnoldski –
Plotnitsky at the conference “Paths of Donbass’ Integration into Russia”
The head of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Igor Plotnitsky, has spoken out in favor of holding a referendum in the DPR and LPR on joining Russia. 
“We do not merely assume, but we are confident that there will necessarily be such a referendum. Of course, we want to initiate it, but there is a time for everything. In fact, in the very beginning there was the question of immediately following the Crimea scenario so that we could become part of the Russian Federation, but things turned out a little differently. But this question has never been withdrawn,” Plotnitsky said yesterday in response to a question on whether the Donbass republics will hold a referendum on reunification with Russia as happened in Crimea.
In Plotnitsky’s words: “If such a referendum will be held, and it of course will be, then the results will be just like in Crimea.”
Plotnitsky also stated that the leadership of the DPR and LPR considers Kiev’s decision to blockade Donbass a de facto recognition of the republics’ independence. “You only declare a blockade against those whom you recognize,” Plotnitsky remarked. 
Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that Moscow has no written scripts on the possibility of incorporating the DPR and LPR into Russia. 
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/03/plotnitsky-donbass-still-plans-to-join.html

Ukrainian National Guard blocks all roads to Donbass

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March 15, 2017 – Fort Russ News –
By J. Arnoldski –
All roads and railway lines leading to the frontline in Donbass have been cut off by the Ukrainian National Guard, National Police, and State Border Guard Service.
 
More than 800 troops have been deployed to checkpoints on the Ukrainian side of the frontline in Donbass. The blockade checkpoints are reportedly being reinforced with military vehicles. 
“Pursuant to the decision of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, today all roads and railway lines leading to the demarcation line have been blocked by forces of the National Guard, National Police, and border guard services in order to ensure control over and prevent the illegal movement of goods,” the National Guard’s statement reads.
 
 
This escalation comes on the heels of Ukrainian President Poroshenko’s ultimatum to the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics to reverse the nationalization of Ukrainian enterprises. 
This new Kiev-enforced blockade follows the recently dispersed blockade of Donbass railways by neo-Nazi battalions who demanded that all trade with the Donbass republics be terminated. The government’s failure to suppress the latter initiative on the demand of the Donbass republics provoked the nationalization of hitherto undisturbed Ukrainian enterprises on the territory of the people’s republics.
Poroshenko has since named the conditions for the blockade’s lifting: 
“We say: please return enterprises to Ukrainian owners…comply with points one and two of the Minsk Agreements, meaning cease-fire and withdraw heavy equipment and artillery, and we’ll remove the restrictive measures on the movement of goods across the contact line,” the president stated.
In addition, Poroshenko threatened to impose sanctions on Russia if Donbass sells goods manufactured at the recently nationalized factories to Russia.
Meanwhile, the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, Alexander Zakharchenko, has dismissed the blockade as Ukraine’s “own domestic problem.”
“The decision of Porsohenko and the National Security and Defense Council is the internal affair of former Ukraine. More precisely, this is a fact of internal power struggle in Kiev which Poroshenko seems to be losing. We don’t have any relationship to this whatsoever,” Zakharchenko stressed, adding that Donbass has its own blockade in force which will be lifted only when Kiev fulfills its part of the Minsk Agreements.
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/03/ukrainian-national-guard-blocks-all.html

Nuclear danger: Donbass blockade organizers warn Kiev all Russian coal supplies may be blocked

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This endangers the 19 nuclear reactors in Ukraine because the reactors rely on the electric grid for power to keep reactor cores and fuel rods cool. Without grid power and if there is no back-up power, reactors can explode and melt-down. Chernobyl had one reactor accident. Fukushima had 3 reactors melt down. 19 is unthinkable.

Beside the nuclear issue is the immense suffering of the Ukrainian people due to the energy shortage and the high costs imposed by the Kiev regime on the population for the energy they get. How many in Ukraine have died indirectly from this or actually frozen to death this winter? Will we ever know? 

From Sputnik News

11 March 2017

The organizers of the trade blockade in eastern Ukraine threaten to block all coal imports from Russia.

KIEV (Sputnik) — The organizers of the trade blockade in eastern Ukraine said Friday that they would block all coal imports from Russia beginning from April 2 in case Kiev failed to reach agreements on coal shipments from other countries by that time.

“We give the government time by April 2 to sign the contracts on coal supplies with countries which do not conduct warfare against Ukraine. We give the government time by April 2 to reconsider its trade policy with the aggressor country of Russia,” the blockade’s main organizer, Anatoliy Vynohrodsky, told reporters.

He added that beginning from April 2 the observation stations of the blockade organizers, which are to be established along all the railway transition posts, will begin the blockade’s active phase.

“First of all we will not let coal from Russia pass,” Vynohrodsky pointed out.

Train cars with coal at the Donetsk railway station. In early January, Ukrainian radicals who earlier participated in the fighting in the Donbass started a blockade against the Donetsk People's Republic
© SPUTNIK/ SERGEY AVERIN
Lavrov: Kiev Should Stop ‘Unacceptable’ Blockade Strangling Donbass

Vynohrodsky noted that concerning other supplies from Russia, the blockade organizers would “consult with the Ukrainian people.”In late January, a group of former participants of Ukraine’s military operation in Donbas, including several lawmakers, blocked traffic on several segments of freight rail lines running from the territories uncontrolled by Kiev. The blockade led to irregularities in supplies of anthracite coal from Donbass, leading to power shortages in Ukraine and prompting Kiev to declare an energy emergency.

Kiev’s authorities criticized the actions of the blockade organizers saying that coal shipments from Donbass were legal as coal producing plants located there had been paying taxes to the Ukrainian State Treasury Service. However, no efforts have been undertaken by the Kiev authorities to lift the blockage.

In January 2015, the Ukrainian parliament adopted a statement designating Russia as an aggressor country, as Kiev considered Russia being a party to the military conflict in Donbass. No evidence supporting this statement was provided.

Moscow denounced the statement. Russia repeatedly said it was not part to the Ukrainian conflict, had not provided military equipment to Donbass militia and was interested in the settlement of the Ukrainian crisis.

https://sputniknews.com/europe/201703111051470737-donbass-blockade-block-russia/

Ukrainian extremists threaten to sever the Donbass water and electricity

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March 10, 2017 – Fort Russ News –
– RusVesna – Translated by James Harmon

If participants in the trade blockade of Donbass do not reach their goals, they plan to sever the supply of electricity and water to the republic to create “intolerable conditions”, typical of the inhumanity of extremist factions and fascists who lack humanitarian understanding of populations and their needs.
This was stated by the second commander of the dangerous and extremist battalion “Donbass”, Anatoly Vinogrodsky, a virulent ultranationalist and fascist sympathizer.
“We will close the supply of all goods, electricity and water, which will flow into the occupied territory, in order to organize unbearable conditions for the population, so they began to harass Zakharchenko and his minions”, Vinogrodsky stated bluntly.

Donbass republics nationalize Ukrainian factories

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From Fort Russ

March 1, 2017 – Fort Russ News –
RIA Novosti – translated, edited by J. Arnoldski –
As of today, March 1st, external management will be introduced at all unregistered Ukrainian enterprises on the territory of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republic. This decision was taken by the leaders of the republics in response to the transport blockade of Donbass.
In late January, a group of veterans of the military operation in Donbass, including deputies of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, blocked freight rail traffic from the Donbass republics at several points. The “blockaders” stated that in their opinion any trade with the self-proclaimed republics is illegal. The blockade has led to shortages of anthracite coal which is mined in the areas of Donbass uncontrolled by Kiev. In connection with this, Ukrainian authorities have been compelled to introduce emergency measures in the energy sector with the aim of saving resources. A number of industrial enterprises have had to stop production.
On Monday, February 27th, the heads of the LPR and DPR announced that the republics would cease coal deliveries to Kiev if the railway blockade continues. In addition, they promised that if by midnight of March 1st the blockade is not lifted, then external management will be introduced at all enterprises under Ukrainian jurisdiction working in the DPR and LPR.
Due to the transport blockade, a number of large enterprises around the frontline in Donbass have ceased production. Among them are the Enakievsky metallurgical factory in the DPR and the Krasnodonugol company in the LPR. Both of these factories are part of the Metinvest group belonging to Ukrainian oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. 
The leader of the DPR, Alexander Zakharchenko, had warned at a press conference: “The Enakievsky metallurgical plant has ceased working, and some other companies need to be jumpstarted. If they do not register themselves by Wednesday, then they will all come under our complete control. This also includes stadiums and hotels.”
During emergency sessions of the DPR and LPR parliaments on Monday, the relevant amendments to legislation were adopted which allow for external control to be imposed on Ukrainian enterprises that are not registered on the territory of the republics by March 1st.
The DPR and LPR have announced the creation of a special headquarters for controlling Ukrainian enterprises’ transition to external management. The LPR has emphasized that the employees of these enterprises will keep their jobs.
The chairman of the LPR’s People’s Council, Vladimir Degtyarenko, said: “The established headquarters intends not to merely keep enterprises ‘afloat,’ but to contribute to their further development and reorientation towards Russia.”….
Representatives of Donbass have explained that this decision on “nationalizing” Ukrainian enterprises was necessary. The primary task is resuming their work and saving jobs. But this, according to DPR head Alexander Zakharchenko, will take about two months.
“In the short term we will have to rebuild industry and change markets. The main task is ensuring the smooth operation of enterprises and salaries and work for the workers of these enterprises,” Zakharchenko said.
The Ministry of Industry and Trade of the DPR has stressed that there can be no doubts that the enterprises will be successfully reoriented from the Ukrainian market to markets in the Russian Federation and other countries. In addition, the transfer of all enterprises of non-residents to republican jurisdiction only broadens the foreign trade ties of the DPR. 
“Despite difficulties with the political recognition of the republic, our enterprises are quite successfully working with countries in the near and far abroad. For already more than two years, our manufactures have essentially begun the process of withdrawing from Ukrainian markets in favor of other countries. Both the state and business circles have some experience in this,” the acting industry and trade minister, Aleksey Granovsky, affirmed.
Granovsky added that the republic is now exporting more than 50 types of goods among including from light industry, food products, chemical and pharmaceutical industries, and metallurgy. 
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/03/donbass-republics-nationalize-ukrainian.html
See also:
http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/03/behind-donbass-economic-offensive-part-1.html

Ukraine’s grid under cyber-attack, according to Poroshenko

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From Fort Russ
February 17, 2017
Sebastien HAIRON in Peuples-Libres-nouvelle-russie, translated by Tom Winter –

Le Figaro relays this despatch of Reuters which tells us that Russian hackers have broken in to Ukraine’s power grid! Really !

Except that in this case it is just once again the Kiev regime blaming Russia for Ukraine’s internal problems since the coming to power of the pro-Western putschist junta. Indeed, veterans of the army with the complicity of the neo-Nazi gang decided to organize a blockade of the Donbass on January 25 by blocking, in particular, the railways for the coal trains that deliver the coal essential to the operation of the Ukrainian power stations. Source: Pravda Ukraine

The state of Energy Emergency was set up by the Ukrainian government following this internal crisis. There would be only 14 to 100 days left of coal to allow their power stations to stay in operation.

The Figaro and Reuters (not the only ones) by relaying this vulgar propaganda worthy of a bad soap opera, thus absolve in advance the negligence into which Ukraine has fallen since the Kiev putsch of 2014. For if, unfortunately, some power stations were to cease functioning as a result of this blockade, all eyes will inevitably be directed against the ugly Russian hackers rather than against the Kiev regime.

They have been trotting out Russian hackers for months:

  1. Russian hackers elected Trump — at least in the mainstream press.
  2. Russian hackers are hijacking power stations in Ukraine.
  3. In France, Russian hackers broke into the site of Emmanuel Macron! Oh yes, this is the latest trendy joke!
  4. The Russian hackers will even threaten the elections in France and Germany!

Now that goes to show you how powerful these Russians are!

To get back to this blockade: who can make me believe that the police and the Ukrainian army can’t get this little mob off the railroad ??? RFI [Radio France International] Kiev is using these useful idiots to once again to clash with Russia and increase international pressure against Vladimir Putin. He is no longer a president, but an octopus!

http://www.fort-russ.com/2017/02/ukraines-power-emergency-russian-hackers.html

Who benefits if the power grid is shut down? Not Russia. Certainly not with the nuclear reactors next door. Russia has the most to lose.

So who benefits? This is a false flag.

Reuters:

Oleksandr Tkachuk, Ukraine’s security service chief of staff, said at a press conference that the attacks were orchestrated by the Russian security service with help from private software firms and criminal hackers, and looked like they were designed by the same people who created malware known as “BlackEnergy.”

…He said the attacks employed a mechanism dubbed “Telebots” to infect computers that control infrastructure.

Slovakian cyber-security firm ESET used the same name in December to identify the hacking group responsible for attacks on Ukraine’s financial sector and energy industries.

ESET said it believed that Telebots had evolved from BlackEnergy, a hacking group that attacked Ukraine’s energy industry starting in December 2015 [on December 23].

The December 23, 2015 attack was a highly coordinated attack on a day that the hackers perhaps deemed significant.  If so, that would indicate a EU or U.S. team responsible for the hack; they celebrate Christmas on December 24-25, and probably think everyone else does, too. Ukraine celebrates Christmas in January, and any Ukrainian and Russian would know that.

Other suspects are the oligarchs and their minions who fight against each other, and the militias in the West of Ukraine angling for control of Kiev.