By Deisy Francis Mexidor, Chief correspondent in the United States

The statement was made by Johana Tablada, deputy director general of the United States Directorate at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, who is working in this capital, in an exclusive interview with Prensa Latina.

At present, not only the government, but also the most conservative or anti-Cuba sectors in US society use pretexts such as the presence of military bases from foreign countries in Cuba or that the Cuban Government is in a program to send soldiers to Ukraine, she said.

“It is absolutely false and has been denied, as has the accusation of the Chinese bases that The Wall Street Journal puts forward every week with total impunity and without any foundation in evidence,” Tablada stressed.

The diplomat referred to the “permanent deception with the issue of human rights in which the United States Government grants privileged treatment to those people who have been the objective or recipients of its financing projects for its intervention programs in Cuba’s domestic politics.”

These individuals “are then presented as the heroes they are not, since they have no support in our society,” she added.

Tablada emphasized that by favoring these people, many of whom do not even live in Cuba, the objective is to justify the permanent and real violation of the human rights of millions of Cubans, children, women and the elderly, who are being deprived of their fundamental rights by design.

They are also deprived of their right to have a normal relationship with the rest of the world, a normal relationship with the United States, and to develop to their real and maximum capacity, the official warned.

When referring to relations between the two countries, Tablada explained that “the policy of the Joe Biden Government has essentially followed the policy of the Donald Trump administration.”

Most or the vast majority of the measures are maximum pressure, extreme, inhumane measures, aimed at preventing sources of sustenance from entering the Cuban economy and our population with the purpose of destabilizing the country and eventually causing the overthrow of the Revolution, she noted.

She recalled that with this position, Biden “is even failing to fulfill the electoral promise that those inhumane measures that affected the Cuban family were going to be lifted.”

In 2024, there is still the possibility of a second term for President Biden, but also that in January 2025, what I call ‘President Trump’s demolition team’ will return,” Tablada said.

She considered that the sad legacy of this administration “would be the largest migration wave in the history of Cuba, which has been very unfortunate for the Cuban population, for the Cuban family.”

The diplomat warned that this situation is “the result of that irrational bet, insensitive and disconnected from reality, of thinking that by depriving people of their livelihood, by cutting off all sources of income to the Cuban economy, it will derail a process of independence and sovereignty like ours.”

She reiterated that this is a policy that has been enforced since 1959, when the Cuban Revolution triumphed, and it has not worked in that main objective of breaking the Cuban people’s will to move forward.

“We must recognize and admit that they have succeeded in deteriorating the standard of living of Cuban men and women, that they have succeeded in causing a difficult situation for our population,” Tablada pointed out.

DIRECT LINK

The truth is that every day, it is more difficult, if not impossible, to hide that there is a direct link between the impact of Trump’s maximum pressure measures maintained by Biden and the migration wave caused since Cuba was fraudulently, unjustly, included on the State Sponsors of Terorism (SSOT) list, Tablada pointed out.

“As we know, it is not just another slander, that is a measure that goes directly to the jugular of the Cuban economy,” the diplomat stated when referring to the arbitrary designation of Cuba as a State sponsor of terrorism.

The Government of the United States has not been successful in applying that twisted logic that if the blockade is tightened it will finally cause a situation of revolt, of destabilization of our population, to blame the Cuban Government for the impact of the measures taken by them, she said.

But we do have to admit that there has been a very severe, very painful impact on the standard of living of the Cuban family, which today sees its basic basket, transportation fares, the possibility of eating the food that is needed, and their idea is that this is because Cuba is a failed state, that is the narrative that is repeated, she noted.

Tablada informed that data on the fines applied by the Department of Commerce to Cuba’s trading partners have been gathered “and they have broken the record of previous years.”

Among the measures taken in full force against Cuba is one of the most criminal and ignoble measures implemented by the Government of the United States, the disinformation operation regarding Cuba’s medical cooperation.

The US Government also excluded Cuba from the review of unilateral coercive measures that affected the ability of States to fight Covid-19, she added.

But it is important to make a separation between the position of the US Government, the same one that has turned its face to the growing calls within American society, including Congress, and the academic, economic, political, social, scientific, human rights, youth and solidarity movements.

More than 108 resolutions have been adopted in the United States to remove Cuba from the SSOT list, to lift the blockade, to cooperate with Cuba in health areas, which should be the object of collaboration. and not persecution, she insisted.

Tablada reiterated that Cuba is subjected to a deceptive operation, to a logic “in which I do everything I can to suffocate your economy and at the same time I am financing a permanent and systematic disinformation operation with hundreds of millions of dollars to hold the victim of the impact of those measures responsible.”

The curious thing about this is that the same organizations and platforms that receive high contributions from the US Government are the protagonists of this disinformation operation, she stated.

MAJOR SPRINGS

“The people of Cuba trust much more in the solidarity that is very great, in the decency and decorum of those institutions that will always extend their hand to a country that like few others has been extending its hand to help everyone who has needed it,” she added.

With more than 30 years of diplomatic career and extensive knowledge about this country, Tablada explained how she has been able to distinguish very well that one thing is the old-fashion and failed policy of the US governments, with the purpose of breaking the will of Cubans, and another one is the stance of the people of the United States.

She mentioned the United States with its universities, its scientific centers, its sectoral or union groups, farmers, professors, teachers, who, even amid the narrative that Cuba is a dictatorship and is a totalitarian State, invite to a civilized relationship between both sides.

I ask who prevents Americans from traveling to Cuba or Cubans from traveling to the United States, who today can only come to emigrate; who has the list of hotels where they cannot stay; or the companies from third countries with which you cannot have relations either because they may be sanctioned.

It is very clear and I think that Americans for electoral political reasons, due to the corruption of the US electoral system, where a small group can take over an issue as important as foreign policy to preserve privileges.

This is the case with the proposal of Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar, who wants to perpetuate Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, “which is a disaster and I am sure that this will not be approved,” she predicted.

But we also don’t know who will come in January or who will control, this is a country where they are very polarized, where there are emerging forces of nearly a fascist nature, and where even barbaric values that are anti-civilizing, such as racism, xenophobia and discrimination, are in fashion.

She summarized that in this week of work in Washington DC she has held more than 20 meetings in different sectors, in universities with institutions that are interested in doing business with Cuba and Cuban residents here as well.

In addition, she commented that she has met with representatives of institutions that want to cooperate with Cuba, as happened with the lung cancer vaccine, and “many would like to expand that.”

The deputy director general of the United States Directorate at the Cuban Foreign Ministry also met with members of Congress, both from the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Tablada pointed out that the number of Americans who traveled to Cuba in 2023 is still not like that of 2018, which was a record year, but more than 200,000 Cubans went and more than 100,000 Americans were in “our country although individual visits are not allowed.

She stressed that they have traveled “even though they cannot stay in hotels because it is part of that policy of pressure and extortion, and on the other hand, I believe that many excuses and pretexts, and the masks of politicians who have made their careers on the basis of torturing a country that they do not know, where the vast majority of them were not even born nor have they visited, have fallen apart.

“The Cuba issue is used for political reasons to get benefits, contributions and to distribute the money approved by the US Government over the years,” she stated.

The diplomat emphasized that all of this is for the purpose of “intervening in internal affairs to approve regime change projects and to finance disinformation and fake news operations.”

I do not lose hope, I leave optimistic not that there is any sign, because we honestly do not see real will and this policy of abuse, of extreme measures cannot be changed if there is no political will for it, but on the other hand, yes, we see a lot of pressure and interest in various sectors of US society, she stressed.

We have repeated to the Government of the United States and to our counterparts here that the position of the Cuban Government to move towards a civilized relationship remains valid, to meet at any conversation table where there is a topic on which there is common interest.

“In 2023, it is not a secret to anyone, certain spaces for cooperation and exchange with the US Government were reestablished, even though the harshest measures that affect the lives of Cubans have been maintained,” the Foreign Ministry official said.

For Johana Tablada, this also demonstrates the Cuban Government’s good will in total coherence with the aspirations of the people, to live in peace with their closest neighbor.

jg/arb/dfm