Press Conference w/ Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations

Africa World Now Project

Image: Female literacy volunteers return to Havana at the end of the literacy campaign in December 1961

On June 23, 2021, a total of 184 countries on voted in favor of a resolution to demand the end of the US economic blockade on Cuba, for the 29th year in a row, with the United States and Israel, being the only countries voting against resolution. Three countries - Colombia, Ukraine, and Brazil - abstained.

Wednesday, July 7, of last week, the world received news of the assassination of then Haitian president in the midst of already tension conditions on the ground.

On this same day, a historic press conference with the Cuban Permanent Representative to the UN, H.E. Ambassador Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta presented a review and response of the recent vote against the blockade as well as the challenges and promises of the recent development of the Cuban COVID vaccines.

On Saturday, July 10, reports via mainstream media outlets began proliferating images and a narrative that suggested that the Cuban people were protesting against the ineffectiveness of the government. However, more detailed and clear journalism shows this was not the case, as the mass majority of the protestors were clear in their disdain for the embargo which in turn has caused deleterious impact on the population.

According to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, “the economic sanctions on Cuba were imposed by the United States of America in 1960 and were subsequently amended by the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 and the Helms-Burton Act of 1996. These acts essentially ban all commercial ties between the United States and Cuba and severely impair the right of United States citizens to travel, to communicate with or carry out cultural exchanges with Cuba. Every year since 1992, the General Assembly has passed a resolution calling for an end to the embargo. The most recent resolution on this issue (A/67/4) was adopted on November 13 2012 by 188 votes against 3, with 2 abstentions. Since the United States is the major regional economic power and the main source of new medicines and technologies, Cuba is subject to deprivations that impinge on its citizens’ human rights. Moreover, the US makes its own foreign trade policy extraterritorial, through a system of secondary sanctions which force third-party countries also into imposing an embargo on Cuba.”

For your benefit, and in accordance to the central mission of Africa World Now Project which is to provide a platform that allows you to intentionally organize information toward understanding the root causes of issues that impact historically and ethnically marginalized peoples, paying specific attention to the African/a world, today we will play the recording of the historical press conference organized, in part, by yours truly having nominal input, under the leadership of Obi Egbuna, Jr and a collection of other concern communities and organizations.

Next, you will hear the Cuban Permanent Representative to the UN, His Excellency Ambassador Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta present a review and response of the recent vote against the blockade as well as the challenges and promises of the recent development of the Cuban COVID vaccines.

Our show was produced today in solidarity with the native/indigenous, African, and Afro-descended communities at Standing Rock; Venezuela; Cooperation Jackson in Jackson, Mississippi; Brazil; the Avalon Village in Detroit; Colombia; Kenya; Palestine; South Africa; Ghana and Ayiti; and other places who are fighting for the protection of our land for the benefit of all people.