HAVANA, July 27 — Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Sunday accused the United States of seeking to “take over” Cuba and called for defending national sovereignty.
Speaking at a ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of the National Rebellion Day in the western province of Pinar del Rio, Diaz-Canel said Washington was pursuing a policy aimed at “suffocating the entire people in order to take over the country.”
He said the U.S. government had implemented a policy of “maximum economic suffocation” against the Cuban people, intensifying the blockade through an energy embargo and financial siege.
The measures had led to a severe crisis in Cuba’s power system, causing blackouts lasting for more than a day and paralyzing industrial activity, Diaz-Canel said.
The Cuban president described the blockade as a weapon of war. “To torture the Cuban people with the blockade in order to incite them to rebel against their government is a crime,” he said, noting that Washington’s unilateral coercive measures have been condemned every year by the United Nations General Assembly.
“Cuba is the victim of a coldly calculated genocide,” he said, citing the impact of U.S. sanctions on the island’s health system.
Diaz-Canel said the country was fighting “fiercely and stubbornly” for its sovereignty and its right to freely choose its form of government.
Cuba “is not a threat” but “a noble people that saves lives where others destroy, that sends doctors and teachers where others send bombs,” he said.
Diaz-Canel said the country’s strategic priority was to implement “deep and necessary changes” contained in a recently approved 176-measure government program.
He said Cuba is promoting different management models, encouraging workers and farmers, and opening space for responsible investment.
The country is responding to the blockade with wisdom and efficient work, and is dealing with isolation and division with unity, the president said.
The National Rebellion Day marks events on July 26, 1953, when late revolutionary leader Fidel Castro and about 100 of his followers attempted to take the Moncada Barracks, the second military fortress of the Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship, in the city of Santiago de Cuba, and the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes Barracks in the nearby town of Bayamo. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
