In front of the US Embassy on 20 December, Combatant People’s March for an end to hostility and against ignominy

On 20 December, the current US administration will have exactly 30 days left in its term of office.

Far from fulfilling his electoral promise regarding relations with Cuba, President Joseph Biden, in his four years in office, has kept in place and applied almost all of the draconian economic coercion measures imposed by the Trump administration, and has approved others, such as the recent legislation legalising the shameless theft of the Havana Club brand in the US market.

The policy of maximum pressure applied, the cornerstone of which is the strengthening of the blockade, has had markedly damaging effects on the quality of life of the Cuban people, their access to food, health services, medicines, decent housing and numerous essential goods, and has provoked the migration of thousands of people, sometimes in extremely risky conditions.

It is the rigorous concretion of the design of imperialist action towards Cuba, outlined in the well-known memorandum of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Lester Mallory, 64 years ago, who defined that the only way to confront the Cuban Revolution «… is through the disenchantment and dissatisfaction arising from economic malaise and material difficulties… all possible means must be rapidly employed to weaken the economic life of Cuba… a line of action which, being the most skilful

and discreet as possible, will make the greatest progress in depriving Cuba of money and supplies, in order to reduce its financial resources and real wages, to provoke hunger, despair and the overthrow of the Government».

The strategy since then has been not only to bring hunger and misery to the Cuban people, but also, and above all, to try to make it appear that the cause of such misfortunes is «inefficient management» by the Cuban government, and not Washington’s so-called «sanctions».

But the numbers are clear in showing who is holding back the necessary development of the Cuban nation. The blockade affects our people to the tune of more than 421 million dollars a month, more than 13.8 million dollars a day, and 575,683 dollars in damages for every hour of its application.

The blockade is the most comprehensive, complete and prolonged system of unilateral and extraterritorial coercive economic measures ever applied against any nation.

«No country, even with economies much more prosperous and robust than Cuba’s, could face such a ruthless, asymmetric and prolonged aggression without considerable cost to the standard of living of its population, its stability and social justice,» says the report presented by Cuba this year to the United Nations General Assembly, where the overwhelming majority of UN member countries condemned this policy of force and suffocation.

In addition to the considerable damage caused to the economy, finances and trade by this aberrant policy, there are the restrictive measures derived from the decision to include Cuba, in a treacherous manner, in the infamous arbitrary and illegitimate list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism. It was a perverse move by the Trump administration, a few days before leaving the White House.

This designation is cynical, because Cuba, far from sponsoring terrorism, has been and is the victim of recurrent terrorist activities financed and organised from US territory, with the acquiescence of the US authorities.

Cuba has a clear and firm position against terrorism in all its forms. It has served as a key intermediary in the peace talks between the Colombian government, the ELN and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), in the same spirit in which, a decade ago, it called on the member states of CELAC to declare the region a Zone of Peace, «based on respect for the principles and norms of International Law».

It is a cruel act because it is designed to maximise the suffering of the Cuban people. The inclusion of our country on the list of nations that support terrorism not only hinders international transactions, has obstacles in exports and financial restrictions, or hinders assistance to the country with humanitarian aid, but also threatens or penalises citizens of countries that enjoy the privilege of this for travelling to Cuba, which includes Cuban nationals. It also interferes with banking transactions by natural persons and new non-state economic actors. It prevents the contracting of online services and restricts academic and scientific exchanges.

In May 2024, the State Department removed Cuba from the list of states that «do not fully cooperate» with the United States in the fight against terrorism, further highlighting the infamous and opportunistic nature of the 2021 designation.

In defending the rational change of attitude, the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, not only argued the Colombian government’s current position, but also highlighted Cuba’s police cooperation and the non-existence of terrorist elements on Cuban territory.

But this is not enough. Cuba continues to suffer as a result of its cynical, cruel and illegal exclusion from the international economy and finance, given its continued inclusion on the arbitrary list of alleged sponsors of terrorism.

President Biden can put an end to this lie and heed the call of dozens of governments, numerous former presidents and prime ministers, hundreds of parliamentarians, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops and other religious leaders, and thousands of organisations around the world and in the United States itself.

In his remaining days in office, President Biden can remove Cuba from the List of Sponsors of Terrorism; he has the authority to do so. If he wants to leave a legacy of decency in the last days of his political life, he can take this symbolic step. There is still time to do so.

The Cuban people will continue to fight against the unjust aggression, against the genocidal blockade, against manipulation and lies, against the spurious and coercive lists, against the millions in funds to subvert the internal order and feed disinformation operations, and will demand with all its might justice and peace for Cuba and for our world.

This is what it will do on 20 December, when, in its name, the people of the capital will take to the Malecon in Havana in a Combatant March to express, in front of the US Embassy, their demand for an end to hostility, their condemnation of imperial ignominy, and their irreducible spirit of struggle and victory.

We will march with the profound conviction, instilled by Fidel, that there is no force in the world capable of crushing the force of truth and ideas.