On 3 February 1962, John F. Kennedy issued Proclamation 3447, with which he formalised the economic, commercial and financial blockade against the Island.
Like harbingers of the underworld, Donald Trump and his clique launch messages of desolation and death against the Cuban people. The Executive Order of 29 January dictated by the leader exudes these airs; for the emulators of Thanatos, the objective is clear: to turn Cuba into a modern Numantia.
For the Island, this siege is not new. Convinced of the majority support of the people for the Revolution, from its dawn the United States set itself the task of undermining the foundations of the new power and inducing rebellion.
The strategy has been unchanging: weaken economic life to provoke hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of the Government. A policy coldly conceived to plunge the Cuban people into misery. Thus, on 6 April 1960, the memorandum of Lester D. Mallory, then Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, defined the soul of this war.
Shortly after, in June 1960, the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz appeared on Cuban television to denounce that, on instructions from Washington, foreign companies intended to boycott oil processing.
The reduction of fuel supply, the refusal to refine Soviet crude and the elimination of the sugar quota were merely the preamble to what would become the most prolonged genocide in history. On 7 February 1962, Executive Order 3447, signed by President John F. Kennedy on the 3rd, came into effect, formalising the blockade by invoking the «Trading with the Enemy Act» of 1917.
That was only the beginning. Reviewing the history of this unilateral war, it seems that Washington’s arsenal of malice is inexhaustible. Administration after administration, the mechanisms of coercion and siege were perfected: of the 32 tasks of «Operation Mongoose»—the vast terrorist plan designed after the defeat at the Bay of Pigs—15 were specifically directed against the Island’s economy.
From frustration, arrogance, and hatred were born laws like the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton Act, or the Bush Plan, which reinforced them. During his first government, Trump dictated more than 243 hostile measures, a policy that Joe Biden continued despite his electoral promises.
Now, the White House set out to bring the aggression to the economy and life of the nation to a surgical perfection, intending to leave no space unsealed; but it is not so easy to defeat the Cubans, a recent statement by the US leader says it all: «The only option left is to go in and destroy Cuba.»
During more than six decades of economic war imposed by the world’s greatest power, the Cuban project has demonstrated extraordinary resilience, harvesting achievements in all spheres that defy the logic of siege. (Author: Raúl Antonio Capote)
