“The White House will require an entry visa to the US from anyone who has visited Cuba”
The European Union has become, de facto, a colony of the United States. And its media outlets reproduce the propaganda scheme of the metropolis: censorship and submission to the interests of Washington (…).
The European Union has become, de facto, a colony of the United States. And its media outlets reproduce the propaganda scheme of the metropolis: censorship and war reports on the Ukraine conflict, submission to Washington’s interests on the international news agenda.
If European oil companies such as ENI or Repsol operate again in Venezuela because the US government now allows it, after prohibiting it for years, do we read any critical analysis, any editorial in the Italian or Spanish press that denounces such subjugation of European sovereignty?Nothing. Not the slightest hint of dignity. “The US will let Repsol and Eni take Venezuelan oil to Europe,” we read. The European press is limited to writing what the master dictates.
In the case of Cuba, more of the same. The US Helms-Burton Act persecutes European companies that have invested in the Island and threatens and drives away those that plan to do so. Its directors – those of the Spanish hotel company Meliá, for example – are even prohibited from entering the US. And what does the Spanish corporate press do? Do you defend the interests of your companies, denounce such extortion? Any. On the contrary. The newspaper ABC, for example, lists Camila Acosta, promoter of the boycott of tourism on the island, as its correspondent in Havana, which includes acts against Meliá and other Spanish companies.
The latest example of European indignity is the measure of the White House to require an entry visa to the US from anyone who has visited Cuba. Let us remember that European citizens do not need a visa to enter the US, only a digital form called ESTA. But whoever has done tourism in Cuba, now, will have to request a visa to enter the United States. Any protest from European governments? Reciprocal measures? Any. And the European press? Any complaint, any editorial, any criticism of this unacceptable blackmail? Any. Again, bow your head to the empire. Whose Department of Homeland Security, on its website, makes its threats clear: “if it is discovered that a traveler has visited a country designated as a state sponsor of terrorism (…) he must apply for a visa to enter the United States”
Let us remember that Cuba was included in 2021, by the White House, in its “List of State Sponsors of Terrorism”, something that has had lethal consequences for its economy, such as the international banking blockade. His inclusion was a dirty move between the presidents of the US and Colombia, Donald Trump and Iván Duque. He had decided to break off the dialogue process with the ELN guerrillas, which was taking place with the help of Cuba, and demanded that Havana hand over the negotiating guerrilla delegation. The Cuban government’s refusal to violate the protocol signed by the parties and the guarantor countries was the excuse for Trump to include Cuba, a country that has given everything for peace in Colombia, on the famous “list of terrorist countries”
But let us return to the measure of requiring a visa to enter the United States from anyone who has visited the island. The intention is evident: to put one more stick in the wheel of the Cuban economy, weakened by the blockade, 243 recent sanctions and the pandemic, and attack one of the country’s few sources of income, tourism. All so that the shortages, the lack of medicines and the electrical blackouts extend over time, until they provoke the desperation of the population and hypothetical massive protests.
Therefore, it is necessary to spread this message. You have to visit Cuba, promote its tourism. It is a matter of life or death for a people subjected to a ruthless and cruel war.
(By José Manzaneda/CUBAINFORMACIÓN Coordinator)