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)

Most of the CIA’s covert operations in Latin America during the 1960s were directed against the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro. “No more Cubas”, was the agency’s slogan at the time.

The Agency created a division in New York City, called Foreign Publications Inc. (Foreign Publications Incorporated), to subsidize various anti-Cuban publications, many coming from Miami. The United States Information Agency (USIA) was also used for this purpose.

In 1996, the CIA launched the magazine Encuentro, directed by Cuban writer Jesús Díaz in Madrid, with funding from the Ford Foundation and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). In 2002, the Plaza Mayor Publishing House was created in Puerto Rico, under the direction of Patricia Gutiérrez-Menoyo, also sponsored by the NED.

Plaza Mayor intended to publish books by Cuban authors, in an apparently “apolitical” and cultural project called Colección Cultura Cubana.

In 2004, as a prelude to what would become the Genesis project, the CIA created, in Havana, the Online Literary Agency (Aló) to represent writers from the island, promote their work abroad and other related activities. Aló would be sponsored by the Pan American Foundation for Development (Fupad).

Thus, the CIA had a complete set-up to work with writers: a literary agency, a magazine and a publishing house, all independent of Cuban institutions.

Next, a web page was created to promote the authors, and it was strongly suggested that any politicization should be avoided. The backers went so far as to recommend that a phrase of Fidel’s should be used in publicity to promote the site. The CIA was convinced that, within a short period of time, they would have control of a good part of the country’s literary creators. Economic and institutional autonomy would allow them to disagree with government policies, without problem, and would be committed to their new sponsors.

Gatherings, events, contests and activities were organized with other artists, painters, actors, musicians, in order to gradually interest them in the agency, which could become an artistic endeavor, not only literary.

The name Aló, Agencia Literaria Online, was chosen to take advantage of the popularity in Cuba of Hugo Chávez’s Aló Presidente program, which, they calculated, would allow a quick positioning of the website.

By 2006, Aló became an agency that would not only represent writers. It expanded to management of actors, musicians, plastic artists, etc.

According to the CIA’s projections, working in this manner, that is, creating agencies or using those already existing in Miami, they could attempt, unsuccessfully, to separate artists and writers from Cuban cultural institutions, which would allow them to exercise control over these individuals and use them against the Revolution.

(Taken from Granma)

Disguised in multiple trappings, through agencies, companies and organizations, which rarely offer public information on the management of their funds, the financing of actions intended to undermine the Revolution have exceeded 249.5 million dollars, over the last two decades.

This has been investigated and published by the Cuba Money Project, a website devoted to covering stories on U.S. government programs and projects related to the island.

In 2020 alone, a report based on public information found on the digital portals of agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), estimates the total allocated to finance subversive initiatives at 2.5 million.

This is only a partial figure since, “Some programs are so secret that the recipients of funds are never disclosed,” explains journalist Tracey Eaton, in an article for the Cuba Money Project, entitled “The democracy business in Cuba is bustling.”

Eaton reports that at least 54 groups have operated programs on the island with money from USAID and NED since 2017, when Donald Trump assumed the Presidency.

“A sprawling network of U.S. government-financed groups sends cash to thousands of Cuban democracy activists, journalists and dissidents each year,” he wrote.

Recently, after the provocation at the Ministry of Culture, a reporter for the ADN-Cuba website – one of the foreign-run outlets that regularly distorts the country’s reality – acknowledged in a video circulating on social networks having received between 150 and 200 dollars to cover the event.

Other publications with an anti-Cuban agenda, describing themselves as practitioners of “independent” journalism, have also admitted having ties to U.S. agencies.

This, however, is only the visible face of an extremely lucrative business, since the State Department, USAID and NED report having “undisclosed” contractors, who receive an unknown portion of the funds directed toward changing our country’s political system.

It is impossible to know exactly how much of U.S. money ends up in Cuba and how many individuals are paid, Eaton concludes. What is very clear is that the millions invested have not been enough for the empire to subjugate a people determined to defend our sovereignty at any cost.

(Taken from Granma)

It was a neighborhood of humble people, harassed by the presence of Yankee Marines who came ashore in search of fun and cheap sex. Once the butt of jokes, San Isidro now has 14 family doctors’ offices, a traditional medicine clinic, a veterinary clinic, three child care centers, a kindergarten and four schools.

I had the opportunity to interact with residents, during a neighborhood discussion organized by the local Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (cdr) about two years ago, a tribute to honor Comandante en Jefe, Fidel Castro Ruz.

We met, without a stage, no prepared speeches, beneath a kapok treein a park. I remember two comments made, one in which, on behalf of all present, a resident declared his unconditional support for the Revolution, based on his religious faith.
Otero, head of the grouplet, has a long record of provocations, including desecration of the Cuban flag. Photo: Postcuba

The other was that of an old man, who called on his fellow citizens to remember what that place was like before 1959 and how many of them, as children, knew of cases of women who were abused by the yankee Marines.

Personal stories of social transformation like these do not constitute important news for transnational media and virtual networks that these days have fixed their sights on this densely populated neighborhood.

ANOTHER ANTI-CUBAN SHOW

Daily life in this neighborhood has been altered by a small group of people – 14 in total, four of them members of the so-called San Isidro Movement – who have become the center of a new counter-revolutionary show, sponsored and supported by the U.S. government.

The show is very similar to those staged on other occasions by other mercenary groups and puppets in the service of the U.S. government. Let us not forget the notorious, ridiculous fake “avocado strike,” in which its promoter was caught enjoying a delicious menu.

Not all of the actors in the performance play the same role: Some say they are on a food and water deprivation strike, others say they are on a hunger strike, and several say they are “guaracheando,” as can be seen in live transmissions, a kind of reality show members of the “movement” post on social media, for the purpose of self-promotion which also serves to report on their “work” to those who finance them.
Food delivered to the house where the alleged hunger strike was underway. Photo: Granma

The group, for the moment, has two demands. The first is the release of Denis Solís González, presented as a young censored artist, who they allege went missing after being detained by the police.

Denis Solís is currently serving an eight-month prison sentence for criminal contempt of authorities. He has not appealed the verdict.

The Cuban Rap Agency, an internationally recognized cultural institution, exposed the crude argument that the manipulators use regarding their relationship with the art form: “The voice of a beginner without a consolidated body of work cannot be invoked as representative of our hip hop, much less when it is known that the interests he defends are part of an orchestrated subversive plan against the Cuban Revolution.”

The nature of the plot became apparent in short order, clarified by Solís himself, who, in a video broadcast on social media, admitted having ties with individuals who have financed violent acts against Cuba, as is the case of José Luis Fernández Figueras, accused by the Cuban justice system of being part of a terrorist group based in Miami, who promised to send Solís $200 if he complied with his instructions.

WHAT IS THE SO-CALLED SAN ISIDRO MOVEMENT?

The fabricated San Isidro Movement, the center of a media boom orchestrated by an articulated network of media at the service of U.S. interests, in no way represents the humble, hard-working, revolutionary neighborhood from which they have taken their name and which repudiates the presence of people who live off scandal, commit degrading acts and even manipulate minors to participate in their crude, provocative performances.

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who is identified as the leader of the group, has an extensive record of provocations, trained and supported by Mara Tekach, when she was in the chargé de affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. Congressmen who have promoted the tightening of the genocidal blockade against the Cuban people are among the politicians he admires.

Evident in the reality shows they mount are the existential and cultural degradation of the group, as well as their ties to Miami terrorists who have carried out violent actions against our country.

In one of their live broadcasts, a member of the alleged Movement greeted terrorist William González Cabrera, who is responsible for financing attacks on facilities and establishments in Cuba, like those involving setting fires in a cafeteria, a barbershop and a neighborhood store. Another member of the group asked about actions to be carried out with Molotov cocktails.

While the script unfolded focusing on solidarity with Denis Solis, his “brothers” in the cause could be seen celebrating in a video posted on social media, showing an attitude that contrasted sharply with the talk of “martyrdom” they had promoted just hours earlier.

The second demand that they invented, as a pretext to gain popularity with their provocative efforts, is the elimination of the stores in freely convertible currency (MLC) a measure made necessary by the Trump administration’s intensification of economic persecution and the blockade, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The same individuals who are making this demand are buying food imported from abroad in these stores through an online platform, regardless of the hunger and thirst strike they claim to support.

WHO IS PULLING THE STRINGS?

The new show, orchestrated from Washington and Miami, is part of plans for subversion against Cuba, and has precedents in other similar actions organized, executed and financed by that government with the goal of destroying the Revolution.

If we analyze the modus operandi of the so-called San Isidro Movement, being implemented are many of standard tactics used in the “soft coup” strategy outlined in the manual by U.S. political scientist Gene Sharp, with striking similarities to plans executed in the Ukrainian Maidán, Venezuela’s street barricade “guarimbas” and actions by groups of delinquents during the coup d’état against Evo Morales in Bolivia.

Easily observed is the tendency to recruit thugs and individuals of low moral standing who lend themselves to serve as agents of a foreign government, promoting chaos and feeding the narrative of violence and repression in Cuba, disseminated by a well financed and articulated network of digital and traditional media.

U.S. government officials have made no secret of their complicity with the events in Havana, a fact that contrasts with our government’s position of not interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

Michael Kozak, acting undersecretary of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, a fervent promoter of the blockade and the end of remittances, has made several statements of support for the San Isidro Movement, as has Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, whose anti-Cuban record is well known to our people. Luis Almagro, secretary general of the discredited OAS, could not miss the opportunity to chime in and express his support for the latest anti-Cuban action.

U.S. officials, anti-Cuban Congress members and the OAS Secretary General are not interested in the effect on health that their irresponsible attitude could have on some of those involved. What they seek at all costs is to discredit the exemplary record of the Revolution, recently recognized by the election of Cuba as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, and garner support for the U.S. government’s justifications to maintain the genocidal blockade that affects our entire people.

This provocative action, responding to strings pulled in Washington and Miami, is intended to negate the rich history of the Revolution, which includes no precedent for giving into pressure from the empire, or a handful of posers. In January 1959, the Cuban people learned the value of independence, sovereignty and devotion to the full dignity of man. We are not willing to renounce these conquests that have cost so much glorious blood.

But in reality the funds managed by that organization have been used for repression against countries, organizations, movements and people with ideas of the left, or simply progressive.

Against Cuba, USAID, together with the NED, have served as a front for the actions of the CIA, and as a channel for the funds that finance the counterrevolution.

The Cuba Money Project website, created by the American journalist Tracey Eaton, cited data obtained from USAID’s Foreign Aid Explorer, which indicated that the amount allocated for subversion programs against Cuba, since 1990, was $ 261,395,214.

Since Donald Trump came to the White House on January 20, 2017, USAID has invested almost 50 million dollars to “change the political system” in the our country.

Recently, John Barsa, USAID’s acting administrator of the USAID, joined the anti-Cuban campaign of the Madrid-based counterrevolutionary NGO, Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos, which receives $ 250,000 annually from the NED and $ 127,000 from the USAID.

The CIA front organizations distribute $ 410,000 a year to media outlet DNA Cuba and $ 220,000 each to Diario de Cuba and Cubanet; a veritable dance of millions to try to defeat the Cuban Revolution. American taxpayer money is destined to fall, for the most part, into the deep pockets of the Miami Cuban-American mafia and their hired henchmen, who, as President Miguel Díaz- Canel said, will be left with only the desire to write the epitaph.

(Taken from Granma)

As part of a series of conferences on global governance and development, entitled “The challenges and common problems of humanity at the current

time,” the diplomat recalled that amidst the worsening pandemic, the United States announced its withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO).

“It is ironic that the imperialist government made this decision just when the strengthening of this organization was most needed,” he noted.

In terms of security and disarmament, he denounced the U.S. decision to renounce its commitment to the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and emphasized, “Trump has also stated that the Reduction of Strategic Arms Treaty (Start) will not be extended,” the only agreement on nuclear weapons currently in effect.

Valero insisted that multi-lateralism is the path to peace and emphasized that this is the focus promoted by the “Bolivarian, Chavista government, looking to construct an international structure that unites states in brotherhood and foments shared responsibility in international affairs.”

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, in his comments during the leaders meeting on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Sao Paulo Forum condemned the illegal U.S. blockade that has systematically violated the human rights of Cubans for over 60 years.

He sharply criticized the imperialists’ outrageous treatment of migrant families, “particularly boys and girls, mistreated, abused in a kind of cage, depriving human beings of dignity and their most elemental rights.”

Before the UN General Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla denounced the United States as the world’s principal violator of human rights, a pattern repeated systematically, massively and flagrantly.

During a meeting held November 1, 2019, to present the proposed UN resolution entitled: “The necessity of putting an end to the U.S. economic, commercial, and financial blockade against Cuba,” Rodríguez recalled that there were 2.3 million persons incarcerated in the United States, where 10.5 arrests a year are made, and that prisoners continue to be held illicitly and indefinitely at the illegal U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo.

“More than a million of their citizens sleep in the street; 28.5 lack medical insurance; women earn approximately 85% of what men do; and accusations of sexual harassment are common.”

On a global level, Rodríguez noted, the U.S. government has signed only 30% instruments of international law and does not recognize the right to peace or development, not even the rights of boys and girls.

(Source: Granma)

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla also referred to the situation: “The U.S. Secretary of State, who applauds coups and ignores murders, acts of barbarism, repression, and violations of human rights by its allies, calls on its embassy in Cuba to intervene in the internal affairs of a sovereign country that will not allow it.”

Cuba has repeatedly denounced the U.S. government’s slander campaign, most recently using as a pretext the arrest of a salaried agent serving the United States, with a long history of provocative, illegal actions to disrupt the public order. The embassy of the United States in Cuba has been the fundamental vehicle of attention, orientation, and financing of his conduct.

“The country’s diplomatic mission in Cuba and, particularly its chargé d’affaires, has concentrated on… promoting division and confusion in our people, identifying areas of the economy to attack with coercive measures, attempting to slander and discredit the work of the Cuban government and the Revolution,” stated a note published November 20.

Yesterday, the U.S. government added the Cuban company Corporación Panamericana S.A to it its list of entities sanctioned for maintaining relations with Venezuela.

(Granma)

The U.S. State Department reported that it had imposed visa restrictions on officials linked to Cuba’s medical missions program abroad, which the Trump administration is determined to discredit by whatever means possible.

The solidarity of the Cuban people and government was disparaged to justify the visa denial with the fallacy that members of the delegation were responsible for “exploitative” labor practices in the island nation’s medical services exports program.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry’s director general for the United States, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, referred to the hostile move tweeting, “A a huge mistake to believe that Cuban officials would betray our international medical cooperation commitments in exchange for visas to enter the United States.”

Last September, the United States Agency for International Development announced that it was offering up to three million dollars to organizations that “would investigate, gather, and analyze information” related to alleged violations of human rights of health personnel by Cuba.

“Fallacies, lies, maliciousness, and imperial arrogance that does not understand human values. Our medical missions are Cuba,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel insisted.

(Granma)

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly rejects its invocation under the pretext of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela being a threat to peace and security in the hemisphere, when in reality, the interventionist Monroe Doctrine implemented by the United States, hostility toward Venezuela, and the use of this treaty for such ends, that endanger the region’s peace and security.

Once again, the discredited Organization of American States was the vehicle for this outrage, in which an honorable group of nations openly opposed the decision.

Invoking the IRAT, which the United States used to justify military interventions and aggression in the region, causing so much pain and death to Latin Americans and Caribbeans, is a deliberate attempt to provoke a situation that could lead to the use of force to overthrow the legitimate government of President Nicolás Maduro Moros, in flagrant violation of the principles of international law and the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

By rejecting this decision, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls upon the governments and peoples of Our America and the world to resolutely oppose this measure that pretends to justify, via an artificial legal framework, intervention in the internal affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, which is unacceptable.

Havana, September13, 2019

This maxim fits perfectly, since just days before the vote, his admiring neighbor – Brazilian right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro – contacted Donald Trump, asking him to visit Argentina before the October elections, as a sign of support for Macri.

Along the same lines, he suggested a meeting with other right-wing Latin American figures – active in the OAS and Lima Group – and the presentation of a plan to avoid what he called the emergence of a “new Venezuela in South America.”

Such is the fear regarding the example of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, that its name is used by Bolsonaro and others of his stripe, as a regular reference in their policy of subservience to Washington.

These three characters – Trump, Bolsonaro and Macri– are trying to coordinate efforts to ensure that on October 27, the day of the Presidential elections, there will not be what has already been called “the birth of another Argentina.”

What fear motivates Bolsonaro when he asks Trump for help? It could be that he is getting ready so he has help when it’s his turn to face popular scrutiny for the second time.

The press has in fact noted that the results of the primary in Argentina left Brazilian authorities perplexed and divided on the attitude that Brazil should take from now on.

A Rio de Janeiro newspaper commented, “While President Jair Bolsonaro insists on a firm alliance with the government of Mauricio Macri, and is supporting him in the race against Alberto Fernández, military members of his cabinet and the head of the Chamber of Deputies advocate maintaining caution and acting with pragmatism.”

Bolsonaro has been very critical of former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, denouncing her ties with the Nicolás Maduro government in Caracas, and previously with Hugo Chávez, as well as the relationship she has with Brazilian leaders Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, of the Workers Party (PT).

But there is more: the Brazilian head of state has ignored all protocol and supported the re-election of Macri, although some of his advisors pointed out that his comments could have a negative effect, given widespread disdain for Bolsonaro in Argentina.

Macri, who after the primary defeat, is now blaming “the left” for everything bad that has happened in his country, preparing for the final stage in his campaign against Alberto and Cristina Fernández.

He is forgetting that the Kirchner years were the result of popular votes and repudiation of the fiercely neoliberal policies of then President Carlos Menem.

Macri should do something about the dire economic and social situation to which he has led the country over these last few years as President, rather than looking for help elsewhere.

Argentina is currently facing a recession, plus 22% inflation during the first half of the year, one of the highest rates in the world.

The population is suffering, among other neoliberal measures, an increase in the price of public utilities such as electricity and gas, which have experienced a cumulative increase of 1,490% in the first case and 1,297% in the second.

Meanwhile, unemployment increased from 7.1% in the first quarter of 2015 to 10.1 in the same period this year. Thirty-two percent of the population is living in poverty, and according to the Catholic University of Argentina, this includes half of all children, 10% of whom are going hungry.

It is clear that Macri’s request to the IMF, which awarded him a loan of 56 billion dollars, was of little use.

With such a measure, he has not only indebted the nation to the bone, and led the population to one of its worst crises, while becoming one of the most unpopular Presidents ever in Argentina, perhaps tied or surpassing Carlos Menem.

Oblivious to the results of his term in office, Macri intends to be re-elected as President, with the advice of Trump and Bolsonaro. The people will decide.

(Granma)