News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Weds. Sept. 23, 2020: In the spirit of Fidel Castro, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermudez went on the attack against the US Tuesday in his virtual address to the 75th UN General Assembly, as he highlighted America’s own human rights issue under the current president.
“The Donald Trump administration it also manipulating, with subversive aims, cooperation in the sphere of democracy and human rights, while in its own territory there is an abundance of practically uncontrolled expressions of hatred, racism, police brutality and irregularities in the election system and as to the voting rights of citizens,” President Díaz-Canel said.
He slammed the administration as a “markedly aggressive and morally corrupt regime,” noting that it “despises and attacks multilateralism, uses financial blackmailing in its relations with UN system agencies and that, in a show of unprecedented overbearance, has withdrawn from the World Health Organization, UNESCO and the Human Rights Council.”
Díaz-Canel also pointed out that the US is also staying away from fundamental international treaties such as the Paris Agreement on climate change; rejects the nuclear agreement with Iran reached by consensus; promotes trade wars; ends its commitment with international disarmament control instruments; militarizes cyberspace; expands coercion and unilateral sanctions against those who do not bend to its designs and sponsors the forcible overthrow of sovereign governments through nonconventional war methods.”
The Cuban President also denounced the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed against his country by the Government of the United States; and starting in 2019, its efforts to deprive the people of Cuba the possibility to buy fuel they need for their everyday activities, “measures that violate international law.”
“We denounce the double standards of the US government in the fight against terror,” he said. “We demand a cease of the hostility and slanderous campaign against the altruistic work by Cuba´s international medical cooperation that, with much prestige and verifiable results, has contributed to saving hundreds of lives and lowering the impact of the disease in many countries.”
TRUMP HYPOCRISY
The President’s remarks came as a new el Nuevo Herald report unearthed more proof of how seriously Trump tried to gain a foothold in Cuba, despite the U.S. embargo that’s in place, even as he courted Cuban American voters.
Documents show that Trump applied to register his Trump trademark in Cuba in 2008 so he could conduct business and invest in real estate. His plans included not only erecting a Trump Tower in Havana and putting a golf course in Varadero and other possible sites, but building casinos as well.
In 2016, Newsweek reported that Trump sent emissaries on a mission to secure business ventures in Cuba in 1997 that would allow him to skirt the ban imposed by the embargo. Interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings confirmed the dealings.
He only turned to Cuban Americans and blasting Castro in the Herald when that didn’t work out.
REPARATIONS
Meanwhile, President Díaz-Canel also expressed solidarity with the Caribbean nations, which are demanding just reparations for the horrors of slavery and the slave trade; and he reaffirmed Cuba’s historical commitment with the self-determination and independence of the sisterly people of Puerto Rico.
In solidarity with other nations and the humanistic vocation of its people, Cuba will be sending over 3,700 cooperation workers, distributed in 46 medical brigades, to 39 countries and territories hit by COVID-19, he said.
