Statement by the Tudeh Party of Iran on Cuba Situation
In recent days, Granma, the official voice of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee, has reported on some provocative protest demonstrations in the country and the U.S. administration's efforts to politically exploit these protests. According to the media reports, some right-wing opposition forces in Cuba have tried to give the protests a political and anti-socialist dimension, taking advantage of disgruntlement over shortages and economic problems caused by more than six decades of continual inhumane U.S. government sanctions. The White House issued a statement by President Joe Biden on Monday, 12 July, officially supporting the demonstrations in Cuba as well as their anti-government rhetoric.
Cuban President, Comrade Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a detailed televised speech on Monday, 12 July, pointed to the imposition of U.S. sanctions against the country since 1962 which have continued unabated, and described them to be the most serious cause of economic shortages in the country. He called the recent protests as being the result of direct U.S. provocations aimed at overthrowing the country's popular government and described the demonstrators as counter-revolutionaries. Cuban Foreign Minister, Comrade Bruno Rodriguez, also denounced the street protests as being instigated and financed by the United States.
In line with its consistent policy over the past six decades, the Tudeh Party of Iran supports the Cuban government and its policies in continuing to build a socialist society, and stands with Cuba's heroic Communist Party and the overwhelming majority of the people and working-class of Cuba in these difficult circumstances and times. We condemn the U.S. government's interventionist and provocative policies. The Tudeh Party of Iran, along with all the people and of the world, calls for the unconditional lifting of all U.S. inhumane sanctions on Cuba. It should be noted that at the late-June 2021 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, 184 countries voted in favour of the resolution to lift the U.S. sanctions against Cuba, and only the U.S. government and Israel's racist government voted against it.
As Cuban President, Comrade Diaz-Canel, noted, Cuba's economy is facing major problems clearly as a result of six decades of unrelenting harsh and inhumane U.S. sanctions and the blockade. Furthermore, the devastating trend by which sanctions were intensified under former president, Donald Trump, continues to this day. Over the past year and a half, with the closure of the tourism industry (one of the most important sources of national income and the source of prosperity for many people engaged in private tourism-related businesses in Cuba) due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, the economic problems of Cuba have been exacerbated. Also, due to the U.S. sanctions, the facilities and machinery of the sugar production sector, another major source of income for the Cuban economy, have become degraded and worn out thus posing further serious challenges.
It should also be noted that although Cuba enjoys an effective and outstanding medical system and has a high level of expertise in the treatment of viral diseases and vaccine production, the U.S. government has sought, since the beginning of 2020, to extensively disrupt the Cuban state’s initiative regarding the production and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine through an intensification and tightening of the sanctions regime - and has even pressured those countries that have welcomed Cuban medical assistance in the fight against the pandemic.
The Tudeh Party of Iran believes that the harsh and anti-humane sanctions of the U.S. under the guise of defending "democracy" and "human rights" have been a central part of the aggressive policy of imperialism in recent decades to crush governments that place social justice and democratic rights as the core tenets of their policies. It is also clear that the policy of imperialism has historically been based on supporting all kinds of violent repressive and militaristic dictatorships, including the Shah's regime in Iran, dictatorships in Indonesia and Iraq, and military governments in South America during the Cold War. Today, we see the continuation of the same policies and support for extreme right-wing governments such as the one headed by Bolsonaro in Brazil, Modi in India, the medieval and anti-people government of Saudi Arabia, and the racist state of Israel.
The Tudeh Party of Iran believes that, contrary to the unfounded optimism, the Biden administration's foreign policy has basically continued along the same lines of its predecessor. The U.S. government, due to its serious domestic political and economic challenges, has targeted countries like Cuba and China much more harshly with sanctions, attacks, and interferences, merely because they pursue an economic model in contrast with the free-market ideology and neo-liberalism. From May to September 2020, a further eight-million U.S. citizens were added to the number of those living below the poverty line, bringing the total number to 55-million, according to research published by Columbia University.
It is also important to note that the basis and nature of these sanctions against Cuba or China differ significantly from the U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose economic program over the past three decades has always been in harmony with the “Washington Consensus” - although the goal of sanctions anywhere is to put back-breaking pressure on the people all the same.
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, political forces ranging from the right spectrum to some "leftists" use Cuba's economic problems and consequent pressures on the people, and their reactions, as a tool to defend capitalism and reject socialism in their analysis and media broadcasts, thus practically endorsing the sanctions regime and the hegemonistic role of the United States. Together with Joe Biden and the imperialist media, they pretend to be defending the Cuban people and claim that they are defending human rights in Cuba. This is all deception and dishonesty. The historical experience of popular struggles in various countries in the 20th and 21st centuries has repeatedly shown that the monopoly capital and its resulting political systems are inherently against democratic rights and freedoms - and indeed against the real freedom, independence, and progress of developing countries.
The Tudeh Party of Iran reaffirms its unwavering solidarity with the heroic Communist Party of Cuba, the people of socialist Cuba, as well as the country's elected government that is supported by the working people. As over the past 62 years, alongside the Cuban people and their government, we support their all-out struggle to overcome the existing problems, in defence of the sovereignty and territorial integrity and socialist system of this country.
The Tudeh Party of Iran
14 July 2021
