Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio:
“Yesterday we published that 96,000 Cubans are waiting for surgery as a result of lack of fuel and lack of energy, among them 11,000 children. So I would think that the American people would feel, why does our government treat the whole population of Cuba in this way? And I hope that the people of the United States would understand that it’s not correct to treat another nation in the way the U.S. is doing it simply to try to achieve political goals.”
NBC: President Trump says he believes that Cuba will collapse on its own. Is your country currently in a state of collapse?
Carlos Fernandez de Cossio: What does “on its own” mean when it’s being forced by the United States? It’s a very bizarre statement, and it’s claimed by most U.S. politicians repeatedly that Cuba will collapse on its own. Then why does the U.S. government need to employ so many resources, so much political capital, so many human resources to try to destroy the economy of another country? Evidently it implies that the country does not have the characteristics to collapse on its own.
Host: You say you’re not responsible. Putting this blockade aside though, Mr. Deputy Foreign Minister, human rights groups have reported that nearly 90% of your citizens live in extreme poverty. Nearly 80% of your citizens intend to emigrate. Has your system of communism failed the people of Cuba?
Carlos Fernandez de Cossio: I don’t know which are your sources and which are the human rights organizations that claim such, but I’m sure, and I can quite accurately guess, that the majority are either financed directly by the U.S. government or by proxies of the U.S. government. Now people are hurting in Cuba. There’s no doubt about that. But you cannot put a question mark on the system of socialism or communism or the system of government that we have in Cuba, whichever way you wish to call it, if the U.S., the most powerful nation in the world, has had to dedicate almost seven decades to try to destroy the system of government and yet failed.
Cuba, if you look at the ranks in the UN, has one of the highest ranks for a developing country and even compared to developed countries in terms of human development. Now what does human development mean? The livelihood of people, not the wealth of a few, not the wealth of an elite, not the index of the Dow Jones. It’s the welfare of the population. And Cuba has consistently for decades, with the system of government that we have, had those rankings.
Host: And yet, Mr. Deputy Foreign Minister, I hear you trying to place blame on the United States, and yet for 67 years your country has had no free press, no free elections, a history of political prisoners. Your country has not been able to function without the aid or assistance from your allies. Does your government bear some responsibility for the fact that your people are suffering?
Carlos Fernandez de Cossio: Those are statements that you cannot substantiate. You don’t have evidence to sustain all the affirmations that you have just made in your statement.
Unfortunately, I know that it might come to you, whatever literature you have, but you cannot sustain those affirmations that you have.
Cuba has been a successful country. What developing country has been submitted to the onslaught from the most powerful nation in the world and yet been able to carry solidarity to over 100 countries, have health indicators that are better than the ones you have in the United States, have educational indicators that are better than you have in the United States, have housing indicators which are better than the ones you have in the United States?
The majority of people in Cuba, I’m talking about 90%, live in homes that they own, that they don’t have to pay a mortgage for. So claims that you make trying to portray Cuba as a failure cannot be substantiated.
It is different from the United States. It’s a much humbler country in terms of the size of the economy of the United States. It’s much different than the United States, but it’s not wrong. Being different is not mistaken. And above all, it does not excuse submitting the whole population to an unrelenting warfare by the most powerful nation in the world. There’s no way, whatever statement you make, that can excuse for the U.S. government to abuse in such a way the people of Cuba. It’s common sense. It’s moral sense.
