Under Siege: A Review of a Resilient Island

In June 1960, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz appeared before the cameras of Cuban Television to inform the people that, according to the U.S. Government's instructions, foreign companies were planning to boycott the processing of oil.

Such a mess became a reality when the monopoly made up of the Esso, Texaco and Shell refineries refused to refine the hydrocarbon that the island had acquired in the USSR.

Just two months earlier, in April 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Undersecretary of State, issued a memorandum that would serve as the basis for the economic war against Cuba.

Days later, the National Security Council again raised the Cuban question, and Allen Dulles stated: "The only possible solution is the application of severe economic sanctions so that the daily life of the Cubans becomes untenable".

The spiral of the war grew until it hit bottom in February 1962, when President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 3447 went into effect, which initiated the blockade against Cuba. But it would not stop there; that was only the beginning.

For the hegemonic corporate press at the service of the White House and its local servants, the main problem of the Cuban economy is its inefficiency, a product, among other things, of the so-called "internal blockade" and the "enormous bureaucracy" of the Government.

However, the truth is that the total damage caused by the blockade, if adjusted for the depreciation of the dollar against gold, amounts to more than 1.3 trillion dollars, which reflects the real cost it has had for the development of the Island.

Since April 2019, the U.S. Government implemented an active policy of persecution and sanctions against ships and shipping companies transporting oil to Cuba, mainly from Venezuela.

These measures included more than 90 vessels and several companies on the blacklist of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (ofac), prohibiting transactions with U.S. entities and blocking related assets.

Between March 2023 and February 2024 alone, the effects on the energy and mining sector totaled some 388 million dollars, mainly due to the persecution of shipping companies, insurance companies and banks that prevent the arrival of oil to the island.

Nothing has changed since 1960. The piratical persecution unleashed by the U.S. Government was designed to break the soul of the nation, so that, moved by discouragement, we give up our dreams of freedom and justice for all.