(by Andrea Pinto) Chaos reigns in Cuba, people, tired after about 60 years of Communist regime, went out into the streets, there is a lack of food and medicines and hospitals are in collapse. The regime has blacked out the internet and the media, those few active ones, are controlled. Cuba is in a bubble, disconnected from the rest of the world. The American territory is about 90 miles away, there is a fear of an unprecedented invasion of refugees in history and, above all, of losing votes in Florida, given that a large part of the population comes from the island of the now late Fidel Castro. Biden cannot remain indifferent and yesterday publicly announced: “We will bring the Internet back to the Cubans, they have cut off access to the Internet. We are considering whether we have the technology to restore it ”.
The head of the White House called Cuba, “A failed state that represses its citizens”, as well as “communism, a universally failed system. And I don't see socialism as a useful substitute ”.
I am ready to send Covid vaccines to Cuba, if I have the assurance that they are distributed by an international organization and really reach all citizens. Also ready to send food aid and medicines. So Joe Biden is trying to show attention to the Cuban people and to the various souls within the American Democrats who are pushing for a more careful and far-sighted American foreign policy towards the crisis that has burned down at the gates of their borders.
The Cuban leader Diaz-Canel he replied in kind: "If Biden really had humanitarian concerns for Cubans, he would eliminate the 243 measures imposed by Trump. The US has failed in its attempt to destroy Cuba ".
Obama's adviser Ben Rhodes, who had negotiated the agreement in the Vatican, publicly saying that half of Cuba now belonged to Cuban-Americans who over the years had sent money to relatives who remained on the island, opened the way to a relaxation of sanctions.
Trump, however, has never carried through Obama's line, further tightening sanctions. Now Biden cannot go back, he must gradually review the conditions, without creating a fanfare, to safeguard the Midterm elections of 2022. All this while trying to avoid an exodus of refugees to America.
The strategy is to guarantee services such as the Internet to Cubans and get some international organizations to intervene to bring aid to the population together with a massive delivery of anti-covid vaccines.