Mi corazón sangra por Cuba

 

We took this photo on our Honeymoon in 2000

There is an excellent article in The Byline Times today (Hat-tip Kimmy) by the late Paul Conroy.

Veteran war photographer and correspondent Paul Conroy died of natural causes a day after returning from Cuba with this report of another city under siege. He never stopped bearing witness

It seems that Trumplestiltskin & his thugs are strangling the life out of ordinary Cuban's as punishment for choosing Communism as a form of government. 

Cuba is close to collapse. That appears to be the point. With Venezuelan oil cut off, Trump turns to the island’s last major supplier, Mexico, and threatens tariffs unless they turn off the taps. The message has a familiar mobster ring. Nice economy you have there. Shame if anything happened to it.

Last week, Miguel Díaz-Canel, (Cuba's president) in a two hour televised monologue, promised more sacrifice. Fuel rationing. Longer power cuts. Four day weeks for state employees. Shortened hours for schools and universities. Less of everything, for everyone.

The United Nations has described the embargo as inhumane and warned of a looming humanitarian disaster. Mexico has started sending ships loaded with aid. A NOTAM, a notice to all air missions, announces that as of Monday 10 February, José Martí International Airport has run out of jet fuel. 

Why? So the answer must be dogma. Cuba is one of the last communist governments standing. They do not export revolution. They barely export sugar. The average Cuban has about as much chance of removing his government as the average Minnesotan has of evicting the madmen squatting in the White House.

In the end, Cubans are being crushed under the weight of Washington’s hemispheric dominance dreams, layered with a Hegsethian level of paranoia about communists in the backyard.

The oil embargo on Cuba is almost certainly illegal and unquestionably immoral. The international community needs to rummage down the back of the diplomatic sofa, find its mislaid sense of justice, and act before the crisis unfolding here slides from slow-motion emergency into full-blown catastrophe.

Good luck with that. 'The international community', 'Rule of Law' etc. are all broken. Witness Mark Carney's brilliant speech @ Davos. Goodnes help the Cubans.