New York, 23 September 2021. “For more than 60 years the US government has not ceased not even for one minute in its attacks against Cuba. But at this crucial and challenging moment for all nations, its aggressiveness exceeds all limits”,declared the President of the Republic and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, Miguel M. Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, during his statement at the General Debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly.
The Cuban President stated that the cruelest and lengthiest economic, commercial and financial blockade ever imposed against any nation has been intensified in an opportunistic and criminal manner in the midst of the pandemic. The current Democratic administration keeps in force, unchanged, the 243 coercive measures adopted by the government of Donald Trump, including the inclusion of Cuba in the spurious and immoral list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism, he underscored.
He affirmed that an unconventional war is launched against Cuba, to which the US government earmarks, publicly and blatantly, multibillion-dollar funds through campaigns of manipulation and lies.
He denounced that under the leadership and with the permanent incitement of the United States, a perilous international schism is being promoted. With the malicious use and abuse of measures of economic coercion, which has become a pivotal instrument of the US foreign policy, the government of that country threatens, extorts and exerts pressures on sovereign States so that they speak out and act against those it identifies as enemies, he expressed.
In spite of this, he ratified that we continue to create for Cuba and in pursuit of selfless solidarity: in response to requests received and guided by its deep supportive and humanistic vocation, Cuba has sent more than 4,900 health professionals, organized in 57 medical brigades, to 40 countries and territories affected by COVID-19.
At the same time, the Cuban scientific community, in the midst of enormous shortages, developed three vaccines and two vaccine candidates against COVID-19. Accordingly, in the first ten days of this month, more than 15.8 million doses of Abdala, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus vaccines had been administered, and 37.8 percent of the Cuban population had completed the vaccination schedule, while the aim is to immunize the entire population of the island by the end of 2021.
Díaz-Canel Bermúdez ratified Cuba’s determination to continue to clearly expound its truths, to accompany just causes, to confront outrages, as we have confronted foreign aggression, colonialism, racism and apartheid, and to fight tirelessly for the greater justice, prosperity and development of our peoples who deserve a better world.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations
