MIAMI, United States. – Ernesto Soberón Guzmán, permanent ambassador of Havana to the United Nations, He assured EFE this Thursday that Cuba is “prepared” for an extreme scenario of sanctions and that it is not contemplating surrender, in the midst of what it described as a strategy to weaken the country and provoke social unrest.
The diplomat linked the current pressure—including the oil restriction promoted by Washington—with a political objective against the Island. “If they apply a complete blockade, we will have plans to confront it; the priority is to protect the population and guarantee essential services,” he said.
Soberón insisted that Havana will not assume a logic of capitulation. “The word surrender, collapse or betrayal is not in the Cuban mentality,” he said, and stressed that “Cuba will maintain independence, sovereignty and its ability to decide its own course.”
On the economic level, the official stated that the country is going through a severe deterioration: in five years, he noted, Cuba has lost close to 15% of its GDP and more than 20% of its population.
The energy crisis, he added, has resulted in prolonged blackouts, flight cancellations and impacts on basic services such as transportation, hospitals and garbage collection. He also maintained that the panorama hits tourism and internal logistics.
The official stated that the sanctions have a “cumulative” effect after more than six decades of embargo, and warned that the lack of fuel aggravates the situation. Even so, he recalled that Cuba has faced similar scenarios in the past, such as the “Special Period”.
Soberón indicated that the country works on renewable energy and the refining of heavy crude oil as ways to sustain electricity generation, according to the report.
In the diplomatic field, he denounced attempts to limit other sources of income, such as international medical cooperation, and defended the willingness to dialogue with Washington under conditions of mutual respect, equality and non-interference.
However, he stressed that Cuba would be willing to dialogue with the United States, but “without imposing conditions or accepting impositions,” and maintained that openness to exchange has been a constant of Cuban foreign policy, with “concrete progress” in previous stages, according to EFE.
