Cuba continues to receive donations to alleviate the unprecedented crisis in which it has found itself for three years. This time, more than two tons of medicines from the United States, which will be transferred to the island on July 18 from Miami by the religious organization and supporter of Castroism, Pastors for Peace.
According to reports the official press, will arrive in Cuba through Holguín to participate in the seventieth anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks, whose main act will be on July 26 in Santiago de Cuba. The Americans will stay until July 29 and will also visit Guantánamo, which is part of the usual route to denounce the presence of the US base in that province.
As usual when reporting on these programs, the note specifies that the Pastors for Peace caravans, founded by Lucius Walker in 1992, began “in frank defiance of United States policies in the region and especially the economic, commercial blockade and financial tax imposed on Cuba for decades”.
In addition, they list other “solidarity” projects from the US, all related to the regime, such as the Hatuey Project, who have a campaign in favor of medicines for Cuban children with leukemia and lymphoma; Global Health Partners, which sent six million syringes to Cuba during the covid-19 pandemic and now “tries to join forces” to send “supplies anesthesia and sutures to a hospital in Havana”; Puentes de Amor and Code Pink, which “manage to provide powdered milk to the 22 pediatric institutions in Cuba”.
In addition to these US organizations and coinciding with July 26, “more than 300 friends of solidarity with Cuba” will visit the country
In addition to those American organizations and coinciding with July 26, as it was announced last week, “more than 300 friends of solidarity with Cuba” will visit the country. Among them, from Puerto Rico (the Juan Rius Rivera Brigades) and Brazil.
Last Saturday, the US Embassy in Havana responded to some statements by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, who on several occasions has blamed the blocking of the shortage of medicines on the island.
The diplomatic headquarters denied via Twitter that the economic embargo prohibits exports of US drugs and even assured that it is “easy” to obtain the purchase license at the Department of Commerce.
He explained that, so far in 2023, the United States has approved almost 900 million dollars in medical exports to Cuba, a figure that exceeds the 800 million that were registered in all of 2022. “That the embargo should not be used as an excuse to the lack of medical care in Cuba,” adds the publication.
Initially, the foreign minister would have responded to an update from the US Census Bureau, which revealed that US exports to Cuba have exceeded 2.1 million dollars in various products, between January and May 2023. However, the The official assured that the medicines suffer the “same prohibitions” imposed by the blocking.
However, the shortage of medicines on the Island is mainly due to a lower production of BioCubaFarmawhich last May warned that the industry did not have enough raw materials to guarantee the drugs in greatest demand, both for open sale and for hospital use.
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