On December 19, the Cuban government reiterated the stated reasons for the next day’s March of the Combatants. Here is what it said:
- “Yes, there is a blockade, the blockade has been intensified, there is an economic war, they despise us, they vulgarly, obscenely and hatefully poison us on social media, said the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, at the Plenary Session of the party organization, last Friday.”
- He said that “in response to this design of an increased hostile policy, we call from this Plenum on the heroic Cuban people to a combative march on December 20, at the conclusion of the Session of the National Assembly of People’s Power.”
- “The Head of State said that “we will express in front of the United States Embassy in Havana, as we have so often accompanied the Commander in Chief, the strongest and most forceful condemnation of the criminal blockade of the United States Government and the permanence of Cuba on the illegitimate list of countries supposedly sponsoring terrorism that causes terrible harm to all the people.”
The next morning (before the start of the March later that afternoon), President Diaz-Balart spoke at the closing of an ordinary session of the National Assembly of People’s Power and asserted that the White House in the last four years had “bet on the collapse of the Revolution” while focusing on the “ruthless application of the system of coercive measures established by its predecessor to reinforce the economic blockade. It did not even have the decency to ease its economic aggression in the hardest moments of Covid-19 or when we have faced natural or other disasters.”
This blockade, he claimed, was “the culprit of the economic problems that the regime he presides over has worsened. . . . The blockade, its walls, have no expiration date. It is the style of empires to impose punishments and extend them over time. . . . The new hawks talk about peace through force. They deeply despise diplomacy that promotes understanding with nations that they do not consider their equals, which they despise.”
“As revolutionaries, Marxists, followers of Martí and Fidel, we will not tire of fighting against the imperialists, fascists, warmongers, exclusionists, predators who threaten our species.”
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Today, March of the Combatant People, Granma (Dec. 19, 2024); Diaz-Canel: Biden administration ‘bet on the collapse of the Revolution,’ Diario de Cuba (Dec. 20, 2024).