'We will never negotiate under pressure', ex-Cuba envoy to US says
Israel’s siege of Gaza bears stark semblances to the 64-year-old US blockade of Cuba, Jose Ramon Cabañas Rodriguez tells MEMO
Dr Daud AbdullahDr Daud Abdullah abdullahdaud74
April 9, 2023 at 8:30 am
Jose Ramon Cabañas Rodriguez served in the Cuban diplomatic service for 37 years. In 2015 he became his country's first ambassador to the United States in 50 years. During his long and distinguished career, Cabañas was involved in some of the most difficult diplomatic challenges Cuba faced in recent decades. He played a key role in securing the release of the Miami Five from incarceration in the US. Now back in Havana, Jose is director of the Research Centre for International Policy (CIPI). We met recently while he was attending MEMO's conference on decolonisation and apartheid in Palestine.
Fundamentals
I began our conversation by asking him about the fundamentals of Cuban foreign policy, its constants and its variables. "Some people may think we are boring and almost predictable," he says. They know what to expect in almost any scenario. The first principle of that policy is "to defend our sovereignty at any cost."
Naturally, Cuba affirms the efficacy of diplomacy. Throughout the past 64 years, Cuba's foreign policy has been driven by the principles of reciprocity and mutual respect between nations. All these are enshrined in the country's new constitution, which was adopted in 2019 and emphasises that "we will never negotiate under pressure."
Revolutionary leaders from José Martí to Fidel Castro have always encouraged internationalism. "We follow a course of solidarity both from a political and cultural point of view. That has been seen in our role in Africa. We are returning to Africa what Africa gave to us. It is our heritage and it gave us a lot."
More:
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20230409-we-will-never-negotiate-under-pressure-ex-cuba-envoy-to-us-says/
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Cuba did away with their US backed death squads in 1959.
Yes, they did have some murders, post 1959.
Committed by Miami based Alpha 66 and Brigade 2506 terrorists.
Yep, the same Brigade 2506 that US politicians of both parties come to Miami to pander to.
ran to Miami once the end was near during the revolution, and was blown to smithereens by another ultra-violent Batista friend in the internecine wars among the "exiles" once they all ended up in the US.
"Los Tigres" went to great lengths to absolutely terrorize the Cubans who couldn't take the vicious, brutal, totally corrupt Batista government and its support from the elite layer of landowners and industry owners and hangers-on of Batista's. They were hideous, sadistic people who ripped apart bodies of young revolutionaries and hung them from trees and lamp poles, invented new ways of killing people, like putting them in feed sacks "gunny sacks" dousing them with gasoline, setting them on fire, forcing others to dig their own graves then stand in them while getting shot to kingdom come, etc. Very big with explosives. ETC., ETC.
In the group photo, Masferrer and his brother are flanking Rafael Diaz-Balart, former United Fruit attorney in Cuba who became the Cuban Speaker of the House, then close friend of Fulgencio Batista. Rafael Diaz-Balart was the brother of Fidel Castro's sister, and father of two US Congressmen from Miami, Lincoln and Mario Diaz-Balart.
Rafael Diaz-Balart, Speaker of the Cuban
House of Representative, loud blow-hard
from the hard right, of course.
