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<h1 class="entry-title">Cuban president slams US for “genocidal act” of depriving Cubans of oxygen during the pandemic</h1>
<div class="gmail-page-excerpts"> <p>Cuba was prohibited from accessing spare
parts for their only oxygen plant as well as importing medical oxygen
due to the blockade, as COVID-19 ran rampant</p>
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<a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/07/11/cuban-president-slams-us-for-genocidal-act-of-depriving-cubans-of-oxygen-during-the-pandemic/">July 11, 2023</a> by <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/07/11/cuban-president-slams-us-for-genocidal-act-of-depriving-cubans-of-oxygen-during-the-pandemic/"></a><a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/author/pd/">Peoples Dispatch<br><font size="1">https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/07/11/cuban-president-slams-us-for-genocidal-act-of-depriving-cubans-of-oxygen-during-the-pandemic/</font></a><br><br>
<div class="gmail-page-header-image-single gmail-grid-container gmail-grid-parent gmail-generate-page-header"><img src="https://peoplesdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Miguel-Diaz-Canel-COVID-2.jpg" class="gmail-attachment-full gmail-size-full" alt="" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="412" height="232"></div>Cuban President Miguel Díaz Canel on the streets in July 2021.
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<p>On July 10, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel condemned the US for
denying the Cuban people oxygen as the Delta variant of COVID-19 ran
rampant across the country in 2021. Cuba’s only oxygen plant <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/11/03/the-world-condemns-the-us-blockade-against-cuba/">had to cease production</a> because it could not acquire spare parts due to the US blockade against Cuba.</p>
<p>“We will never forget the genocidal act of the US Government when,
with its blockade policy, it denied and hindered the acquisition of
oxygen for the people of<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cuba?src=hashtag_click"> Cuba</a>, in the midst of the worst moment of the pandemic, when our only plant broke down,” <a href="https://twitter.com/DiazCanelB/status/1678494117427290113?s=20">wrote</a> Díaz-Canel on Twitter on Monday. “That’s how real and criminal the [blockade] is.”</p>
<p>The blockade also made it impossible for Cuba to import medical
oxygen. “Anyone having any doubts about our assertion that the blockade,
as established by Article II (b) and (c) of the Convention on the Crime
of Genocide, qualifies as an act of genocide, because it intended to
cause deliberate mental and physical damage to a community and
jeopardize its living conditions, should have dispelled all of them
during the COVID-19 pandemic,” <a href="https://twitter.com/BrunoRguezP/status/1678740197482151938?s=20">said</a> Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez in an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPJ4khEJ8LY">intervention in Cuba’s National Assembly</a>
on May 25, 2023. “The initial measure was to ban imports of any sort by
Cuba, particularly to prevent the import of mechanical ventilators.
There were measures against the scaling-up of Cuban vaccine production,
because for that we required equipment, spare parts, supplies, and
products. There were measures to prevent importation of oxygen from
third countries.”</p>
<p>“It became clear that it was not possible to import medicines from
the United States; that it was not possible to import oxygen during the
pandemic from the United States without a specific license from the US
government,” he said. “There can be no doubt about the deliberately
cruel and genocidal character of the blockade.”</p>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/BrunoRguezP/status/1676216812139163650?s=20">According</a>
to Rodríguez, “Attempts to import [medical oxygen] from the US were
unsuccessful, as a specific license was needed, which requires the
approval of at least 5 US federal agencies.”</p>
<p>Despite the blockade, Cuba was able to develop <a href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/08/19/cuban-vaccine-to-be-produced-in-italy-in-attempt-to-solve-who-prequalification-hurdle/">five of its own COVID-19 vaccines</a>, and only suffered <a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/region/cuba">8,530 deaths</a>
due to the virus versus the US, which suffered over one million deaths.
In other words, in Cuba, approximately eight people per 10,000 living
on the island died from COVID-19, whereas in the US, approximately 34
per 10,000 died from the disease.</p></div>
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