The assassination of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez in New York

On September 11, 1980, Omega 7 claimed responsibility for the assassination of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez in New York. Photo: Archivo de Granma

In its arsenal of aggressions against Cuba, the U.S. government has put into practice a hundred different forms of terrorism ranging from sabotage of civilian airplanes to biological warfare and economic blockade.
From that country, one of the largest and most dangerous terrorist networks in the world was created, made up of organizations that have carried out a sad corollary of crimes.
Among them was Omega 7, founded in the United States on September 11, 1974, an organization that perpetrated, between 1963 and 1981, more than 60 terrorist attacks against Cuban installations and commercial institutions.
On September 11, 1980, Omega 7 claimed responsibility for the assassination of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez in Queens, New York.
Over more than six decades, 3,478 fatalities and 2,099 disabled people put names to the statistics of this war against Cuba.
Let us remember the attacks on fishing and merchant vessels, such as the one against the Spanish ship Sierra Aránzazu, which caused the death of the captain and two of the officers.
On the other hand, we cannot forget the biological warfare, aimed at destroying agriculture and damaging the health of Cubans.
In order to confront the violent actions organized from Washington, men and women born from the bowels of the people, run all the risks and make all the sacrifices.
On September 12, 1998, five Cubans who decided to dedicate their lives to the fight against terrorism in the city of Miami were arrested in the United States.
For that reason, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González served severe and unjust sentences for more than 16 years.
However, in spite of the high price in lives and material resources that this murderous policy has cost the Cuban people, Washington designed, since the first years of the Revolution, a strategy of discredit, with the objective of justifying the permanent siege and presenting the largest of the Antilles as a terrorist country.
The inclusion of the island on the U.S. State Department’s list of countries sponsoring terrorism is a measure that goes far beyond isolating an adversary of the White House.
Such a measure is part of the scourge they claim to fight. It cannot be seen separately from the blockade or the violent actions or cognitive warfare, it is part of a whole designed to bring a people to its knees.
In spite of everything, the largest of the Antilles, which is a signatory to 19 international conventions related to the fight against terrorism, condemns this scourge and will continue to honor the commitments assumed in this matter, a responsibility it elevated to constitutional rank in 2019.

Cuba will have its first minute of electricity generation without imported fuel

Photo: Dunia Álvarez

Eliminating dependence on imported fossil fuels for electricity generation in the country, as well as producing 29% of energy through renewable sources, is a long-awaited goal.
Vicente de la O Levy, head of Energy and Mines, expressed in the television program Mesa Redonda, that “we are convinced that, with the growth of renewable energy sources, the growth of Energás, and the repairs we are making in the thermal units, we will have, in 2025, at least one minute of generation without consuming imported fuel.”
“That will be the first minute, but we hope to continue increasing it,” he said, adding that it will not be an easy road, but full of obstacles, but it is the safe road.
Currently, explained Rosell Guerra Campaña, director of Renewable Energies of the Minem, as part of the ambitious project to install 92 photovoltaic solar parks with a total power of 2 000 mw, 30 are already under civil construction.
In Havana, Las Tunas, Pinar del Río, Mayabeque, Sancti Spíritus and Guantánamo provinces  there is at least one park under construction; in Matanzas, Ciego de Avila, Santiago de Cuba, Camagüey and Artemisa there are two; Cienfuegos and Villa Clara are in the process of structuring three; while in Holguín and Granma there are four.
Guerra Campaña said that it is estimated that ten of these parks will be installed this year, equivalent to 220 megawatts. However, work is being done to prepare the land to make as much progress as possible, prior to the arrival of the panels.
To date, there are 77 photovoltaic solar parks installed in Cuba, with 286 megawatts (MW) of power, which annually replace more than 80,000 tons of fuel.

The massacre must end

Photo: Prensa Latina

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently visited Tel Aviv and publicly stated that “perhaps” this is “the last chance for a ceasefire in Gaza”.
A few kilometers away from the meeting with the authorities of the Jewish country, a Dantesque spectacle, very similar to that left by the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is the testimony of the Palestinian identity subjected to extermination in the Gaza Strip.
Logic indicates that a solution to this conflict is a long way off as long as a foreign actor – the U.S. – finances and supports Benjamin Netanyahu’s Zionist regime within the framework of the UN and other international institutions.
It must be made clear to Joe Biden and Blinken – once again sent to Israel as a kind of “fire-fighter” in the face of international condemnation – that they hold the solution in their hands: force Israel to stop the genocide in Palestine, or the White House will suspend the delivery of the most advanced weapons and the financial support of more than U.S. $4 billion a year.
In addition, the Biden administration, or the next one, can lift the veto in the UN Security Council when it comes to peace in Palestine and the cessation of Israeli aggression.
Coinciding with Blinken’s visit to Israel, the UN, in the voice of its Secretary-General António Guterres, called for “an end to impunity for attacks on humanitarian workers,” 280 of whom from 33 countries were killed last year alone.
And lest we forget, the number of Palestinians killed by Zionist shrapnel exceeds 40,000, not counting the estimated 10,000 more buried under the rubble of what was once Gaza City.
It is not the time for the visits of the Yankee representative or his worthless warnings, nor for the resolutions and appeals of the international institutions, which are neither heard nor followed by those guilty of genocide.
There is no direct action to stop the crime.

Categorical rejection of unfounded allegations of election meddling in the USA

 

Articles in the Miami Herald newspaper and others in the McClatchy press organization, to which this newspaper belongs, began a new slanderous campaign against Cuba at the end of July, citing anonymous intelligence sources to support the accusation, a common practice that this journalistic organization and its editors are accustomed to when lies are the basis of the report.
The accusation is that Cuba is making efforts to influence local electoral campaigns in the state of Florida in the United States.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs categorically denies the accusation. It also deplores the failure of the U.S. government, its State Department and its intelligence services to disqualify the direct reference to alleged government agencies on whose authority these slanderous articles appear to be based.
The U.S. government cannot cite any evidence or indication, because it does not exist, that Cuba has interfered or is proposing to interfere in its electoral processes, or that it is favoring any politician in the state of Florida or any other state in this country. Any reference to that is absolutely false.
If it were not a completely unfounded accusation on such a serious issue, the statement would be astonishing because it could be interpreted as the U.S. government having done a 180-degree turn and for the first time in more than a century finding it inappropriate to interfere in the electoral processes of other countries.  However, it is not clear from any of the articles whether this administration intends to abandon a practice as illegitimate as it is unacceptable that has long accompanied U.S. foreign policy.
Havana, August 26, 2024.