Dear Special Rapporteur on Unilateral, Coercive Economic Measures and Effect on Countries.
“The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship.
“… every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation, and overthrow of government.”
Lester Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs
Memorandum “The Decline and Fall of Castro”, April 6, 1960
My name is Gloria La Riva, I am director of the Hatuey Project (Health Advocates in Truth, Unity and Empathy). Our committee is all volunteer, with many dedicated young activists who raise funds to purchase humanitarian aid for Cuba and who work to educate the people of the United States about the 63-year U.S. government blockade of the island.
I write as someone with personal experience of examples of the harmful, negative effects on the Human Rights of the Cuban people, young and old, men and women, as to their health, socio-economic conditions, and more. These harmful effects are solely due to the longstanding U.S. economic measures which are best referred to as the U.S. Blockade. The blockade is a compendium of dozens of measures, laws such as the “Torricelli Law” of 1992 (signed by Republican President George H.W. Bush) and the “Helms-Burton Law” of 1996 (signed by Democrat President Bill H. Clinton, as well as more than 240 measures signed by President Donald Trump during his first term. It is much more than a trade embargo between two countries.
The most harmful of all is the United States government designation of Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST).” Enforced primarily during the four years of President Biden’s term and continued with President Trump, this designation has no legal nor moral justification whatsoever, and it is unilaterally imposed by the U.S. government on four countries initially. They are Cuba, Iran, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea. Syria has since been removed from the list by the Trump administration, after the overthrow of Bashir Al-Assad’s government.
The moment that the SST was reinstated in January 2021, it had an immediate and overwhelmingly devastating effect. The negative effects cannot be overstated. The SST designation blocks any bank in the world which is part of the SWIFT system, from engaging in transactions with Cuba, or any organization that includes Cuba in its name. There are 200 countries and territories involving 11,500 banking institutions in the SWIFT system. Banning Cuba from transactions with these institutions literally cuts Cuba off from the financial, commercial and economic world.
It has caused total and severe harm, and the effects are accumulating daily. It is the principal cause of the extraordinary exodus of hundreds of thousands of Cuban citizens in the last few years. According to Customs and Border Protection of the U.S., from January 2022 to September 2024, more than 850,000 Cubans have entered the United States. There is no measure nor political nor social occurrence that explains such a drastic exodus, other than the SST and unprecedented strangling of Cuba’s economy. It is a purely economic emigration, by cutting off the most essential needs of the population with the U.S. government’s deliberate imposition of the SST designation, for that objective.
To give a concrete example of Cuba’s complete exclusion from commercial engagement with the world, because of the SST:
The Hatuey Project elected to help a community in Guantánamo province that was devastated by Hurricane Oscar in October 2024. We decided to provide construction materials that would help 42 families rebuild, who had lost their homes and small farms in the village of Macambo, near San Antonio del Sur, in Guantánamo. Their homes were wiped out. The day of the hurricane, due to the lack of oil that the country needed to keep the thermoelectric plants operating — because of the blockade — all of Cuba was pitched into complete darkness for four days. This meant that the people of Macambo — who normally could have been evacuated — were at the mercy of the hurricane, and especially of the record flooding. In absolute darkness, the residents could not even see their surroundings to escape the rising waters. Seven people died there, a needless tragedy. Cuba is famous for the extremely low or nonexistent deaths during hurricanes. Cuba’s importation oil for the electrical grid is so reduced to a minimum, that the one oil ship that was carrying fuel for the plants, could not dock because of the coming storm. As one plant fell silent, the whole system crashed. The heroic work of the electrical workers brought Cuba’s system back on line after four days.
I visited the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectrical Plant in Matanzas, and met with the workers and management. One young man told me, “When we go in during a blackout, we do not leave until it is restored.” He was there for five days. Trump effectively cut off Venezuela’s regular oil shipments in 2019, by threatening that the U.S. insurance companies would be sanctioned if they insured the oil tankers coming from Venezuela.
This past October 29, with Hurricane Melissa there was no loss of life thanks to the Civil Defense, Committees in Defense of the Revolution, the Cuban Women’s Federation and the communities themselves.
After Hurricane Oscar in 2024, the Hatuey Project proposed to work with the Italy-Cuba National Association, based in Italy, so that together we could contribute more resources for the purchase of the construction materials for the 42 families in Macambo. The resources of both organizations are limited, so we concentrated on those families. The Hatuey Project would provide $47,000 for the 1,008 panels — 16,783 kilos — of 1 m. x 4 m. sheet metal roofing, and the ICNA would provide $31,000 for the 23.2 tons of rebar that is needed for the construction. Both materials would be sent from Miami on ship containers that would arrive in two days to Mariel port, and then be driven to Guantánamo.
Two obstacles stood in our way, which to this day have denied the families of Macambo the basic human right to housing, personal safety and livelihood. With their small farms wiped out and nowhere to live in their community, they have had to live with relatives elsewhere or in shelters all this year.
Obstacle #1: The Hatuey Project has been able to obtain several humanitarian aid export licenses through the U.S. Commerce Department, all granted during the Biden administration. We have a license that allows for the export of sheet metal roofing, plus screws, generators, drill sets, windows, wood, and concrete. With that license, we shipped the 37,000 pounds (16,783 kilos) of sheet metal roofing to Mariel port in Cuba. The roofing has since arrived in Guantánamo. But essential to rebuilding the housing is the 23.2 tons of rebar, to fortify the walls and minimize damage in case of future hurricanes.
When we sent the preliminary invoice to the ICNA so they could pay for the rebar as agreed, they were blocked completely by the banks. Why? Because Cuba is included in their name, and no bank will touch such a transaction, neither in Italy, nor in the U.S. We searched in Canada and Mexico to see if the rebar could be purchased. Again, no bank would accept such a transaction. This is solely due to the false “state sponsor of terrorism” designation imposed by the U.S.
To this day, the community does not have the rebar, nor have the homes been built.
This contradicts the U.S. government claim that export licenses granted by the U.S. fulfill the needs of Cuba. The denial of a clearly humanitarian export license to rebuild housing post-hurricane, the threat of automatic seizure of an entity’s funds for an intended transaction by the U.S. government, just because of the word Cuba, is a wholesale blocking of Cuba’s ability to trade with the world for essential needs. It is an extraterritorial extension of the coercive measures forcing the world to comply against Cuba. It is a violation of the rights of the donating organization to engage in its aid mission. It automatically denies a vital donation to reach the Cuban people. Every single transaction by Cuba for the purchase of medicines, food, spare parts, is denied. This is nothing less than collective punishment of the whole population of Cuba.
Now, in the aftermath of Hurricane Melissa one year later, the damages since Oscar have been compounded in eastern Cuba.
Obstacle #2: In the past, each of our applications for an export license with the Commerce Department has been granted during the Biden administration, for food, construction materials, cancer medications, medications for burn patients. Since we would need a license to export the rebar, plus electrical cable and other building items, The Hatuey Project applied for a new license in January 2025.
For the first time, with the new administration, our license application was denied — closed by the State Department. For a U.S. Commerce humanitarian license application to be approved, it has to be reviewed and given the green light by no less than the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Commerce Department and the Treasury Department.
The closure — denial — of our humanitarian aid license application was done by the State Department, headed by Secretary of State Rubio. This was a politically motivated decision. It is the Cuban people who suffer.
Both the SST denying the Italian organization, ICNA, the ability to purchase the rebar, and the Trump government’s denial of our last license application for humanitarian aid, this directly denies the 42 families the fundamental human right to housing. Imagine how many more families are now without essential housing because of Hurricane Melissa in addition to Hurricane Oscar. How many roadblocks will the U.S. impose to block the country’s recovery?
The U.S. government claims that humanitarian licenses issued by Washington resolve the needs of the Cuban people, and that the U.S. “embargo” does not create hardship. That is a complete lie. U.S. officials know full well that the license process is barely a band-aid for a country of 10 million people. It serves as a cover, to hide the real, widespread and massive effect of the longest, most severe unilateral, coercive economic measures ever concocted by Washington.
Another severe harm to the Cuban people is the impact on Cuba’s health system.
In July 2022, a delegation of the Hatuey Project traveled to Cuba to deliver several hundred bottles of prenatal vitamins destined for pregnant women in the Maternal Homes. Cuba has 133 such homes throughout the island to provide 24-hour care for pregnant women with health risks like diabetes, high blood pressure, age 40, or expecting multiple births. While there, we also visited the José Luis Miranda pediatric hospital in Santa Clara. The doctors told us they were in need of cancer medications. It took us 18 months to obtain the necessary export licenses, to receive sponsorship and advisory help from oncology doctors in the United States and to establish the Project as a client of major pharmaceuticals and distribution companies.
With donations from supporters, in July, 2024 we delivered almost $60,000 worth of cancer medications and supplies. We delivered them to Juan Manuel Marquez hospital in Havana. In October 2024, we delivered another shipment of medications to JMM and to José Luis Miranda Pediatric Hospital in Santa Clara. In December 2024 we delivered another shipment of cancer medications, this time to JMM and to JLM, and another delivery in March 2025, and again in August of this year.
These are literally life-saving medicines. But despite our best efforts and the contributions of many individuals and organizations, we are painfully aware that it is a drop in the bucket.
No amount of medical solidarity is able to remotely meet the most minimal needs of the pediatric cancer hospital departments, of which there are several in Cuba, not just JMM and JLM. Cuba cannot depend on solidarity alone. It must have the right to unrestricted income free of unilateral, coercive measures, whether with hard currency gained through tourism or the services abroad of Cuban medical personnel, or exports of other goods it produces. It must be allowed to freely trade with the world, to buy and sell essential goods.
But most telling of all is that before the SST straitjacket, Cuba used to produce many of its own cancer medications, at a much lower cost than purchasing from a U.S. corporation as we have had to do.
Dr. Marta Beatriz García of José Luis Miranda pediatric hospital informed us that until recently, Cuba was able to produce Cytarabine, Follinic Acid (Leucovorin), Methotrexate, Carboplatin, Irinotecan, Gemcitabin, just to name a few.
Dr. García told us very recently, “A child of six years age, Amaya an infant of one year, Victor, seven years old; the three of them are diagnosed with Acute Lymphoid Leukemia. It is the cancer most frequent in infancy. They have been able to receive their treatment with Methotrexate thanks to the Leucovorin that Hatuey Project has donated, because there are no raw materials in the country to produce it. (Methotrexate must be administered together with Leucovorin.) We have also benefited by the Cytarabine that we have received with these gestures of love and solidarity.”
Cancer medications are very, very expensive in the U.S. market, and they are critically needed for any hope of a child’s survival. Cyclophosphamide costs $287 for one vial. Dactinomycin is even more costly, $515.49 for one vial of a tiny amount, .5 mcg.
There are dozens of children with leukemia, lymphoma, and other cancers currently in Cuba. We know that just with the two hospitals that we donate to, our donations cover only a portion of the children. The U.S. blockade is killing Cuban children. It is killing adult women and men, too, by blocking Cuba’s ability to acquire or produce medications. By any definition, the U.S. government is committing genocide.
The Trump administration is intent on devastating Cuba’s health system even further. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has openly declared his intention to intensify the economic measures. He has traveled to several Latin American and Caribbean countries to warn that they must expel the Cuban doctors who provide services in those countries. The intention is to starve Cuba of badly-needed hard currency that the Cuban government receives and then uses for the country’s healthcare system, for the purchase of medicines, supplies and raw materials for national pharmaceutical production. Part of the hard currency, about 25%, goes to the Cuban doctor. The doctors serve voluntarily, and the income they receive is also a significant contribution to their wellbeing and that of their families.
We have many more examples of the negative impact of the sanctions.
I have traveled to Cuba for 40 years, starting in 1985. I witnessed Cuba before the collapse of the Soviet Union, its main trading partner, when despite the U.S. blockade, Cuba enjoyed equal trade with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. With the ability to engage in trade, for example, oil for sugar, Cuba met the people’s needs of housing, health care, food, education, culture and more.
Even before the USSR’s disappearance, the Bush administration pressured Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to cut economic ties with Cuba.
To further the economic assault on Cuba, Washington tailored legislation that became law in November 1992, the misnamed Cuban Democracy Act, commonly referred to as the Torricelli Law. George H.W. Bush signed the CDA into law. Then the Helms-Burton Act was signed into law by President Clinton in March 1996. Both violate international by threatening any country, company in the world, or bank with sanctions if they do business with Cuba. The belief then in Washington was that Cuba would not be able to resist and survive the loss of its main trading partners in the USSR and Eastern Europe. But it failed.
The resistance of the Cuban people, scientists, teachers, all workers, the people young and old, together with the Cuban government, meant that Cuba was able to develop an outstanding biotechnology industry, tourism, to adjust its laws and economy to provide for new sources of income, the export of professional services, foreign investment, limited self-employment.
But the United States government has not given up on its strategy of collective punishment of the Cuban people through its array of economic measures, as Lester Mallory proposed, in order to bring about “overthrow of government.”
Cuba finally became fully independent in 1959. Despite the enormous difficulties, the Cuban people are not about to give into extortion, collective punishment, genocidal measures. They will continue to defend their sovereignty and inspire the world.
What is needed is for the United Nations to implement UN Resolution A/80/L6, on the “necessity of ending. The economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba.”
Thank you.
Gloria La Riva
For the Hatuey Project