Statement by Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, Head of the North American Division of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs

An unfortunate yet unusual event in Cuba has again been distorted and manipulated by narrow self-serving political interests to justify the policy of blockade against our country. The statements of the State Department and the White House are yet another evidence of the permanent policy of aggression and interference in the internal affairs of Cuba and stand out for their hypocrisy and double standards. Indeed, they are more becoming of the record of human rights violations of the United States in its own territory and in the world than they are of the performance of Cuba, where the human person is valued the most.

There was no statement by the President or the State Department when on January 3, in Chicago, prisoner Lyvita Gomes died behind bars as a result of a hunger strike.

It is not in Cuba where 90 prisoners have been executed since January 2010, while another 3,222 inmates remain on death row, awaiting execution. It must be remembered that the United States has already held its first execution of 2012 and its government ruthlessly represses those who dare to denounce the system’s injustice.

It is the Government of the United States which engages in torture and extrajudicial executions in the countries it attacks, and which uses police brutality against its own people.

In a colossal act of cynicism, the U.S. government dares now to accuse Cuba, while it turns a blind eye on and remains silent about the flagrant violations of human rights generated by the injustice, onslaught and destitution that its policy brings for millions of people around the world, including in the United States.

Cuba will continue to be the country where, in spite the U.S.’s economic war against it, fewer children die at birth, where every day efforts are made to raise the already outstanding levels of social justice, levels that remain beyond reach for most people in the world, including in the United States, where there is a growing inequality.

January 20, 2012