Tonight, Cuba is facing near-total collapse as a tightened U.S. blockade chokes off the island's fuel lifelines. Right now, the nation is virtually out of oil and diesel, triggering widespread food and medicine shortages. Compounding the crisis, the U.S. has just indicted 94-year-old former president Raúl Castro on murder charges.
Today we spoke with historian Assad Shoman on the challenges Cuba is facing. He called it a humanitarian crisis imposed by the US.
Assad Shoman, Historian
"Even in Havana, people are getting like three hours of electricity a day, right? Don't forget that. I mean, everything depends on electricity. Not just transportation. So food has to be transported. People have to go to work or go to hospital or whatever, right? But also water. Water is fed into the homes by electricity. They have to have pumps to pump it up to their apartment buildings, etc.. So everything is affected by this. People can't have food in the refrigerator. They can't keep it going long enough. But worst of all, the health system, right, which was one of the great glories of Cuba for all these years, has been severely affected so that incubators for babies, it can't work, you know, they're doing an operation in the middle of that, there's a blackout. So it has seriously affected them. The health situation, the situation of hospitals, many people have, babies have died. There's no question about that, although they don't like to say it."
"Like over 500,000 people die as a result of these so-called sanctions. So this is blood on the hands of the United States government."
Courtney Menzies:
"What do you think should be Belize's response? On the one hand, the government voices its concern for Cuba, you know, when it goes to the U.N. and these things. But on the other hand, it's also facing a lot of pressure from the US, especially as it relates to, you know, getting rid of the Cuban medical brigade."
Assad Shoman, Historian
"So getting rid of the Cuban medical Brigade, which I think will happen because the United States is insisting that it happen when they insist, well, you know what happens. That's not going to hurt Cuba. It's going to hurt Belize. Belize depends very much on those doctors. Right. And I think the government is doing everything it can. The Prime Minister in particular is doing what he can to protect his own people from what the US is forcing him to do. But there's a limit to what we can do. So in the end, I believe that we will have to obey the dictates of the Empire."
"I mean, look what they've done to Cuba. But look what they've done to so many other countries in Africa, in particular, a lot of countries that suffer sanctions from the United States of America. And, if they do that to any of our countries, it will hurt. It will hurt our people. Right. So it's difficult to resist that kind of pressure."
