00:00And to stay on topic, we have now a special guest, international analyst Dani Shaw, who
00:05is on TELASUR headquarters in Havana, Cuba.
00:08Hello Dani.
00:09Based on your most recent experience traveling across the country in the wake of the new
00:14measures implemented by U.S. President Donald Trump to tighten the blockade against the
00:18islands, how do these imperialist policies affect the Cuban people's life?
00:24These are war crimes against an entire people, against grandchildren, against grandmothers,
00:31against entire communities, depriving a people of electricity, of internet, of oil, of transport,
00:38of food.
00:39The same thing that they've done to Gaza and to Palestine, all of Palestine since 1948.
00:46These unconscionable crimes that have been denounced across the world.
00:52The Cuban people are fighting.
00:55They have given us an incredible example of human unity, of solidarity.
01:01Of course, many Cuban young people feel the strain of this blockade.
01:07Many young people talk to me about needing to migrate, not because they want to, but because
01:12of the economic reality here, it's really heartbreaking.
01:17But the Cuban people have been resisting since 1959 and since the Cuban War of Independence
01:22in the late 1800s.
01:24And they've given us all, all of humanity, an incredible example of unity and solidarity.
01:30What economic or strategic interests do you think might be driving the startening of the
01:36economic blockade by the Trump administration on Cuba?
01:42The Trump administration does not want to see the Cuban state, the Cuban government, the
01:48CCP as an arbiter of Cuba's future.
01:52They want to get rid of anything that serves as an obstacle to their complete control over
01:59the Cuban economy.
02:01The Cuban GDP in the thriving years of tourism was very, very strong.
02:08Then it got hit by COVID, but there was a recovery.
02:12And now the GDP projected for this year is much less than $100 billion, whereas the GDP of
02:19the United States is some $30 trillion.
02:22So this is truly a David versus Goliath struggle.
02:25But when we talk about the colonial imperial Goliath that is the U.S. system, whether it's
02:30with its Fox Democrat expression or the Republican Wolf iteration, they seek to dominate the entire
02:38world.
02:38That's why we saw the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro.
02:41That's why we've seen now for just about a month the relentless pummeling of Tehran,
02:48of Iran, the ongoing genocidal suffocation of the Palestinian people.
02:53They want to control Cuba.
02:55They want to roll back the clock.
02:56They want to bring back their casinos and their mafiosos like it was 1958.
03:03What role do international solidarity movements are playing in countering this situation in
03:08Cuba?
03:11Shout out to all of our young people who surely their families were very nervous when they
03:17traveled here to Cuba.
03:18Not because they were coming to Cuba, but nervous because of all of the repression, all of the
03:22lack of freedom of speech that we're experiencing in the belly of the beast in New York and across
03:28the U.S.
03:29Shout out to all those young people and all the organizations that came here as part of
03:34these internationalist flotillas.
03:36It's an incredible expression of internationalism in the 21st century when they want to scare
03:42us and intimidate us.
03:44And how shameful that the FBI and Homeland Security and ICE detained me, stole my phone, and have
03:51done the same to how many young people who have selflessly and courageously come here to Cuba.
03:57Why?
03:57To participate with the Cuban people, to contribute, to bring rice and beans and fuel and medical
04:04supplies and Tylenol, so many things that we take for granted in the bloated, indulgent West.
04:10It was a beautiful expression of solidarity.
04:12And the fact that the U.S. government then castigates and punishes and intimidates and even detains
04:19and steals the phones of these young people is an indication of just how decadent our system
04:25is.
04:27And does the persistence of these policies reveal more about internal U.S. political dynamics
04:32than about whether Cuba genuinely poses a threat to the U.S.?
04:40If we look at all of the problems that we have within the United States, some years we've
04:46had more than 700 random school shootings, the epidemics of fentanyl and heroin, the amount
04:56of suicides, the public health crisis with depression, with anxiety.
05:01Who are we to be invading any other country?
05:03What is the American way?
05:05The American dream has been a global nightmare, whether it's in the Caribbean, Western Asia
05:10or Southeast Asia or Africa.
05:12Why can't we clean up our own house?
05:15Why do, whether it's Democrat or Republican, why do they continue to interfere in the affairs
05:21of other countries around the world?
05:24And it's revealed that the United Nations and the OAS and all of these international bodies
05:29are the true paper tigers.
05:31They're so fake because they never stand up truly for justice.
05:35But what the United States is trying to do, because they cannot resolve our economic issues
05:40internally, they begin to export more and more crisis, more and more war, more and more
05:46invasions to the Middle East, to the Caribbean and throughout the world.
05:50One last question.
05:51How can we better rise the voices and dignity of the Cuban people in international conversations
05:56about the country?
06:00We need more of a focus on people's media.
06:04Every day we face so much censorship.
06:07We've seen the systematic censorship.
06:09Look what's happened to TikTok.
06:11Look what's happened to X, formerly Twitter.
06:14They know that they can brainwash and indoctrinate.
06:18So we have to keep fighting back, continue to create grassroots media like the Bolivarians
06:23in Caracas and Managua and in La Paz and in La Havana have taught us.
06:28This is just another chapter in the ongoing liberation struggles of Haiti, of Cuba, and all the countries of the
06:37hemisphere.
06:38But this is the age of the Dunro Doctrine, 202 years after the Monroe Doctrine.
06:45The U.S. government continues to think that this entire hemisphere is their backyard.
06:50It is an inflection point in colonial arrogance.
06:54And we have to continue to fight back, believe in ourselves, and not fall into the value system
06:59or the misvalue system of the class enemy and the imperialist enemy,
07:03but maintain love, unity, and cooperation, the values of the Cuban revolution,
07:09the Cuban people who have taught us so much about self-sacrifice and revolution.
07:13Anyone who hasn't been to Cuba, continue to try to come, try to support,
07:17try to go through the different organizations that work directly with the Cuban leadership
07:21in defending David versus Goliath.
07:25Thank you, Danny.
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