OPINION | Cuba: internal blockade vs. external embargo

Editor’s note: Wendy Guerra is a Cuban-French writer and contributor to CNN en Español. His articles have appeared in media around the world, such as El País, The New York Times, the Miami Herald, El Mundo and La Vanguardia. Among his most outstanding literary works are “Underwear” (2007), “I was never the first lady” (2008), “Posing naked in Havana” (2010) and “Todos se van” (2014). His work has been published in 23 languages. The comments expressed in this column belong exclusively to the author. See more at cnne.com/opinion

(CNN Spanish) – A Cuban girl is born, grows up and survives with the idea that the US embargo is the only culprit for all our ills. In this narrative our lives are built. Under this extreme situation, of a besieged plaza, we train, silently accepting the destiny that we have had to live: single party, mock elections, and the State, deciding everything in the figure of the abusive father.

A Cuban mother cannot choose under which system she educates her children, who, in order to go to school, have to enroll in the only compulsory education in the entire country attached to the José Martí Pioneers Organization. We are indoctrinated, ideologically manipulated and, from the age of five, we are forced to take sides and publicly advocate for political issues beyond that age.

This has been my life. That’s how we all grew up, saying every morning something as abstract as: “Pioneers for communism: we will be like Che!” What is the use of parental authority if, during adolescence, mothers cannot decide the fate of their children either?

Many are forced to continue secondary education in the Country School programs, to work and study away from home, in overcrowded and lean conditions, where they are exploited as farmers without remuneration. Poor diet, promiscuity, marginality and high suicide rates among the youngest will never be published in the official press.

The State refuses to disclose the true figures of the increasingly alarming femicides, to reveal the unsanitary conditions of the hospitals, or to openly speak out about the prisoners of conscience tried for alleged common crimes. As the high number of medical professionals enslaved in low-paid work within the so-called internationalist missions, which are destined for more than 67 countries, is not debated in the only press that we have, the official one, then very few media in the world are they will dare to denounce the serious, terrible faults generated within an immovable and irrevocable system imposed in article 4 of the Constitution approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power in 2019.

As our problems are not reflected in official statistics, our tragedy is unproven and therefore invisible. Abuse and degeneration are only investigated by civil society organizations, besieged and punished for exposing it. Without evidence, without statistics and without reliable sources, many news networks cannot afford to make the Cuban issue transparent and the last word will always be in power.

It is the snake that bites its tail: until the Cuban government does not change its arbitrary internal policy –impossible to denounce– the US embargo will not end and that is precisely the justification for Cuba not to change its policy.

So, which of the two harms Cuba more, the internal blockade or the external embargo?