Liz Oliva Fernández, Cuban journalist and lead protagonist of ‘The War on Cuba’ documentary series, joins me to discuss her work with Belly of the Beast Cuba — a Havana-based media project made up of Cubans and foreigners that highlight the daily lives and experiences of the Cuban people from the ground level. 

The United States has been engaging in a multifaceted, multipronged war with Cuba ever since their revolution in 1959. Whether that is through economic pressures in the form of sanctions, embargoes, and what Fernández bluntly describes as a blockade, or through direct military incursions and threats, the U.S. has imposed an artificial scarcity on the people of Cuba. The U.S. attempts to justify its genocidal policies toward Cuba through extreme media bias, propaganda, and lies. Some of the most dramatic examples of this, lately, has been under the administration of former President Trump. Cuba has some of the best doctors in the world, and for decades, thousands of them have volunteered to aid the peoples of numerous nations around the globe, most often in Latin America, Africa, and during the worst of their battle with Covid-19, Italy. The U.S., under the Trump Administration and through the direct interference of former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, pressured numerous national leaders in Latin America (Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil) to refuse and send away hundreds of Cuban doctors serving missions in those respective nations. As Fernández states in this interview, “the lies told by the [U.S.] media about what Cuban doctors do abroad depends on the country they are in and the agreement that that country has with Cuba.” Baseless accusations coming from the mouths of such figures as Pompeo have expressed a “concern for human rights” — stating that these brigades of Cuban doctors are actually “spies,” “slaves of the Castro regime,” “not really doctors,” “soldiers,” and “human traffickers.” These accusations, when taken at face value, are very hard to believe, as the on-the-ground reality of the overwhelmingly positive impact these missions have had is thoroughly well documented. The U.S. and its belligerent stance toward Cuba has cost the lives of countless people. The nations that were pressured to send away these doctors, due to U.S. pressures, have been of the hardest hit by this pandemic. That is no coincidence.