The War On Cuba: Ground Level Impacts Of The U.S. Blockade / Liz Oliva Fernández
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 highlights 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.
Fernández and her work with Belly of the Beast provide an honest, ground-level approach to the impacts this war on Cuba has had on the people of this island nation. Cutting through the propaganda and myopia of U.S. media and the two-dimensional quality of the state-run Cuban media as well, Belly of the Beast is exploring the complexities and nuances of Cuban life right now, giving English-speaking audiences in the United States access to a perspective very much lacking in the mainstream media.
This interview was accomplished because of the work of several people: Reed Lindsay, director of The War on Cuba, who arranged and provided interpretation for this interview; writer and musician Dan Hanrahan, who edited the English transcript; and podcast producer Christine Ferrera, who provided dubbing for the English audio.
Video Segment:
Episode Notes:
Learn more about Belly of the Beast Cuba
Watch the documentary series The War on Cuba on YouTube
Learn more about Dan Hanrahan, Christine Ferrera, and The Lincoln Lodge podcast network
Music produced by Epik The Dawn
PATRICK FARNSWORTH: Well Liz, it’s great to meet you, and thank you for doing this. I’ve been very appreciative — digging into Belly of the Beast Cuba. I’ve watched the really excellent documentary series you’ve all put together, and I’ve been really looking forward to this interview.
LIZ OLIVA FERNÁNDEZ: Thank you for the invitation.
FARNSWORTH: So, the very first thing I would ask is, Liz, if you could introduce yourself, introduce your work with Belly of the Beast Cuba, and give us an understanding of what this project is and your involvement in it.
FERNÁNDEZ: Well, my name is Liz Oliva Fernández and I'm a Cuban journalist. I'm 27 years old and I've been working with “Belly of the Beast” since the end of July/beginning of August last year. My work at Belly started with the documentary series, “The War on Cuba” — a three-part series that tries to explain to the U.S. audience how the U.S. blockade affects the people of Cuba. Because when you listen to American news outlets, they address the blockade as if it only affected the government of Cuba and was basically designed to interfere with the actions of the government and it's really not like that. We talk about the war, that is, how the sanctions that the U.S. government levies against Cuba are not against the government, but against an entire people; how the policy is not something only done by the Donald Trump administration— though with Donald Trump, the measures against Cuba became much harsher — it is something that the U.S. government has been doing for almost the entire 60 year-history of the Cuban Revolution.
FARNSWORTH: I do want to talk about the embargoes, the sanctions, and the other forms of economic and, honestly, military pressures that have been put on Cuba by the United States, which has been addressed in the documentary series. But I want to reference something that is on the Belly of the Beast website. The project has been described as a means to “re-energize the political connection between Cuba and the United States.” In what ways does Belly of the Beast attempt to do this? And what does it mean to “re-energize” this connection?
FERNÁNDEZ: Basically, the work that “Belly of the Beast” does is work that is not being done elsewhere. First, because our project works with young journalists who live in Cuba, and as a team, we try to tell the stories of Cuba that do not appear in either the mainstream media or the independent media. So, basically, that is the work that “Belly of the Beast” does. I think the impact, or at least what we aspire to, is really to the stories of Cubans that go beyond the clichés. Because, typically, when you ask an outsider, a foreigner about Cuba, if they haven't visited the island, they're most likely to mention three major topics:
One: Varadero Beach and “Fidel” are words that are associated with Cuba, as well as cigars, rum and mulatas. And the other thing, of course, is dictatorship and totalitarianism — basically things that they have heard about or what the media mentions; but people don't know much beyond that. They do not know who we are as a people and they do not know what we are capable of doing as a country. And I believe that much of what is happening right now is that Cuba — a country with shortages and economic crises, a country that has been blockaded for so long by one of, if not the most, powerful country in the world — is showing how it is capable of developing not just one vaccine, but five vaccine candidates, and of developing them independent of the big pharmaceutical companies. Which is to say, that Cuba is the first country in Latin America — even though there are obviously countries in Latin America and the Caribbean with much higher levels of development and purchasing power — to develop a vaccine and take the first step in this area.
So, I think that from the mainstream media and from the mass media in general, this reality is not told. The complexities of a country like Cuba, of the people who live in Cuba, are not expressed. The differences that exist within the island are not depicted, and I think that is basically what we are trying to do with “Belly of the Beast.” Of course, obviously, we have a specific political position — how can you not have a political position on what is happening? We are talking about an island that is receiving constant attacks from the United States. In that sense, there is no way to be “objective.” You have to take a political stance: You must say you are for or against the sanctions. I think “Belly” states its position in the first part of the documentary. We are currently working on the second part, which goes into more depth about the war that the United States is waging against Cuba.
FARNSWORTH: Could you describe what the media landscape in Cuba is, and how that compares to the United States? And again, how does your work, and the work of Belly of the Beast, attempt to change this?
FERNÁNDEZ: Well, I can't talk much about the media landscape in the United States because I don't know it too well. But the media landscape in Cuba itself is complex because, basically, it is divided into two sides: the press that are controlled by the government, that respond to the editorial policy of the Cuban government, and the press that act like or are called the “independent press”… although they are not… well… and within this second group, I think, I would note two different groups: the media that are based in Cuba, that is to say, those who work here and whose journalists are based in Cuba, and the media whose owners or directors work and are based in the United States — although they hire Cuban journalists. What happens with the media in Cuba and how the media landscape is defined on the island is that you see the great polarization that exists on political issues: something is either black or it is white. Very rarely do you see grays in the narratives of these media outlets. And that is where “Belly of the Beast” comes in. Because the media that respond to the government — they basically become public voices on the actions of the Cuban government. And the independent media basically become the critics of all the actions that the Cuban government caries out. So, it is basically a constant war between the two. For example, it is very unlikely that you will find in the official government media content that is critical of the government and that reflects the feelings within Cuban society that may be negative toward the government. And it is very unlikely that you will find in one of the so-called independent media a positive assessment of the government’s actions — about, for example, the solidarity of the Cuban government with other countries, especially now during the era of Covid-19, sending them doctors and so on… or pieces that say, "Look how well Cuba has done," regarding the control of the pandemic within the country, the low mortality rates in Cuba, the medical care. Finding something as simple as criticism of the sanctions or the position of the U.S. government against Cuba is almost impossible to find among the independent media.
It is very difficult for you to find this type of perspective because media is so polarized that they are each entrenched in their respective positions and are unable to show a range of ideas. Also, in that second group, there is the foreign press, accredited in Cuba, and it does not play any kind of mediating role either. Nor does it reflect the reality of all the gray areas that remain in the picture, the complex nature of what the country is going through. And that's where we basically come in, that's where “Belly of the Beast” comes in, and we go back to the beginning of what I was explaining, which is to try to portray Cuba with all its nuances and above all how Cuba has been affected by the sanctions levied by the United States government against Cuba.
Additionally, it is very difficult for dialogue to exist because we are dealing with something that we can call the Under Siege Syndrome, which means that since the Cuban government has been under attack and in the face of this giant US propaganda machine, the Cuban government has assumed an Under Siege Syndrome – meaning that if you are attacking me, then, what we have to do here is close ranks, and we have to take a posture, let's say a posture of entrenchment. I am going to entrench myself behind my accomplishments and my capacity to advance and… I am not going to position myself inside any gaps or address any of those gray areas that remain because to do so would be to contribute to the whole propaganda war against Cuba. And the United States spends billions of dollars a year on promoting democracy in Cuba. So, faced with this enormous media machine with which the Cuban government finds it impossible to cope because it is not a 50/50 war, it is totally disproportionate…
FARNSWORTH: In line with that, I can tell that Belly of the Beast and what you all do there is an attempt to fill that space, because there isn’t a lot of nuance there, right? I really saw that in the documentary series, especially. How do you orient yourself around that? — which is to say: What do you choose to detail, what do you choose to document, in order to provide that fuller, better picture of what it’s actually like to live in Cuba right now?
FERNÁNDEZ: I think the small, personal details and life stories are, above all, what help us tell the complex reality of contemporary Cuba… The complexities behind each life story and who those people are, right? I think basically that is the most powerful thing that the first three episodes of “The War on Cuba” have to offer: the stories behind the politics and the stories behind how the different political circumstances play out in the real world, how they influence the lives of individual people. I think that's the key to everything: looking at the complexities and trying to, as I said before, to fill in those gray areas that exist, those gaps. That's basically it, we get at the complex reality through real life stories.
In addition to that, if we go back a little to the beginning of what we were talking about, much American media is simply not speaking the truth. I mean, Cuba is an important issue, especially for the media in Florida, and they have a focus on specific issues. So, we are also trying to talk about the nuances, the grays in those gaps that are not covered by most media. It is our job to say what they are not saying. Because obviously, you can find news about human rights violations in Cuba. But then what? And so, we go back to what we were talking about at the beginning: how much of this news that talks about human rights violations in Cuba examines how U.S. policies have affected the impoverishment of the population? None, none of them talk about that. They only talk about the role of the state, the role of the police, repression, etc., human rights violations, and they talk about people— and this gets my attention — marginalized in some way — though they don't use this term— but they do not talk about how much the situation of crisis in the country is generated or furthered by United States policy. It is worsened by those people who supposedly are trying to promote democracy and human rights in Cuba. In fact, we know that human rights really matter very little to them because they would not maintain a basically genocidal policy against the Cuban people if our well-being did matter to them. So, there are many gray areas, many areas of manipulation and polarization within the Cuban reality. And “Belly of the Beast” tries to tell those unexamined stories. It especially tries to show that complex reality for an audience that is not Cuban but American, and we try to talk about the issues that are essentially left out of the mainstream.
So, what the mainstream media really does, then, is select what they think qualifies as important about what is going on in Cuba. There really is no objectivity whatsoever. So, does it work? It works. Because when they ask the Biden administration about the possibility of returning to Obama's policies of reaching an accord with the Cuban government, what is the first thing they say? "Well, the human rights situation in Cuba has to improve in order for the United States to better relations or to open a new dialogue with the government of Cuba." And I think, "Wow. How strange, how weird. These human rights issues are not taken into account in the negotiations with Saudi Arabia.” That is to say, at the beginning of March, the American press were all talking about a new report that which revealed, that indeed, Mohamed Bin Salmaan had ordered the assassination of Jamaal Kashoggi, a journalist who worked for an American newspaper, because it simply did not suit MBS to have him around. And the Biden administration, the same Biden administration that claims that it has to wait for the human rights situation in Cuba to improve before opening a dialogue with the Cuban government says, "We condemn the act, but we will continue negotiating with Saudi Arabia, because Saudi Arabia is important to the United States.” So, you don't care so much about human rights when you negotiate — not only with Saudi Arabia — but also with Egypt, with Israel, with Colombia, with a long list of countries with human rights violations. The human rights situation is said to be really important to resuming the dialogue with the Cuban government or to taking Cuba off the list of terrorist countries - even though the United States knows that the government of Cuba does not sponsor terrorism and that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life. Nevertheless, that is what is written about in the media and the government takes advantage of this when it comes to providing reasons for maintaining the blockade and for refusing to hold talks with the Cuban government.
As to the question of what Cuban-Americans think about the situation in Cuba, I mean it’s very interesting. What other American citizens of different backgrounds — say Russian-Americans, Chinese-Americans, or I don't know, any other nationality, or Chilean-Americans — are asked what they think about the relationship that they have with their country of origin, right? Evidently, they are not asked that question. However, Cubans — well, not all Cuban-Americans, but a hard-core group, let's say, a reactionary core of Cuban-Americans — really has power and influence on the votes that are made in Florida. They are difference makers because there is Marco Rubio saying, "Well, if the Biden administration does not follow the Trump line with Cuba, we are going to make them pay, we are going to punish them." And what are they going to punish them with? Votes. With votes in Florida and the politicians know it. I mean, Trump bet on Florida to win the 2016 elections, and it worked for him. When Trump's policies or his performance were questioned during his term, people said the worst things about him — that he was wrong, that he was acting incompetently. Except with Cuba and with Venezuela. With Cuba and Venezuela, whatever Trump did was applauded. The president was right because, imagine, “with a dictatorship we cannot negotiate” — not with communism, socialism, not with all these ghosts that are invented by the U.S. media. So, the question here is if the Biden administration is really willing to assume the political cost. Because Cuban-American congressmen from the most reactionary sector of Florida are telling you: If you follow or move towards the policies of the Obama administration — an administration you were part of — we are going to make you pay for it with votes. And in two years, there are elections. In short, whether or not Joe Biden is willing to pursue the policies that President Obama pursued is something that time will tell. His most recent statements on the matter do not leave us with a good feeling.
I would also like to emphasize the issue of the sanctions against Cuba. The hostile policy towards Cuba is not limited to Republicans alone. That is to say, almost 60 years of history have passed; there have been several Democratic and Republican administrations, and all have acted in the same way. I mean, the line against Cuba has always been the same. It doesn't matter if you are red or blue, the line towards Cuba has always been the same — a line that Obama said had not worked. Not that we have changed our ultimate goal, Obama said, but that we should change the strategy. I don't know. It doesn't seem very "hopeful" at the moment.
I believe that the greatest impact of Obama's policies toward Cuba was felt in the private sector: the private sector that Marco Rubio raised in one of his speeches, and which that same hard-core group in Miami likes to champion, in a certain way. I think that is where the greatest impact of Obama's policies towards Cuba was felt, because there was a greater influx of tourism. Cuba at some point became the hub of some of the main events that were happening globally. And after Obama's visit to the country, Cuba became a trending topic. And since the country was undergoing an economic opening in the private sector, they were the main sector to benefit from the change in policy. And it had a domino effect on the rest of the population. The people who had a rental room or property benefited from it — people who rented to U.S. citizens through Airbnb or people who drove cars and gave you a ride all over the Malecón and transported thousands of tourists a day who came on the big cruise ships to Cuba or the person who owned a restaurant or a café that began to have a much higher influx of foreigners who came to visit. Musical groups that were hired to entertain in those privately owned restaurants all benefited. Privately owned businesses were the ones that had the greatest capacity to respond to the avalanche of tourists that were arriving in Cuba at that time… and this is shown in the second episode of “The War on Cuba.” A person who does not depend directly on tourism also benefits because the person who had a restaurant hires him to deliver, because he has a bicycle, and then he receives money from a person who is working on the front line, let's say, of the impact of that economic boom which the country was experiencing at that moment. It is a chain effect. For example, you have a house, and with the single room you rent, it is not enough. So, you need to expand the property and you hire builders. If you want to build a bar you hire carpenters. You also hire people to help you with all the services that you offer on the property. The economic impact has an avalanche and a domino effect on the rest of the Cuban population, that has been stopped dead in its tracks by Donald Trump’s policies. And I wouldn't say that Trump just rolled back the policies that had been implemented during Obama's second term. He went far beyond and made it much worse…
Trump did what no other president in the history of the United States has done — which is to activate the title three of the Helms-Burton law. That's why I am so conscious about using the term “blockade” and not “embargo.” Because not only does it affect trade between two countries, but it affects Cuba's trade with other countries.
And all this damage is being seen now in the absence of tourism, with the sanctions that prevent remittances or being able to travel to the United States and more. It is being seen in the private sector. Of course, eventually, it has a domino effect on all the other sectors, but the private sector is the most affected. If you want to know how the policies really affect the private sector — the sector that the reactionary bloc from Florida supposedly wants to empower — take a microphone or a notebook and go out to the businesses, knock on the doors and say, "How did it go with Obama and how are you doing now?" Or: “How did it go with Trump and how are you doing now with Biden?” Because there has been no talk of reversing or going back on any of Trump’s policies, at least for the moment. And the inclusion of Cuba on the list of terrorist countries became effective during the first days of the Biden administration. So, up to this point, you can't talk about a difference between the Biden administration and the Trump administration. So far, the policies are the same, they're all still there.
FARNSWORTH: With these enormous challenges that Cuba has faced over the decades — I think with the pandemic, it has shown some of the strengths and weaknesses of the various system we have. Like in the United States, it became very obvious what some of the major issues we have, as far as responding to a public health crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic. And this is something I’ve had to communicate to people I know, that Cuba’s response to it has been significantly better than the United States, by just the mere fact that the infection rate is lower, and the death rate is much lower, per capita, and that the healthcare system in Cuba is much better equipped to deal with this. And also the development of a vaccine in Cuba has been a very significant thing to acknowledge. So, what are some of the very obvious things, some of the strengths and weaknesses, you’ve observed and documented in the Cuban medical system, healthcare system, the economic system, and so on, in how they have responded to this pandemic?
FERNÁNDEZ: FERNÁNDEZ: There is one thing you were saying that I would like to emphasize. I do not believe that the Cuban health system as such — although its design is pretty good — I do not believe that the Cuban health system is better equipped or better prepared to face a pandemic of this magnitude than the public health system of first world countries, such as Italy or Spain. The Cuban health system has also been affected by all these sanctions that in recent years have damaged Cuba's economy and that have intensified the blockade imposed by the United States. The health system is not spared that damage. I think that the Cuban government knows this and knows that COVID is a highly contagious disease. And they know that countries with better equipment from the point of view of technology have been overwhelmed by this pandemic. Cuba needs to be better prepared than the rest. And so, I think this is the key or the fundamental reason Cuba has done so well: It has primarily focused on prevention.
It is also good to highlight that Cuba is one of the countries with the highest number of doctors per capita in the world. And it has taken advantage of this and has used it to face this pandemic. Basically, every day you have hundreds of doctors, medical students, laboratory technician students, dentists, nurses, and other health staff knocking on the door of every Cuban citizen asking them if they have symptoms or if they feel sick, if they have had a fever, etcetera.
And not only this. There is not only the hands-on and door-to-door work that hundreds of people do every day, but once they identify you as a person having the active virus in your body, they identify each one of your contacts for the last fifteen days and these people are monitored, quarantined by a medical team and on and on.
So, basically, when you read the Ministry of Health figures every day, you find that out of a thousand Covid-19 positive people, 649 were asymptomatic. How do you explain that? Basically, it’s due to all the work done by the Cuban Ministry of Health and the security protocol designed by the Cuban government to deal with this type of situation.
FARNSWORTH: So, it’s very preventative, an attempt to stop it from being even more widespread. It’s well known, or should be more well known, that Cuba sends thousands of doctors around the globe, and has been doing this for a long time, particularly in Latin America and Africa — and with the pandemic, when it hit Italy, Cuban doctors were sent there and provided aid. And as was documented in the documentary series, with the election of far right President Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, the coup government in Bolivia (now gone), and under President Lenin Moreno in Ecuador, Cuban doctors have been forced to leave these nations due to U.S. pressures. Could you discuss this trend, and cut through some of the propaganda that has come from the U.S., especially from the likes of Mike Pompeo and the Trump Administration? There were a lot of really egregious lies that were spread regarding the Cuban doctors true mission in these nations. Could you discuss that?
FERNÁNDEZ: The mission of Cuban doctors in different parts of the world, I think, is the same. And that is to save lives, do their job and go home to their families. That's basically it. Now, the lies told by the media about what Cuban doctors do abroad depends on the country they are in and the agreement that that country has with Cuba. I referred to this previously. I referred to the fact that Brazil pays the Cuban government for hosting the doctors. Well, then the “poor Cuban doctors” are labeled as slaves of the Castro dictatorship that pays them only 25 percent of what they really should earn and so it goes.
In the case of Bolivia, since the Cuban government did not receive a penny for having doctors there and during the first years of the Cuban mission in Bolivia, the Cuban government was the one who covered all the expenses, then, well, there they are “not really doctors.” They are spies. They are military disguised as doctors who are trying to instigate from within Bolivia. And from there on are all the lies you can think of and all the defamation you can think of in this respect. I believe that what they are trying to do with the persecution of Cuban doctors around the world is to distort the reality of what the Cuban doctors have been doing for so long. Critics only make reference to the last few years, but the Henry Reeve Brigade has a much longer history. In fact, critics do not even establish differences between what the Cuban Henry Reeve International Medical Brigade is and what the medical brigades of collaboration are in the rest of the world. The Henry Reeve Brigade only appears at crucial moments to respond to a certain situation — be it a hurricane, an earthquake, or epidemiological crisis such as Covid-19. In fact, the initial objective of the Henry Reeve Brigade was to respond to a hurricane — by training and sending doctors to the United States who could help the situation, to make it more bearable or to contribute to lessening the suffering that was occurring in the United States at that moment.
In other words, they don't even differentiate between what some doctors are and what others are. They simply present them as a mass that is more of the same, as envoys of the government to do their political work and spread communism in the rest of the world, etcetera. All those things. It is somewhat to discredit the prestige that Cuban doctors have around the world. We have already seen how many people have signed the request for the Cuban Henry Reeve Brigade to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. They are brigades of doctors. And I am very shocked, at least I laugh a lot at the idea that they are not doctors, that they are military. So, I say, "Well, if they are not doctors, then how do they save lives?” Because the statistics are there. People go to be treated by them. So, how do they cure people if they do not have at least a basic notion of how the human body works and the possible diseases and conditions a patient may have, etcetera? The results are there and the governments know them. And if the Cuban health workers were really not so effective, why do they continue to be hired?
So now, possibly Argentina is negotiating to obtain the Cuban vaccine. The Cuban health system and the Cuban educational system have prestige worldwide. No matter what political position you take, that is something you always have to recognize, right? So, questioning the legitimacy of Cuban doctors also represents interference with possible income that the Cuban government can earn in this area. In countries with the worst economic situations, the doctors are sent free of charge. They make agreements for collaborative missions. In short, they make do. Of course, countries that have much more money and have many more resources to pay to hire the doctors. It is logical. The most logical thing in the world when you offer a service to a person who has sufficient money, is to charge for it. Because you as a poor country need money to continue training doctors. No doctor pays a cent for the training he receives in Cuba. University education is free at all levels; it is public at all levels, even for a career in medicine. And we know what this can cost in a country like the United States, for example. And the most important thing of all, which they do not talk about, and which I think they ignore, is that Cuba not only sends doctors abroad, but also receives medical students from other countries and trains them totally free of charge. What excuse do they have for that? I mean, what are they going to say about that? That is why they do not even mention it, because it would be, I mean, if Cuba is so interested in continuing to run this alleged scheme, why would it be interested in training doctors from those countries who can then go back and work in that country? Why would it be interested in training doctors from impoverished countries in Africa or in training doctors from the most remote places in South America so that they can then return and work in those countries? If we want to continue living off this business model for a long time and if we are so interested in the exploitation of these Cuban doctors, why would we be interested in training doctors from other countries?
Wouldn't that ruin the business of being able to continue collecting money for sending doctors? The fundamental reason for sending doctors to other countries is humanistic and solidarity-oriented. That’s why the Cuban government does it.
FARNSWORTH: You mentioned a new documentary series — what is going to be covered in that series, and what’s next for you, Liz, and for Belly of the Beast Cuba?
FERNÁNDEZ: Well, right now we are preparing three more episodes of “The War on Cuba.” The first one is about the sonic attacks, the microwave attacks, or, as one of the people in the Biden administration actually said, “… whatever name that phenomenon has now.” Well, that's going to be one of our upcoming episodes of “The War on Cuba” because it obviously has a big political component, and it was the trigger especially for sanctions to be applied. And now, well, we have seen it. Were the statements made yesterday? We saw yesterday that it is still an excuse used by the US government not to establish or reestablish an embassy in the country, right? This is also part of this war against Cuba.
Then we are also going to be talking about culture, how the artistic movement in Cuba has been polarized in the last few years, and how many Cuban artists have had to take a black or white position, as we talked about at the beginning, if they want to find success in a market as close by as the United States. Because as soon as they set foot in US territory, as soon as they arrive in Florida, they are immediately questioned, "Tell me what political position you have, and I will tell you if you can sing or have concerts here in the United States.” So, basically that's what it is.
And then, the series will cover who the media are that cover the political reality of Cuba. Who are the politicians behind the media? What is the specific program they have and what all is behind that, behind the portrayal of Cubans in the American media directed to the American public.
