U.S. sanctions are causing severe humanitarian harm in Cuba, Ambassador Benitez warned.
On Wednesday, Cuban Ambassador Rodolfo Benitez spoke during a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) held in Geneva, where officials from the institution analyzed the report presented by Zaina Jallad, the U.N. special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, regarding her visit to Cuba to assess the impact of the U.S. blockade.
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The investigation includes evidence gathered in November 2025, when Jallad held meetings with UN representatives and Cuban authorities, private-sector actors, community organizations, researchers, and journalists.
Based on the data collected, the UN special rapporteur determined that U.S. sanctions have caused enormous harm to the Cuban population.
As a direct witness to this situation, Cuban Ambassador Benitez made the following statement, addressing UNHRC President Ambassador Sidharto Reza Suryodipuro.
Maximum pressure campaigns, threats to third States, companies and individuals, and initial designation and subsequent re-designations of Cuba as a State sponsor of terrorism…
Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council on Unilateral Coercirve Measures#CubaNoEsUnaAmenaza pic.twitter.com/Te953VGtAD
— Pablo Berti Oliva (@paulberticu) September 9, 2026
“Mr. President:
The United States says there is no blockade or energy siege against Cuba. The Special Rapporteur’s report exposes the liar.
With solid evidence verified during her visit to Cuba, the Special Rapporteur has determined that not only do they exist, but that they are also being steadily intensified and causing enormous harm.
It also demonstrates that this policy flagrantly, massively, and systematically violates the human rights of Cubans, including the right to food, health, education, development, and the right to life.
There can be no greater cynicism than suffocating a people and blaming others. The report by the Special Rapporteur proves that the United States is lying when it seeks to hold Cuba responsible for the consequences of its cruel actions.
The Special Rapporteur determined that, despite the sustained efforts of the Cuban government to protect the population and mitigate its effects, U.S. coercive measures are of such magnitude and persistence that they cause shortages of essential goods and services in Cuban households.
Washington maintains that its policy toward Cuba is legal and that the blockade is an exclusively bilateral issue. The Special Rapporteur’s exhaustive legal analysis categorically refutes this. It demonstrates that the blockade must be lifted because it violates international law and infringes on the sovereignty and jurisdiction of other states.
The Special Rapporteur’s report is objective and factual. We support its important recommendations. Cuba will comply with those that correspond to it. The U.S. government must comply with its own.
The assessment presented by the Special Rapporteur coincides with what has been denounced by many other independent experts, special rapporteurs and UNHRC working groups. None has defended the United States. All have demanded an immediate end to its siege against Cuba.
Mr. President:
The perverse and deliberate purpose of the United States is to cause extreme deprivation and total suffocation of Cuban families. They are attempting to manufacture a humanitarian tragedy to destabilize the country and achieve their political objectives.
Since January, in what constitutes an unprecedented strengthening of the blockade, the United States has imposed a brutal energy siege against Cuba. They threaten retaliation against any country that supplies oil to the island. Fuel shortages have had a devastating impact on nearly every area of society.
Due to a lack of electricity and supplies, the national health care system has been forced to postpone nonurgent surgeries to prioritize those that determine life. More than 100,000 patients are waiting for surgery, including 12,000 children. The life expectancy of children with cancer has fallen from 85% to 65%. The infant mortality rate has increased from 4.4 per 1,000 live births in 2018 to 9.9 in 2025. Of the 395 medicines that Cuba produces as part of its basic health care program, 300 are in short supply because of difficulties accessing raw materials.
Behind those figures are human beings and the immense pain and anguish of Cuban families.
The architects of this policy of genocide and collective punishment celebrate as successes the agony of a Cuban mother who loses a child because of a lack of medicines. They rejoice when our elderly do not have an ambulance available for an emergency. They are pleased by prolonged power outages, high food prices and difficulties with the supply of water and other basic services.
Washington officials, experts at finding ways to strangle the Cuban people, have also put into effect, since May 1, a comprehensive system of secondary sanctions against entities or individuals in third countries simply for having ties to Cuba.
They are going to unprecedented extremes to amplify the extraterritorial effects of their multidimensional war against our country.
The consequences are serious. It is enough to mention that more than 7,000 containers, most of them carrying food, medicines, and medical devices, remain stranded in different countries and cannot be transported to Cuba because of intimidation against shipping companies.
The sophisticated methods of suffocating the Cuban population that the United States has developed in recent months far exceed the pressure exerted on the country for decades. Their cruelty has no limits.
As a result, the Cuban people have suffered a deterioration in their quality of life and incalculable humanitarian harm.
No people deserve or should be subjected to so much punishment simply for defending their right to self-determination. But they will not bend us. They will have to answer to history, and the Cuban people will not forgive them.
Mr. President:
Added to the extensive list of measures for the extreme strengthening of the blockade is the recurrent use of a highly threatening and confrontational narrative against Cuba by the highest power structures of the current U.S. government.
Cuba is under threat of military aggression. As a pretext, the United States goes so far as to absurdly designate our small island as a supposed threat to the security of the military superpower.
The idea that Cuba could be a danger in the face of the disproportionate military might of the country that spends the most on war, possesses more than 5,200 nuclear weapons, 13,000 warplanes and 1,200 military bases in 80 countries, including the Guantanamo naval base, in Cuban territory illegally occupied, defies common sense.
There can be no justification for attacking Cuba, nor for imposing inhumane coercive measures on it that are comparable to war in their humanitarian impact. Cuba is not a threat, the blockade is!
Our country does not want war, which would cause a bloodbath. On the contrary, we defend peace. But if there is an aggression, which we hope never happens, our people will defend their independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity to the ultimate consequences.
Mr. President:
Remaining silent in the face of what is being done to Cuba today weakens international law and makes the planet even more insecure.
Let us not forget that part of the world looked the other way when the horrors of the genocide in Gaza were unfolding, and today we all have to face the terrible consequences. The United States intends for Cuba to become a silent Gaza. It must be prevented.
Silence or indifference puts everyone in danger. First it was Gaza. Today it is Cuba. Tomorrow it could be any of the nations represented here.
Cuba will not surrender! Our people will move forward because their resilience, creativity and determination cannot be blocked. We will achieve it through our own efforts and resources, and with the solidarity of all those in the world who defend just causes.
As our National Hero Jose Marti said: “A just principle, from the bottom of a cave, can do more than an army.”
We will prevail because the law and reason are on Cuba’s side.
Thank you very much.”
teleSUR/ JF
Source: Minrex – teleSUR
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