Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said Thursday, “We don’t want this [confrontation] But it is our duty to be prepared to avoid it… and if it becomes inevitable, to be prepared to conquer it.”
Diaz-Canel made the remarks during a ceremony in the Cuban capital Havana to mark the 65th anniversary of America’s failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 – a CIA-backed operation launched after American-owned properties and businesses on the island were nationalized by Fidel Castro and his fellow revolutionaries.
Diaz-Canel told thousands of people gathered at the event that the country is “prepared” for another attack as US President Donald Trump continues to threaten the smaller southern neighbor.
Cuba and the United States: a long and controversial history between neighbors
The US and Cuba have been bitter enemies since the country’s 1959 revolution, and Trump has breathed new life into the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, a US policy designed to thwart European intervention in the Western Hemisphere.
Late last year, Trump ordered US warships in the Caribbean to sink what the US described as drug-trafficking boats in the region.
In January, Trump cited this policy when US forces arrested Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and extradited him to the US to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.
After Maduro’s kidnapping, Trump ordered an oil and gas blockade of Cuba and began threatening that “Cuba’s next.”
After launching a war against Iran on February 28, Trump has again floated the idea of ”taking over” Cuba, which has also suffered massive nationwide blackouts as a result of the US oil blockade.
Diaz-Canel: ‘Cuba is a defeated state’
In his Thursday remarks, Diaz-Canel called the current situation “very serious,” yet he also embraced the socialist ideals espoused by Fidel Castro at the beginning of the Cuban Revolution.
Additionally, he rejected Trump’s claims that Cuba is “a failed state”, accusing the US of looking for an excuse for action.
Diaz-Canel said, “Cuba is not a failed state. Cuba is a defeated state.” “Cuba is a state facing multidimensional aggression: economic war, intensified blockade and energy blockade.”
Recently, talks have been going on between the two sides to reduce tensions, yet few details have emerged.
The trade embargo that the US imposed on Cuba in response to the Cuban Revolution still remains in place nearly 70 years later.
Edited by: Wesley Dockery