The Debt We Owe Cuba

African and Caribbean peoples owe the Cuban people an enormous debt. Cuba has been committed to the liberation of African states and to movements against imperialism in the Caribbean and globally. Cuba’s support has not just been at the level of political rhetoric, but manifested in concrete, material interventions. Cubans have given up their lives for the independence of global African peoples. Cuba intervened militarily in wars against imperial domination. Cuban lives were lost in Vietnam, Angola (est: 10,000), Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, and, more recently, 32 died in the U.S.’s illegal attack on Venezuela to capture Maduro.  Cuban doctors have saved lives across Africa and the Caribbean, especially those of the poor, rural and marginalized urban populations.  Cuba has been one of the few countries committed unconditionally to the well-being of African peoples providing much-needed general and specialist care at affordable levels.

All this has occurred whilst the Cuban people have suffered 64 years of the most punitive US sanctions, even though the country poses no threat to the U.S. To make matters worse, on 29 January 2026, President Trump signed an executive order, in which he declared a national emergency, stating that Cuba is a threat to U.S. national security, thus allowing the imposition of additional tariffs on countries that supply oil to Cuba. Beyond direct warfare, this is one of the most punitive actions that a state has exercised against a people, whilst undermining the sovereignty of other states to make decisions about their own foreign policy.

Sanctions are designed to hurt ordinary people so that they rebel against their government.  The U.S. sanctions on Cuba are based on lies manufactured by the US and Cuban exiles wanting to return to a pre-revolutionary fantasy island for American capitalists. The people who oppose the revolution are predominantly the white supremacist elements of Cuban society - those who resented the revolutionary extension of welfare to the Black community. In the U.S., where many of them were welcomed as exiles, they have tried to deny and hide signs of their African heritage, preferring to align with whiteness.  Judging by the recent national security speech of the Cuban-heritage U.S.  Secretary of State Marco Rubio, their vision for Cuba is a white-supremacist one. African and Caribbean states and peoples should take note, as the U.S. seeks to undermine the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and regional integration.

The people of Cuba now urgently need the support of global Africa. 

Africans must now step up and reciprocate.