Cuban president promises ‘impregnable resistance’ to any US attempt to control island
By Patrick Oppmann, Hilary Whiteman, CNN
Havana (CNN) — Any attempt by the United States to take control of Cuba would be met with “impregnable resistance,” Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Tuesday, as power returned to some parts of the island following a nationwide grid collapse.
Successive US administrations have sought to isolate Cuba for more than six decades, Díaz-Canel said in a defiant X post, accusing Washington of now using economic weakness as an “outrageous pretext” to seize it.
“Only in this way can the fierce economic war be explained, which is applied as collective punishment against the entire people,” he said. “In the face of the worst scenario, Cuba is accompanied by a certainty: any external aggressor will clash with an impregnable resistance.”
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly taunted Cuba’s communist leadership with threats of a takeover. After suggesting on Monday that he could do anything he wants with the island, Trump said Tuesday: “We’ll be doing something with Cuba very soon.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio followed up with a blunt assessment from the Oval Office.
Cuba needs “new people in charge,” Rubio said Tuesday. “Their economy doesn’t work…They’re in a lot of trouble, and the people in charge, they don’t know how to fix it, so they have to get new people in charge.”
Cuba has taken a severe economic hit since the US effectively blocked its oil supply earlier this year, depriving its aging electricity network of its main source of fuel.
Most of the island’s 10 million people were without power on Monday, as the first nationwide grid collapse forced residents to cook with gas by torch and candlelight.
School hours were shortened, and major sporting events postponed, as rubbish piled up in some neighborhoods due to a lack of fuel for dump trucks.
By Tuesday afternoon, power had returned to roughly 55% of customers in the capital Havana, and some places in the western and central-eastern regions of the island.
The outages have compounded increasingly difficult living conditions for Cubans, who for months have endured sporadic power cuts.
Uncertainty over any move by the US to make good on its threats is adding to the anger and anxiety, but Havana resident Marianela Alvarez told Reuters that Cubans don’t want war.
“We, as people, as civilians, aren’t prepared for a war,” she said. “I want Trump to understand, to leave us alone.”
Havana resident Luis Enrique Garcia told the news agency that he fears for his country, but held out hope for talks.
“I truly believe that there will be dialogue and understanding, because it is love that should unite human beings, not war, he said.
However, not everyone was so sure.
“I don’t trust a dialogue with Trump,” Havana local Amed Echenique told Reuters. “I don’t trust Trump as a person, even with the little I know about him. And so that’s something that doesn’t really give me hope.”
Díaz-Canel confirmed Friday that Cuban officials had held talks with the US to “identify the bilateral problems that need a solution.”
Trump had previously said that Washington was holding talks with Cuba, but it was the first confirmation from Havana.
The-CNN-Wire
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