 Hi, everyone. This is what the F is going on in Latin America, Code Peaks weekly webinar, Wednesday's 12 p.m. Eastern, where we spend 20 minutes every Wednesday discussing a hot topic out of Latin America. This week, we are honored to be broadcasting from Havana, Cuba, with a very distinguished guest, Ricardo Agobon, who I've just asked what his most recent title is, and he has told me XXXXX, former, former, former, he's had every role, prestigious role in his country's government over the last 60 years. More? More. More? Yes. Well, since I was a student leader, 60 years. 60 years, starting as a student leader. Can you tell us a little bit about the student movement then? Then, you have a fairly strong tradition, by the way. In a couple of ways, we can answer the creation of the University Student Federation, FAIL, who is an order and the Tribune Movement organization, order than work-present organization, and was one of the first social organizations created in Cuba in 1922. Since that moment, it was a rather odd situation, because those who were at the University, like myself, belonged to a very small minority. The majority of young people couldn't finish their high school, to go to the University and finish a career. This is really wonderful that you're sharing this with us, because last night we saw Catherine Murphy's film Maestra, about the illiteracy problem in educating the population, because so few people were able to attend. I am very proud of that background of mine, because we were probably one of the more strange organizations. We belonged to a privileged segment of society, and we fought strongly to end those barriers. For yourself, because you saw how many others were denied that privilege? That's my job. For example, apart from the illiteracy campaign, the opportunity of millions of people to read and write, apart from that, you can even now see the proof of what I am going to tell you. The system of university scholarship. That began in 1960, when there was a defederation between federations. The buildings are there. Still now, they are launching young people who are studying from the interior part of Cuba, all foreigners, all countries, Malacca and 12, Libya and H, 3rd of April and F. There were four or five buildings that were devoted to launch young people who couldn't continue their university studies. Because they didn't have a family in Havana, they were cosmonia and so on. And the buildings are still there, and they are being used for the same purpose, 60 years. The only difference is that now we have a lot of foreigners, students from the Caribbean, from Latin America, from Africa, that are in Canberra. So I just want to let the audience, our listeners, know that I first met you here in this building, in this complex, February of 2015, on a code-paint delegation. And you were our very first lecturer, our very first morning. You spoke to us, you spent the morning with us, and I learned so much from that two hours, listening to you, everything from your years in New York, in Washington, or in the Kennedy administration. This was fascinating to me. And one of the principal things we talked about that morning was the Cuban embargo, which has since been expanded under the Trump administration. And so I'd like to talk about that a bit, and also how this mechanism has now been used is basically a form of U.S. foreign policy and economic warfare, not only on Cuba, but we're seeing this against Venezuela, Nicaragua, Syria, North Korea. It's a form of warfare. It's a form of warfare against Cuba for 60 years. Definitely. It's more than a discussion about if it is an embargo or a blockade. It's more than that. It's an economic warfare. An economic warfare. An economic warfare that now is conducted by a bunch of people that operated with a mafia-style way of operating. I don't want to be rude to President Trump, but the way he conducts affairs as president can only be compared with the way a mafia mob leader could act. And Cuba has experience with that. Yeah, completely. No, but we didn't have, we are letting you know in the new dimension of this warfare, because at this particular moment, it is not only a matter of having governments, states, organizations that may abide or not with the American wish to affect Cuba economically. No, these are concrete actions that they can deny to threaten ship owners or ship captains or people involved in any manner in the process of trading with Cuba. Particularly regarding oil and, because I know of this, that's one of our witnesses. So do you have transportation oil that comes in from Venezuela or maybe comes in on different ships now? If your electrical diesel generating oil is from... So you have, you rely, Cuba depends on petroleum for two principle things, transportation oil, correct? Uh-huh. And that, I believe, comes from Venezuela. And electricity. And the electrical, the diesel for electricity. Yeah, and the problem is that, well, they have, every day they announce from Washington that the new ship line had been added to release those designated persons. It's a very straight way to refer to the enemy list. Just the U.S. Department of Territories. The most recent was a Panamanian company that, why? But it was their biggest sin to have transported oil from Venezuela to Cuba. It's a completely normal operation that happens every day. But you are now in Washington, a bunch of people that pretend to impose their will over everybody else and using not very good manners to send in this. That's a very diplomatic way of putting it. No, these are good manners. I think they're very good at your job. So tell us a little bit about what it's been like in Cuba the last year with the expansion of sanctions, and particularly the last several months with the lack of oil. I think the other percent that we described correctly, an intensification of recent actions in the U.S. and in Cuba, particularly in the last few years, it probably will be increased as we approach the electoral day in your country. It's funny, because the so-called experts, the so-called intelligent politicians in America always use as an excuse the importance of Florida as an election and the importance of the Cuban-American vote. That's a complete nonsense, complete inaccuracy, to say it is, again, grammatically. So the majority of the Cuban-Americans are against the environment, are in favor of the restored population, and are the main victims of the last steps taken by the Trump administration. When they forbid traveling between Florida and some humans' airports, that means that the person who lives in Eastern Cuba, for example, would have a lot of difficulties in getting the visit of their parents coming from Miami. Because they got to come to Havana from Havana to go using the oil and the fuel that is denied to see their parents, but imagine the reverse. And only the living in Eastern Cuba who wants to visit their grandchildren in Miami, they have to go from that place to Havana. They cannot use it like a flight that they believe. Enormous thing, it says. What the purpose of that? What did it aim? Simply to affect, to damage individual human beings. When the embargo began of this policy of economic warfare, there is a very important key element that was an internal memo in the State Department and Assistant Secretary of State who referred to that as a very succinct way to do things. The majority of humans support the country. The only way to reduce their support is by imposing economic and material hardships to the population in order to provoke desperation and overthrow of the government. Now for the first time, Mr. Trump doesn't like reading very much according to what they have read. But apparently he read that memo. And he's got to create hardship, create desperation. I think that's really important for our viewers to understand is that despite how the narrative in the U.S. media and from the U.S. government telling the U.S. population that sanctions are directed at certain businesses and government officials, and yet the State Department memo clearly... Clearly they were not the leaders, the governmental officials. The people that have been so far decades, the non-religionation, their parents and their grandparents have been going through that kind of life, clearly conceived to provoke suffering in the population to have the population then report against the regime. That is the logic and the succinctly explained in that memo. And the memo was approved by the way because on the side of the document you can see it was classified. Many years ago it was declassified. You can see the signature of the Secretary of State. And these two letters, okay. Okay. Who was the Secretary of State then? I think it was a... I don't know. I think it was a... ...herter? Or a Christian herter or... I don't know. Were you serving in the United States then? How long? What years were you in the United States? I was in... Well I really was in New York. More than a decade. I spent there for ten and a half years continuously. And then I returned for two more years. And I went back and forth for practically my life. Yeah. Well, I once had the opportunity to go to San Francisco. Oh, my hotel. I went to San Francisco, invited with some friends in the Solidarity Movement. I remember that we attended a celebration of the anniversary of one of progressive papers in your country. That was issued from San Francisco. And it was a beautiful city. It is very beautiful. And beautiful people. Yes. Here as well. Yeah. So I wonder, you know, we're talking about sanctions, the Cuban embargo and how it was very clearly designed by the U.S. to harm the general population of the country. I was in Venezuela twice this year. I spent three months earlier this year and then a couple weeks this summer. And Cuba and Venezuela are fast, hard allies. How would you evaluate what the sanctions are, how the sanctions are affecting your allies in Venezuela? They are affecting them in my opinion. I imagine very much. Not the Venezuelans have been resisting and trying to be creative in how to fight back. Something that is missed in the American strategy is that those who elaborate your policies in your country do not understand history and do not understand how other people think or behave. And I think that in Venezuela, you have also a lot of examples now of people's creativity and people developing initiatives to try to counteract against those policies. And the fact is that they are there. The revolution continues in Venezuela. And we, in our case in Cuba, we learned a lot thanks to the American aggression. A lot. Cubans are probably one of the most advanced people in capability to create, to invent, to resolve things. I remember the contrast between New York and New York. I experienced in Cuba. For a Cuban, if your radio or TV set is broken, you will find a way to make it function again. In the consumer society, you will see that there is a way. By another way. That's important. It's unconceivable, too. Because you can have always a way to get out of those difficulties. And I think I was done nationally, massively, with that policy, which does not mean, of course, that people have to suffer. They succeeded in making people suffer, but they will never succeed in making people to revolt in favor of those who made them suffer. That's crazy, but it will be really stupid to see that way. That's not the way our history shows us. And your people. I mean, this is as we walk, as we visit different institutions and walk the streets and go out in the evening for dinner, music. It's so clear that the Cuban people are united as a culture, as a people. They understand the foreign policy against them. I see this in Venezuela, too. And I agree with you that it's the principal thing that the U.S. strategists get wrong. They don't understand the people and the movements on the ground. Is there anything else that we should talk about that you want to comment on before we let our audience go? What? We take this opportunity to express our gratitude and our thanks to all our friends in your organization, in the Koch Pink movement. And in general, the Americans have been explaining about the U.S. in all these years. We know. We are sure that if things at some moment began to change, to improve, it was not due to the good intentions of the good will of a president. But what is the result of the fight that is consistently for many years, many Americans have sustained in your country to have a relation of respect and friendship between our two countries. And since the very beginning of this story, since the very beginning, to be precise, 1870, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the man who referred to as the padre de la patria, a great initiator of the good revolution, in a message he sent to the Cuban immigrants in New York, where were many at the time. He alerted them of what in his views were the intentions of the U.S. ruling class. In 1870? 1870. The secret of the American policy is to take over human. But he also said to those people, you should never confuse the government with the people. The American people should be our best friend and best ally. The essential of our strategy has to be never to forget that the Americans want to take control of the government, the ruling class. But the people, the American people has nothing to do with that. And we should try to get their solidarity, their friendship to fight the others. 1870. Well, in here in 2019, we have the solidarity and the revolution of the American people. So, thank you so much. Thank you. What an honor. So, thank you everyone for watching and we'll see you next Wednesday, 12 p.m. Eastern.