As I was preparing to travel from Mexico to Cuba in early February for a one-month stay, a Cuban friend in Havana messaged me with some tips. If you are going to need things like milk and coffee, he said, be sure to bring them with you.
Indeed, as Cuba now marks six decades of existence under United States embargo, basic commodities are hard to come by – and that is just one aspect of the ongoing US policy of making life hell for Cubans. While the right-wing Cuban exile crowd and allied zealots like the Wall Street Journal’s Mary Anastasia O’Grady prefer to insist that there is “no blockade”, reality indicates very much otherwise.
Sixty years ago, on February 7, 1962, an “Embargo on All Trade with Cuba” entered into effect under the supervision of then-President John F Kennedy, who had taken care beforehand to procure for himself no fewer than 1,200 Cuban cigars. It continues to be the most exhaustive embargo ever imposed on any country by the US, and at the time included a ban on all sales of medicine and food. READ MORE AT AL JAZEERA ENGLISH.