CUBA ACCEPTS US AID OFFER

Faced with a worsening fuel supply crisis, the Cuban government is reportedly to have agreed to accept a US$100 million humanitarian aid offer from the United States government.

The American offer, reportedly previously rejected by Cuba, includes fuel, food, and medicines. Earlier, the Cuban leader, President Miguel Díaz-Canel, had called the US offer “inconsequential and paradoxical.”

However, the country’s fuel supply is now literally running on empty. Reserves are said to be “completely exhausted.” The government in Havana is reported to have agreed to the shipment.

Cuba’s Mining and Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy stated on national television that the country has “absolutely no fuel oil and absolutely no diesel” left.

In a social media post attributed to him, President Diaz-Canal had commented: “If there is genuine willingness on the part of the US government to provide aid in the amounts it announces and in full conformity with universally recognised humanitarian aid practices, it will encounter neither obstacles nor ingratitude on Cuba’s part.”

The US State Department, headed by its Cuban-American Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had earlier stated, “The regime refuses to allow the United States to provide this assistance to the Cuban people, who are in desperate need of assistance due to the failures of Cuba’s corrupt regime.” It also said, “The decision rests with the Cuban regime to accept our offer of assistance or deny critical (life)-saving aid and ultimately be accountable to the Cuban people for standing in the way of critical assistance.”

Under mounting diplomatic and economic pressure from the United States, currently the most severe in the 66-year-long embargo, Cuba is now said to be plagued by blackouts posing a growing risk, especially to its health system.

There are reports of residents in Havana staging loud protests against the conditions, with chants of “turn on the lights”.

The growing isolation of the communist Caribbean island, just 90 miles away from the US Florida coast, has rapidly intensified since the US seizure of the ex-Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro, in a military operation in January.

Citing Cuba as an accomplice of the Maduro regime, US President Donald Trump had tightened the squeeze on the government with a blockade of oil supplies going into the island and threatening to penalise countries trying to send fuel to Cuba with heavy tariffs.

It is understood that the US aid package to Cuba will be channelled through the Catholic Church. While specific conditions are not yet clear, it is known that the Trump administration is demanding what have been described as “meaningful reforms” in the communist-run island.