Gerardo Hernández asks for a year of truce: "Without blocking, to see if the system works"

Gerard Hernandez Nordelo, national coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), asked the United States for a year of truce, "without a blockade" so that the regime can test whether the model it has been trying to promote for 60 years works or not.

"There are people who, due to lack of knowledge or ignorance, tell you: 'the blockade is nothing more than an excuse by the Government of Cuba to cover all its inefficiencies' so remove the excuse if socialism does not work," said Gerardo.

He asked, in colloquial language, for a truce from the United States government, which he accuses of living by suffocating the Cuban people with the aim of "destroying the revolution."

"Let me go to see if I can breathe or not, to see if the system we have dreamed of works or not. Give us freedom, let's do that experiment. Give us a year,a year without a blockade, nothing more, to see if this system that we want to build works or not," he commented.

Gerardo's statements were recorded in an interview conducted in Havana, in December 2023, toVocesenlucha and was published this week on the webAlways with Cuba.

The former Cuban spy said that his entire life he has lived under the United States economic embargo on Cuba and believes that with a short period without limitations, the regime could demonstrate that it can build a prosperous country, something that they have not achieved in more than six decades in power.

In February 1962, President John F. Kennedy decreed by Executive Order 3447 thetotal embargo on trade with Cuba, in response to the nationalization process ordered by Fidel Castro, in 1960, which directly affected the interests of 5,913 United States companies expropriated without compensation.

In 1964, Democratic President Lyndon Johnson was the first to arrange the embargo as a multinational sanction. It had support from the Organization of American States (OAS) and European allies. He drastically banned the sale of food to Cuba and refused to allow American travel to the island.

Since then, there have been periods of relaxation and tightening of the parameters of the embargo. The Democratic presidencies have been more open, while the Republican ones have tightened restrictions with executive orders and sanctions on Havana.

Jimmy Carter's presidency was the one that took the most decisive steps to get closer to the Cuban government, but everything fell apart due to Fidel Castro's reluctance to stop the intervention of Cuban troops in the wars in Angola and Ethiopia and due to the Mariel exodus with the that turned the lid on bilateral relations.

In the 1990sBill Clinton He was responsible for expanding flights to Cuba, and expanding the remittance service with Western Union. He returned to a subtle approach and passed the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Promotion Act, which allowed sales of agricultural products to the island.

It came into force in 2000 and is to this day the permanent crack in the embargo, because it dismantled the myth that the Cuban market cannot acquire goods in the United States.