Why does the US have such a blind spot over Cuba?

The world’s sole is superpower still apparently trying to starve into submission a small country barely a stone’s throw away. Why? writes Mary Dejevsky

Friday 16 July 2021 07:30 BST
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<p>‘Cuba has never just been Cuba, but a cypher for the victory or defeat of communism’</p>

‘Cuba has never just been Cuba, but a cypher for the victory or defeat of communism’

The pandemic has had many unforeseen consequences, with more doubtless to come. But one of the least foreseen was surely the recent outbreak of political protest in Cuba.

Not only have Cubans shown almost superhuman forbearance over more than half a century of accumulating deprivations, but their health service has long been seen as a model for less developed countries in terms of its universal access and expertise. Cubans, it might have seemed, were thus almost uniquely prepared to weather the pandemic storm. And that is how it may yet turn out.

Add the standard response of a repressive and threatened regime – locking people up, banning public assemblies, blocking communications – and the current beleaguered system in Cuba may yet have some time to run. Then again it may not.

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