Children are dying!

Aug 22, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – The words of South African Anglican priest and anti-apartheid activist Michael Lapsley today rings with the moral clarity that the world desperately needs to hear. After returning from Havana, he did not mince words. He accused the United States of inflicting “a genocide without bombs” on the Cuban people.

This analysis is a devastatingly accurate description of a policy that has moved beyond economic warfare into the realm of human genocide. The US continues to make human life unbearable in Cuba through its present energy blockade and now with the addition of further sanctions.

U.S. sanctions, particularly the fuel blockade imposed since January 2026, have plunged Cuba into a profound humanitarian crisis. The energy shortages have caused daily nationwide blackouts frequently exceeding 20 hours, disrupting the preservation of critical medicines and threatening patient lives. According to Cuban health authorities, this has directly contributed to a doubling of the infant mortality rate and a drop in childhood cancer survival rates from 85% to 65%. Over 100,000 patients are now awaiting surgery due to supply shortages and the national biotech industry has been unable to guarantee 300 essential medicines. Furthermore, the food production has reportedly decreased by 60%, and the transport of humanitarian aid is obstructed, with the UN human rights chief stating that “children are dying” as a direct result of the sanctions.

The latest U.S. sanctions, announced on August 20, 2026, directly target Cuba’s mining, metal, and construction sectors. This is being done under the stated rationale of cutting off revenue that “sustains the regime’s repressive apparatus”. However, the practical effect extends far beyond political messaging. Cuban Foreign Minister has emphasized that these measures deliberately obstruct the transportation of containers carrying food, medicine, and medical devices, which are overwhelmingly procured by Cuba’s private micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. It thus represents a blockade on the flow of essential supplies to an already struggling population

For over six decades, the US embargo has been a blunt instrument of collective punishment. However, as Lapsley observed, “things have become immeasurably worse in the last six months”. What we are witnessing now is the final, cruel escalation. The United States has systematically choked off Cuba’s fuel supply, creating a humanitarian catastrophe that is not collateral damage but the intended consequence of US policy. By blocking oil tankers and threatening nations that dare to supply the island, Washington has ensured that Cubans face prolonged electricity blackouts, an inability to pump water, the collapse of factories, and a crippling halt to medicine production. This is a deliberate strategy to starve a nation of the basic necessities of life.

The American policy towards Cuba is the very definition of genocide—the systematic destruction of a people through the denial of the basic conditions of life.

Furthermore, as Lapsley and Cuban church leaders point out, the siege is now so total that it is preventing humanitarian assistance from reaching those in need. The US blockade is not only stopping fuel and food, but is also deterring shippers and aid organisations, who fear falling foul of US sanctions. This is a government willingly holding a people hostage and using the threat of sanctions to isolate them from the world.

It is against this backdrop of moral bankruptcy that all Guyanese must call on the government of Guyana to take a stand. Guyana has recently signed an agreement with the United States that would grant it access to Guyanese minerals. We cannot, in good conscience, partner with a nation that is actively engaging in such a profound humanitarian crime. Guyana cannot be complicit, through economic partnerships, in the suffering of its neighbours.

The Government of Guyana must suspend this agreement with the United States immediately. It must, in so doing, send a powerful message from the Caribbean: that we will not be silent in the face of injustice. Just as Cuba was a beacon of solidarity for South Africa and Angola against apartheid, the nations of the Global South must now stand in solidarity with Cuba.

Further, the Guyana Government should insist that if Cuba cannot get oil, then Guyana’s oil must not be exported to the United States.

The Guyanese people should also decline to travel to the United States for non-essential purposes. Such a boycott would serve as a powerful moral statement, signaling that Guyanese citizens refuse to contribute economically to a nation that is actively strangling the Cuban people through genocidal sanctions.

History will judge us. We can either stand with the oppressor or with the oppressed. We must choose Cuba and humanity.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.) 

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• Children are dying, Cuba, genocide, Palestine, Peeping Tom, US blockade, US sanctions

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