Gus­ta­vo Vél­iz Oli­vares

Cuban Am­bas­sador to T&T

On Jan­u­ary 1, 1959, Cu­ba achieved its full in­de­pen­dence af­ter 100 years of strug­gle. With the tri­umph of the Rev­o­lu­tion and un­der the lead­er­ship of Fi­del Cas­tro, Cu­ba suc­ceed­ed in re­vers­ing the so­cial de­vel­op­ment in­di­ca­tors of the 1950s and demon­strat­ed the pos­si­bil­i­ty of as­sum­ing its own chal­lenges by re­spon­si­bly ful­fill­ing the com­mit­ment un­der­tak­en in de­fence of its main pro­tag­o­nist: the Cuban peo­ple. De­spite mul­ti­ple ob­sta­cles, the Cuban Rev­o­lu­tion has man­aged to find its own path for in­de­pen­dent de­vel­op­ment.

In the 1950s, so­cial de­vel­op­ment in­di­ca­tors in Cu­ba were quan­ti­ta­tive­ly very low. With a pop­u­la­tion of 5,829,029 in­hab­i­tants, ac­cord­ing to the 1953 cen­sus, the so­cio-eco­nom­ic panora­ma in Cu­ba showed back­ward­ness, high lev­els of in­equal­i­ty, and ex­treme pover­ty.

Twen­ty-three per cent of the pop­u­la­tion over the age of 10 was il­lit­er­ate, 45 per cent of chil­dren of school age did not at­tend school, the in­fant mor­tal­i­ty rate was 40 per 1,000 live births, and the ma­ter­nal mor­tal­i­ty rate was 1,182 per 100,000 live births.

In De­cem­ber 1957, un­em­ploy­ment among the pop­u­la­tion over 14 years of age reached 11.8 per cent. Dur­ing those years, tem­po­rary em­ploy­ment pre­dom­i­nat­ed, as­so­ci­at­ed with the main eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ties at the time, such as sug­ar­cane cut­ting and to­bac­co har­vest­ing, in which the eco­nom­i­cal­ly ac­tive pop­u­la­tion was em­ployed for on­ly six months.

The sit­u­a­tion de­scribed above changed rad­i­cal­ly be­gin­ning in Jan­u­ary 1959.

Among the most im­por­tant mile­stones of the Cuban Rev­o­lu­tion over 67 years are the fol­low­ing:

1. The lit­er­a­cy cam­paign

On De­cem­ber 22, 1961, Cu­ba was de­clared a free-of-il­lit­er­a­cy ter­ri­to­ry. Based on the Cuban ex­pe­ri­ence and as a re­sult of the lev­el of de­vel­op­ment achieved by ed­u­ca­tion on the is­land, Cu­ba con­tributed to the erad­i­ca­tion of il­lit­er­a­cy in coun­tries of the re­gion, such as Haiti and Hon­duras, through the “Yo Sí Puedo” (“Yes, I Can”) method.

2. Agrar­i­an re­form

This was the first law en­act­ed by the Cuban Rev­o­lu­tion on May 17, 1959, which had been promised by Com­man­der-in-Chief Fi­del Cas­tro Ruz in his de­fence state­ment dur­ing the tri­al held against him af­ter the as­sault on the Mon­ca­da Bar­racks, known as “His­to­ry Will Ab­solve Me.”

This law was the most far-reach­ing of the mea­sures adopt­ed by the Rev­o­lu­tion in its first stage, as it ben­e­fit­ed more than 100,000 peas­ant fam­i­lies and elim­i­nat­ed large land­hold­ings and im­pe­ri­al­ist dom­i­na­tion over the land.

3. In­ter­na­tion­al

med­ical co­op­er­a­tion

In 1963, Cu­ba sent its first med­ical brigade to Al­ge­ria, mark­ing the be­gin­ning of a col­lab­o­ra­tion that has reached 165 coun­tries. Since then, more than 600,000 health pro­fes­sion­als have pro­vid­ed ser­vices in the most needy places in the world.

In 2025, Cuban med­ical co­op­er­a­tion reached 56 coun­tries with more than 24,000 col­lab­o­ra­tors. In 2005, the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­tin­gent of Doc­tors Spe­cialised in Dis­as­ter Sit­u­a­tions and Se­ri­ous Epi­demics “Hen­ry Reeve” was cre­at­ed, with the aim of as­sist­ing US ter­ri­to­ries se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by Hur­ri­cane Ka­t­ri­na in Sep­tem­ber of that year.

Dur­ing the fight against Ebo­la in 2014, Cuban pro­fes­sion­als ar­rived in three West African coun­tries: Sier­ra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea Conakry. This co­op­er­a­tion was co­or­di­nat­ed by the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

In the midst of the se­vere COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Cuban col­lab­o­ra­tors helped con­tain the ef­fects of the virus in 42 na­tions, with 58 brigades. It was an ho­n­our for Cu­ba to ac­com­pa­ny T&T dur­ing those dif­fi­cult cir­cum­stances for hu­man­i­ty.

4. De­vel­op­ment of

the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and

biotech­nol­o­gy in­dus­try

The Cuban bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try has cre­at­ed re­search, de­vel­op­ment, pro­duc­tion, and mar­ket­ing ca­pac­i­ties in more than 50 com­pa­nies, 15 of which are lo­cat­ed abroad. It has a port­fo­lio of more than 900 prod­ucts, and re­search and de­vel­op­ment projects ex­ceed 350. The de­vel­op­ment of the Cuban bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try has en­abled the ex­port of its prod­ucts to more than 40 coun­tries. Dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, when the world was call­ing for fair and eq­ui­table vac­cines, Cu­ba de­vel­oped five vac­cine can­di­dates, three of which be­came vac­cines, and suc­ceed­ed in im­mu­nis­ing its pop­u­la­tion with its own phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals— the re­sult of the col­lec­tive in­tel­li­gence of its re­searchers, health pro­fes­sion­als, and its com­mit­ment to life.

5. De­vel­op­ment and

pro­mo­tion of Cuban

cul­ture and her­itage

From 1959 on­ward, in­sti­tu­tions were cre­at­ed and strength­ened in sup­port of Cuban cul­ture, in­clud­ing the Cuban In­sti­tute of Cin­e­mato­graph­ic Art and In­dus­try (ICA­IC), Casa de las Améri­c­as, the Na­tion­al Print­ing House, the re­found­ing of the Na­tion­al Bal­let of Cu­ba un­der the guid­ance and di­rec­tion of Ali­cia Alon­so, the Na­tion­al Folk­loric En­sem­ble, the Na­tion­al Sym­pho­ny Or­ches­tra, the Na­tion­al School of Arts, the High­er In­sti­tute of Arts—bet­ter known as the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Arts—the Na­tion­al School of Art In­struc­tors, the Na­tion­al Choir of Cu­ba, the In­ter­na­tion­al School of Film and Tele­vi­sion of San An­to­nio de los Baños, the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val of New Latin Amer­i­can Cin­e­ma, the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Bal­let Fes­ti­val “Ali­cia Alon­so,” the Ha­vana Bi­en­ni­al, among many oth­er dance, bal­let, and the­ater in­sti­tu­tions and fes­ti­vals.

Near­ly half of the Caribbean sites recog­nised as World Her­itage by UN­ESCO are lo­cat­ed in and pre­served in Cu­ba. Among them are: the His­toric Cen­ter of Old Ha­vana and its sys­tem of for­ti­fi­ca­tions; the His­toric Ur­ban Cen­ter of Trinidad and the Val­ley of the Sug­ar Mills; the San Pe­dro de la Ro­ca Cas­tle in San­ti­a­go de Cu­ba; and the Tum­ba France­sa “La Cari­dad de Ori­ente” in San­ti­a­go de Cu­ba.

In De­cem­ber 2025, Cuban Son mu­sic was added to UN­ESCO’s list of In­tan­gi­ble Cul­tur­al Her­itage.

6. Ad­vances in

women’s equal­i­ty

In Au­gust 1960, the Fed­er­a­tion of Cuban Women was found­ed with the ob­jec­tive of ful­ly in­cor­po­rat­ing women in­to the so­cial, eco­nom­ic, and po­lit­i­cal life of the coun­try, as well as pro­mot­ing equal­i­ty of rights and op­por­tu­ni­ties and de­fend­ing their achieve­ments with­in so­ci­ety.

With the adop­tion of the new Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic in 2019, a broad process of strength­en­ing the le­gal and in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work has tak­en place, in­cor­po­rat­ing a deep, in­ter­sec­toral, and trans­ver­sal gen­der per­spec­tive. Of great im­por­tance have been the ap­proval of the Na­tion­al Pro­gramme for the Ad­vance­ment of Women; the Com­pre­hen­sive Strat­e­gy for the Pre­ven­tion and Re­sponse to Gen­der Vi­o­lence and Vi­o­lence in the Fam­i­ly Set­ting; the Fam­i­lies Code; and the Code of Child­hood, Ado­les­cence, and Youth.

Women in Cu­ba oc­cu­py 57.71 per cent of the seats in the Na­tion­al As­sem­bly of Peo­ple’s Pow­er, plac­ing Cu­ba as the sec­ond coun­try in the world—and the first among uni­cam­er­al par­lia­ments—with a fe­male ma­jor­i­ty in par­lia­ment.

All of the above ef­forts have been car­ried out in Cu­ba de­spite the per­sis­tence and tight­en­ing of the eco­nom­ic, com­mer­cial, and fi­nan­cial block­ade im­posed by the Unit­ed States, which has caused sig­nif­i­cant harm, dam­age, and ma­te­r­i­al loss­es to the Cuban pop­u­la­tion for more than 60 years.

From March 1, 2024, to Feb­ru­ary 28, 2025, dam­ages and loss­es were cal­cu­lat­ed at US$7.5561 bil­lion, rep­re­sent­ing a 49 per cent in­crease com­pared to the same pe­ri­od the pre­vi­ous year.

Af­ter more than six decades, the cen­tral ob­jec­tive of the block­ade has not changed: to de­te­ri­o­rate the pop­u­la­tion’s stan­dard of liv­ing, pro­voke dis­sat­is­fac­tion, de­spair, and ir­ri­ta­tion, as a means of en­cour­ag­ing so­cial un­rest that would lead to a change in the con­sti­tu­tion­al or­der freely cho­sen by the Cuban peo­ple. Cu­ba al­so re­mains un­jus­ti­fi­ably on the ar­bi­trary list of coun­tries sup­pos­ed­ly spon­sor­ing ter­ror­ism.

As part of ef­forts to pro­mote its ex­portable sup­ply and di­ver­si­fy its econ­o­my, Cu­ba con­tin­ues to up­date its eco­nom­ic poli­cies. In this con­text, the 41st edi­tion of the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Fair (FI­HAV) was held in No­vem­ber 2025, with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of more than 500 for­eign com­pa­nies from 55 coun­tries. Trinidad and To­ba­go was rep­re­sent­ed at this fair.

Cur­rent­ly, more than 350 busi­ness ven­tures with for­eign in­dus­tries are un­der­way, some of which have main­tained com­mer­cial and busi­ness re­la­tions with Cu­ba for sev­er­al years. New ar­eas—such as the sug­ar agro-in­dus­try, tourism, leas­ing and op­er­a­tion of ho­tels by for­eign com­pa­nies, and the bank­ing sec­tor—are open to for­eign in­vest­ment.

With a strong sense of the his­tor­i­cal mo­ment, the Cuban Rev­o­lu­tion, de­spite the se­vere ad­ver­si­ties it faces, con­tin­ues to seek ap­pro­pri­ate so­lu­tions aligned with a mod­el of so­cial jus­tice.