CUBA will continue to maintain its student scholarship programme despite the tightening of the embargo on Havana by the United States.
Mr. Jose Manuel Inclan Embade, Cuba’s Ambassador to Guyana, gave the assurance while updating members of the media yesterday on the effects of the ongoing embargo.
Speaking to the media in the conference room of the Embassy of Cuba 46 High Street, Kingston, the Ambassador said, “I know it is important for Guyana’s people to know what is happening because I know that there are more than 200 Guyanese students studying in Cuba.”
“Despite this situation,” Ambassador Embade added, “we will continue the scholarship programme. We are not going to give up this opportunity to stop what we are doing and what we have with our brothers of the third world.”
The Cuban Scholarship Programme is managed under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Service in collaboration with the Office of the President.
Under the programme, 131 students left in the first batch and 103 in the second and the Government of Guyana provides a stipend of $50 Canadian per month to each student.
Cuba offered the scholarship programme to Guyana during a state visit by President Bharrat Jagdeo in that country in 2002.
Assured the Ambassador: “Don’t be worried for the Guyanese students. It will be a tough time but we know how to handle it; we are taking measures, and will go ahead, to show also that a better world is possible.”
According to Ambassador Inclan Embade, May last the U.S. announced new measures to further tighten what he called Washington’s “aggressive and hostile policy” against Cuba.
“With such measures, the U.S. Government is trying at all costs to increase the difficult conditions already imposed on us by the ruthless blockade enforced against Cuba for 45 years now – which has cost us over US$ 72 billion and is a flagrant violation of the human rights of the 11 million Cubans that they are attempting to subdue through hunger and disease,” he noted, speaking from a prepared text.
The measures are also a violation of the rights of the Cuban-born citizens living in the U.S. who from now on will face new and draconian restrictions to travel to Cuba and send remittances to family members in Cuba, the Ambassador contended.