US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz got into an argument with Cuba’s foreign minister in the UN General Assembly Hall on Tuesday, while detailing the communist regime’s ill-gotten wealth.
Waltz accused the Havana government of profiting from the forced labor of its own citizens sent to concentration camps, while using the confiscated “businesses, farms, factories, homes and savings of generations of Cuban workers” to line the pockets of its leaders.
As Waltz spoke, the Cuban delegation banged on the table near their seats to express their disapproval before Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla rushed to the podium and accused Waltz of lying, prompting the U.S. envoy to shout, “Back off!
“He doesn’t like hard truths,” Waltz told delegates. “You can come and bully all you want.”
“He’s not going to intimidate me in the United States of America, the way he tries to intimidate political prisoners,” Waltz said, raising his voice at Parrilla as U.N. officials tried to restore order.
“I know you don’t like to hear these harsh truths, but I speak on behalf of the Cuban people,” Waltz added. “And since 1959, this government in Havana wants to make you believe that everything in Cuba has just disappeared, that they are the victims, that it is someone else’s fault.”
A video obtained by The Post showed fellow U.S. diplomat JP Freire being assaulted by another member of the Cuban delegation who attempted to take Freire’s iPhone as he recorded the confrontation.
Members of the Cuban delegation were recording their own media as Parrilla approached Waltz in the middle of his speech.
At one point, Waltz showed a photo of the late dictator Fidel Castro wearing two Rolex watches worth about $40,000 in today’s money.
“According to the regime’s own statistics, this would pay for 55 years of the average Cuban salary,” Waltz noted, before showing a photo of Miguel Díaz-Canel and adding: “It didn’t just start with Castro. It’s the current Cuban president, also with a Rolex.”
The former Florida congressman highlighted reports that Cuban military conglomerate GAESA amassed $18 billion in assets that enriched regime elites, showing more photos of them flaunting their wealth.
“It’s not just watches, colleagues, it’s also a vast real estate empire,” Waltz continued, sharing images of the Castro family’s 14,000-square-foot seaside retreat in Varadero complete with marble floors, a sauna and a private dock, as well as the former ruling family’s compound made “from cedar imported from the Brazilian Amazon rainforest.”
“But dear colleagues, even 20 houses and all these lavish complexes are not enough,” Waltz added. “Why settle for beachfront mansions when you can have your own private island? It’s true. The Castro family has their own private island, Cayo Piedra.”
The comments come as the UN envoy urges delegates to vote against a resolution condemning US sanctions on the island.
“Here’s the lie that I’m asking you all to take a good look at. There is no blockade,” Waltz concluded. “A blockade is a ring of military ships around an island. There is no such thing.”
“How has the United States become Cuba’s largest supplier of fuel to its private sector, no matter how small, while Havana is telling the world that America will not let any fuel in? That’s a lie, Mr. President,” he said.
“So let me conclude where I started,” Waltz added. “Things don’t just disappear. An entire country’s wealth doesn’t disappear and evaporate. Its confiscated assets haven’t just disappeared. Its doctors’ salaries haven’t just ceased to exist.”
“But we now know where he is,” he stressed. “The billions documented in GAESA’s secret financial accounts that have now been exposed to the world are where they are. That’s where the wealth of the Cuban people is. Their wealth has simply changed hands, from those of the elites as they starved, to those of the elites who lived in luxury.”
Gn headline
