July 27 (UPI) -- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel accused the U.S. government of using "Nazi practices" and carrying out a "genocidal" policy against the island, saying Washington seeks to "strangle" the Cuban people to force a change of government and "take over the country."
Speaking during the national ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks, held Sunday in the western province of Pinar del Río, Díaz-Canel devoted much of his speech to denouncing the tightening of U.S. sanctions, arguing that Cuba is facing "a new Moncada" under a policy of "maximum economic strangulation."
"State Department officials, experts at drafting sanctions, making lists and inventing pretexts, are a modern version of the authors of military edicts that became so feared and hated during the dark medieval period or the Nazi occupations in World War II," Díaz-Canel said.
He said Washington is waging "a global war against the left" and described Cuba as "the capital of communism in the 21st century" in U.S. foreign policy.
He also said recent sanctions against officials in Cuba's public health system and the country's medical brigades represent a new escalation of pressure on the island.
