Havana, February 5 (RHC)—The Cuban Foreign Ministry has warned about the gravity of the message of arrogance and contempt with which US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson began a tour of several countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

A statement by the Foreign Ministry issued on Monday highlights that on the eve of his trip, on February 1, in an appearance at the University of Texas at Austin, Tillerson made alarming statements calling openly for the removal, by any means, of the legitimate Government of Venezuela and undermining the region´s unanimous repudiation of the measures aimed at the reinforcement of the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba.

The text noted that Tillerson´s statements are clearly in line with the US ‘regime change schemes, which have claimed millions of innocent victims in various countries and promoted violence, war, humanitarian crises and instability.

The Cuban statement recalled Latin America´s expressed commitment with peace, as stated in the Proclamation of the Region as a Zone of Peace, in a resolution adopted by a CELAC summit in 2014.

In the words of Secretary Tillerson, "In the history of Venezuela and in fact the history in other Latin American and South American countries, oftentimes it’s the military that handles that, that when things are so bad that the military leadership realizes they just – they can’t serve the citizens anymore, they will manage a peaceful transition. Whether that will be the case here or not, I do not know”.

Tillerson also defended the infamous Monroe doctrine that established as a policy that Latin America and the Caribbean America were the backyard of the United States. "Sometimes I think we have forgotten about the importance of the Monroe Doctrine and what it meant to this hemisphere and maintaining those shared values. I think it’s as relevant today as it was the day it was written," he said.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry noted that the Secretary of State words are a clear instigation to "regime change," and  added that in his instructions for the region, Tillerson went as far as to suggesting that President Nicolás Maduro should leave his post as democratically elected Head of State by an indisputable majority of votes.

In his speech, he also returned to the failed conditioning of Cuba and, without any moral authority, meddled in the Island's internal affairs, claiming for the occurrence of changes from the upcoming electoral process, changes that are to the liking of the United States.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry said that with his words, the US high-ranking official adds a new act to what has been a pattern of successive abuses in the history of domination of our region and ratifies the sustained contempt with which the Government of President Donald Trump has unequivocally referred to the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, whose people he disqualifies whenever he has the opportunity.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned this new aggression against Cuba and Venezuela, which follows the recent disrespectful statements of President Trump in his State of the Union Address.

Before leaving for his imperialist tour, the Secretary of State announced that 2018 will be the year of the Americas and made it clear that he will seek to encourage division and submission among Latin American governments.

The document predicted that Tillerson requests will stumble over the repudiation inspired by his announcements and the dignity of the peoples of the region, who bear the memory of the hundreds of thousands of dead and disappeared by the military dictatorships sponsored by the United States and that Secretary Tillerson incited to reedit.

The Cuban Foreign Ministry added that “It is outrageous and unacceptable that the Secretary of State of the United States openly calls for a military coup in Venezuela, encouraging instability, the overthrow of democratically elected governments and violence.”

In concluding, the statement affirmed that “It is obvious and regrettable that neither the President of the United States nor his Secretary of State know Latin America and the Caribbean. Ours has been a continent subjected to the humiliating dominance of the United States, whose only interest has only been extracting its resources in an unequal relationship. But Our Americas has awakened and it will not be so easy to subjugate it.”.