[News] Cuban Report Goes to United Nations, Foreign Minister Condemns US Blockade

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/15/cuban-report-goes-to-united-nations-foreign-minister-condemns-us-blockade/ 



  Cuban Report Goes to United Nations, Foreign Minister Condemns US Blockade

by W. T. Whitney <http://www.counterpunch.org/author/gaguwe/> - 
September 15, 2016

    “The economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the
    United States against Cuba persists. The blockade endangers the
    Cuban people. There’s no Cuban family that doesn’t suffer the
    effects of the blockade … The blockade is the principle cause of our
    economic problems, the principal obstacle to our development.”

These were Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez’ opening words at a 
press conference in Havana September 9, as he launched into yet one more 
presentation of the report on the U.S. anti-Cuban blockade that Cuba 
sends every year to the United Nations General Assembly. On October 26 
the Assembly will be voting for the 25^th consecutive year on a 
resolution introduced by Cuba calling for its end.

Cuba provides the report to General Assembly member states so they can 
see the blockade through Cuban eyes. And they’ve responded: for 24 years 
nations have overwhelming backed Cuba’s resolution, almost unanimously 
in recent years with 191 nations in favor in 2015 and two against – the 
United States and Israel. The 39 – page report for 2016 is may be read 
in English 
<http://www.cubanews.acn.cu/images/articulos/Cuba/INFORMEBLOQUEO2016Ingles.pdf>.

Wide dissemination of the report serves to inform peoples of the world 
about the U. S. policy. This communication covers important points in 
the foreign minister’s presentation at the news conference. The object 
is to expand awareness of adverse effects of the blockade.

Rodríguez recalled first that,

    “President Obama said the blockade wasn’t working … and they had to
    lift it; he said it hadn’t worked [to achieve] the historical
    objectives of the United States … He didn’t say it was illegal, a
    violation of international law … a violation of Cubans’ human
    rights; he didn’t say it’s immoral and violates all ethics, nor did
    he say that it’s cruel and endangers human beings.”

    “…Between April, 2015 and March 2016, the direct economic damages
    caused by the blockade went up another $4.68 billion … Damages
    accumulated over almost six decades have reached at least $753.67
    billion, expressed as the monetary value of gold.

    “The damages include income that our people never saw, that our
    country never saw through goods and services never exported …
    particularly from the bio-pharmacology industry.” There are “losses
    through geographical disruption of our commerce – long distances,
    the need for large inventories, the unpredictability of when goods
    arrive, and extra freight, insurance, and distribution costs.

    “… A third direct effect of the blockade is monetary and financial.
    Confronted with the ban on using the dollar in international
    transactions, Cuba has to use other currencies. All these operations
    are costly; for example, they depend a lot on relative value of the
    currencies … Last year the dollar appreciated in value, increasing
    its value over the year relative to other currencies by an average
    of 3.58 percent.”

Rodríguez denounced

    “the U. S. prohibition on Cuban banks opening accounts in U. S.
    Banks” and also the “intimidating effect of $14 billion in fines – a
    world record – during the Obama presidency, basically against
    European and Asian Banks [handling dollars in Cuba’s transactions
    with the outside world].”

    “… There’s no sector in Cuba that doesn’t suffer consequences from
    the blockade: in the service economy – health care and education; in
    the economy in general, and in people’s lives – feeding themselves,
    prices, salaries, social security.”

Rodríguez mentioned “the impossibility of gaining access both to 
products, technologies, and equipment with U.S. patents and access to 
indispensable, high-technology surgical devices … There’s still a ban on 
acquiring products or medicines directed at assuring improved treatments 
and above all assuring fewer adverse effects of treatments.”

The foreign minister pointed out that “the extraterritorial application 
of the blockade persists, in violation of the sovereignty of other 
nations, of all nations on the planet.” He surveyed U.S. laws on the 
blockade. For example, the U.S “Trading with the Enemy Act …now is 
applied only to Cuba. It’s a law that originated in 1917. We have to ask 
ourselves, ‘Is it possible the United States considers us an enemy?’ 
Does that make sense?”

He also cited the “Torricelli Law (1992)… that ended … our trade with 
subsidiaries of U. S. companies located in other states, and registered 
under their laws. That’s a gross invasion against the sovereignty of 
those nations. [And] the Helms – Burton Law (1996) is the sum and 
substance of everything. It probably has an element of a Gordian knot 
needing to be cut.”

Expanding on his reflections, the minister first noted U.S. desires to 
change Cuba, and he then suggested that “to change Cuba is the business 
of Cubans. But also we have accepted that challenge [of changing things] 
because it fits with the interests of our people, of our development.” 
As regards the blockade, “the heart of a newborn, the verve of a young 
girl, quality of life for an older person: there’s no price put on any 
of that. And now, today, everything is subjected to the hard, cruel 
effects of the blockade.”

All of this, he concluded, “is reality, is the truth; they are facts. We 
have to judge things through facts, through data, not through 
declarations or speeches.”

He turned to Pastors for Peace in New York: “I remember the awful scenes 
of Pastors for Peace, of Lucius Walker. Our people will never forget him 
under fierce repression so that obsolete personal computers would be 
given up and not be brought across the border.”   Pastors for Peace is 
today, right now, under threat from actions directed at impeding the 
recognized humanitarian work of that religious organization.”

/The author translated./

/*W.T. Whitney Jr.* is a retired pediatrician and political journalist 
living in Maine./

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