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<h1 id="reader-title">Cuban Report Goes to United Nations,
Foreign Minister Condemns US Blockade</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">by <span
class="post_author" itemprop="author"><a
href="http://www.counterpunch.org/author/gaguwe/"
rel="nofollow">W. T. Whitney</a> - September 15, 2016<br>
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<blockquote>
<p>“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.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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<sup>th</sup>
consecutive year on a resolution introduced by Cuba
calling for its end.</p>
<p>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 <a
href="http://www.cubanews.acn.cu/images/articulos/Cuba/INFORMEBLOQUEO2016Ingles.pdf">may
be read in English</a>.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Rodríguez recalled first that,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>“…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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“… 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.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Rodríguez denounced</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“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].”</p>
<p>“… 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.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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?”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p><em>The author translated.</em></p>
</div>
<p class="author_description"> <em><strong>W.T. Whitney Jr.</strong> is
a retired pediatrician and political journalist living
in Maine.</em> </p>
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