Washington Reinforces Blockade against Cuba

Since January 2009 up to June 2014, the Obama administration has imposed very large fines against 36 US and foreign entities for having relations with Cuba.

Although the United Nations has adopted, for 22 years in a row, the Cuban resolution against the US blockade of Cuba, the US´s measure
has been kept intact and even stiffened, with no changes, said Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno.

The Cuban official presented on Tuesday the Cuban Report on UN resolution 68/8 “Necessity to End the US Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade Imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”, before the local and the foreign press at Havana’s Solidaridad con Panama special school.

“The blockade violates the rights of the Cuban people. There is not and there has not been in the whole world a major violation of the rights of a people like the blockade. There is not a single sphere of the life of Cubans where the effects of the US measure do not show,” Moreno pointed out.

The economic damaged inflicted on the island by the blockade, bearing in mind the devaluation of the US dollar in front of the gold at the world market, has amounted to 1 Trillion, 112 billion and 534 thousand dollars.

The report also denounces the social impact of the US anti-Cuba measure including the impossibility to access medical treatment required by children with eye cancer, and the difficulties to purchase equipment, technology or raw material for special education affecting over 22 thousand 800 students.

Moreno also addressed the increasing extraterritorial nature of the blockade, while the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), under the Department of the Treasury, has punished recently institutions like Frances BNP Paribas Bank, Switzerland’s Weatherford Oil company and Scotland’s Royal Bank.

Since January 2009 up to June 2014, the Obama administration has imposed very large fines against 36 US and foreign entities for having relations with Cuba.

On October 28, Cuba will again present at the United Nations its draft resolution  demanding the lifting of the US blockade, which has been overwhelmingly backed by the international community in previous occasions. In 2013, a total of 188 out of all 193 UN member nations condemned the US blockade of Cuba.

“Under the blockade or without it, the Cuban people will always defend their sovereignty and their right to choose the economic, political and social system of their own,” said Moreno as he concluded the presentation of the report.