Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Cuba’s draft resolution entitled Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba, Ambassador Joaquín Pérez stated that it is an illegal measure that violates every standard of International Law and the United Nations Charter.
He pointed out that the “criminal blockade” against Cuba generates indiscriminate deaths, pain and suffering on an entire people and is inhumane because it deliberately and systematically violates the human rights of more than 11 million Cubans.
The Venezuelan diplomat stressed that this economic, commercial and financial blockade currently represents the main obstacle for the Cuban people to enjoy the inalienable right to development.
He stated that it is a “maximum pressure” from which no Cuban family is exempt and could be equated with a declaration of war, having an impact “as destructive and lethal” as the one generated by conventional wars.
This criminal blockade is a policy of economic terrorism that, due to its extraterritoriality, affects any country or institution that seeks to maintain, in a legal and sovereign manner, economic, commercial and financial relations with Cuba, he stressed.
Pérez mentioned the Cuban State’s inability to access the international financial system, as well as credit and financing facilities, including for development.
The representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela charged that “this anachronistic and erroneous policy” affects the entire international community, and pointed out that in recent years, the blockade has expanded and intensified after the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, in addition to the arbitrary inclusion of Cuba on Washington’s State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
He noted that despite everything, the imperial policy of the United States “has not achieved nor will it ever achieve” its objectives in (José) Martí’s socialist Cuba, in (Fidel) Castro’s revolutionary Cuba, since the revolutionary people are determined to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and to define, in a free, independent and sovereign manner, their political, economic, social and cultural system.
The Venezuelan diplomat acknowledged Cuba’s contributions to the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic by sending dozens of medical brigades to more than 35 countries in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and Europe to save the lives of millions of people.
The latest official statistics from Cuba show that at current prices, the accumulated damage caused by the blockade amounts to 159.084 billion, and in the last year, it has reached 4.867 billion dollars.
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