In an article published in the newspaper La República, the academic and former rector of the National University analyzed how the Helms-Burton Act tightened the economic and political blockade against Cuba.
Its enforcement implied the decision of the United States to put into effect Title III of that law, which had been pending, in the face of certain objections by the European Union and Canada, because their investors would be implicated in the sanctions if they invest in Cuba.
The repercussions of the law have extended until today, since, during the Donald Trump administration, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the government would fully implement it since it had been suspended, as of May 2, 2019, Solom said.
In his article, he also reviewed the history of this policy, since its enforcement in 1962.
In this regard, he emphasized that today the companies owned by European investors or other non-US nationalities that have not invested in assets nationalized by the Cuban Revolution six decades ago have been exempted from the sanctions.
The former Costa Rican congressman claimed that the discussion of this issue cannot be an ideological matter, as the United States has tried to make it seem.
If it were so, how is it that the majority of US politicians who have promoted the blockade against Cuba do not repudiate the acts by the Israeli Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which are based on the use of force and which are clearly a violation of the most elementary human rights of the civilian population of Palestine.
Why are they silent in the face of Joe Biden’s own government, which has maintained an attitude of underhanded or covert support for Israel’s atrocious actions?” Solom wonders.
More recently, the US administration vetoed a United Nations resolution calling for humanitarian pauses in the Israeli Government’s rampant actions in order to deliver aid to Gaza.
The scholar recalled that under the administration of President George Bush, the United States took it upon itself to invade Iraq, claiming the existence of weapons of mass destruction that were never found, leaving in its wake destruction and deaths of thousands of Iraqis.
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