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Havana.
September 27, 2005 |
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Report by Cuba on Resolution 59/11
of the United Nations General Assembly
"The necessity of
ending the economic, commercial and financial
blockade imposed by the United States of America
against Cuba"
August 15, 2005
INDEX
INTRODUCTION
- Steps taken by the United States to intensify
the blockade…..................
*
- Pressure, threats, sanctions against
individuals, institutions and NGOs………………………………………………………………………………
*
- Growing opposition to the blockade within the
United States…………..
*
1. EXTRATERRITORIAL ASPECTS OF BLOCKADE POLICY…..
*
1.1 Increasing impact of the blockade brought
about by the United States’ growing involvement in
the international economy………………………….
*
1.2 Civil sanctions imposed on various bodies (companies,
banking institutions and NGOs) by the OFAC……………………………………….
*
1.3 How the extraterritorial nature of the
blockade affects foreign trade and Investment………………………………………………………………………
*
- Impact on the expansion of foreign investment
and economic cooperation……………………………………………………………………..
*
1.4 Section 211 of the United States’ Omnibus
Consolidated and Emergency Supplemental
Appropriations Law for Fiscal Year 1999 and new
trademark-related violations…………………………………………….
*
1.5 Examples of the impact of the
extraterritorial application of the blockade…………………………………………………………………………
*
2. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACT……………………………..
*
2.1 Overview of the impact of the blockade on
some of the most vital social sectors……………………………………………………. *
2.2 Impact on other sectors of the
domestic economy…………………….
*
2.3 Damage caused to the academic, scientific,
cultural and sports exchanges between the Cuban and
American people..............................
*
3. SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH THE BLOCKADE AFFECTS
THE US ECONOMY, THE US PEOPLE AND OTHER NATIONS………………….
*
CONCLUSIONS………………………………………………………………..
*
INTRODUCTION
The economic, commercial and financial blockade
impose by the United States against Cuba is the
longest-lasting and cruelest of its kind know to
human history and is an essential element in the
United States’ hostile and aggressive policies
regarding the Cuban people. Its aim, made explicit
on 6 April 1960 is the destruction of the Cuban
Revolution: (…) through frustration and
discouragement based on dissatisfaction and economic
difficulties (…) to withhold funds and supplies to
Cuba in order to cut real income thereby causing
starvation, desperation and the overthrow of the
government (...)"
It is equally an essential component of the
policy of state terrorism against Cuba which
silently, systematically, cumulatively, inhumanly,
ruthlessly affects the population with no regard for
age, sex, race, religious belief or social position.
This policy, implemented and added to by ten US
administrations also amounts to an act of genocide
under the provisions of paragraph (c) of article II
of the Geneva Convention for the Prevention and
Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December
1948 and therefore constitutes a violation of
International Law. This Convention defines this as
‘(…) acts perpetrated with the intention to totally
or partially destroy a national, ethnic, racial or
religious group’, and in these cases provides for
‘the intentional subjugation of the group to
conditions that result in their total or partial
physical destruction’.
The blockade on Cuba is an act of economic war.
There is no regulation of International Law which
justifies a blockade in times of peace. Since 1909,
in the London Naval Conference, as a principle of
International Law it was defined that ‘blockade is
an act of war’, and based on this, its use is only
possible between countries at war.
Although the total blockade on trade between Cuba
and the United States was formally decreed by an
Executive Order issued by President John F. Kennedy
on 3 February 1962, measures that are part of the
blockade were put in place just a few weeks after
the triumph of the Cuban Revolution on 1 January
1959.
On 12 February 1959, the US Government refused to
grant a modest credit requested by Cuba to maintain
the stability of the national currency. Later, other
measures were applied such as the restriction of the
supply of fuel to the Island by American
transnational companies, the halting of industrial
factories, the prohibition of exports to Cuba and
the partial, and later total, suppression of the
sugar quota.
By virtue of the blockade, among other
restrictions, Cuba cannot export any product to the
United States, or import any merchandise from this
country: American tourists are prohibited from
visiting; the dollar cannot be used in the country’s
transactions with foreign countries; the country has
no access to the credit, and cannot carry out
transactions with regional or American multilateral
financial institutions and their boats and aircrafts
must not enter American territory.
The blockade has a marked extraterritorial
component. In 1992, with a view to intensifying the
effects of Cuba’s loss of 85% of its foreign trade
after the Soviet Union and the European socialist
block fell apart, the United States passed the
Torricelli Act, which removed Cuba’s ability to
purchase medicines and food from US subsidiaries in
third countries which stood at US$718 million in
1991. The Torricelli Act placed tight restrictions
on ships sailing to and from Cuba, thus making
formal its serious extraterritorial provisions. A
ship from a third country that docks in Cuban waters
cannot enter a port in the United States until 6
months have passed and said country has obtained a
new permission permit.
The 1996 Helms-Burton Act made the effects of the
blockade worse, increased the number and scope of
the provisions with an extraterritorial impact,
instituted persecution of and sanctions on actual
and potential foreign investors in Cuba and
authorised funding for hostile, subversive and
aggressive acts against the Cuban people.
From the end of 2001, and by virtue of
legislation passed by US Congress in 2000, as a
result of strong pressure from agricultural sectors
in the United States and the American people in
general, Cuba began to make purchases of goods in
the United States, which in 2004 amounted to 474.1
million dollars, albeit with severe restrictions and
complicated procedures, to extraordinary imports of
food and medicines by Cuba. Cuba has to pay in cash
and in advance — with no chance of obtaining
financial credit, not even private credit. The sale
and transportation of the merchandise means a
license has to be obtained for each operation. Cuba
cannot use its merchant fleet for transporting these
goods, it has to use ships from third countries, and,
mostly, from the United States. Payments are made
through banks in third countries since direct
banking relations are forbidden.
The restrictions on importing medical goods are
so extensive that these are almost unfeasible. They
include the exporter having to verify the use of the
product or the equipment when it reaches its final
destination and a ban on the sale to Cuba goods and
equipment involving advanced technology.
More than 70% of Cubans were born and have lived
under the blockade. The Cuban people defends its
right to self –determination and demands respect for
it sovereign system of independence, social justice
and fairness.
According to preliminary, conservative estimates,
the direct economic damage to the Cuban people
resulting from the blockade is over US$82 billion,
an average of US$1782 million annually. This figure
does not include the more than US$54 billion of
direct damage occasioned by sabotage and terrorist
acts encouraged, organized and financed in the
United States nor the value of the goods not made
nor the damage stemming from the onerous credit
conditions imposed on Cuba. This year the damage
amounted to US$2,674.
The General Assembly’s demand that this blockade
policy be ended, contained in thirteen of the
resolutions passed with the virtually unanimous
support of the UN’s member states has been defied by
US authorities, thus confirming their total contempt
for the United Nations, for multilateralism and for
international law.
On 30 June 2004 the measures included in the
report from the self-proclaimed "Commission for
Assistance to a Free Cuba" to which George W. Bush
had given his approval on 6 May that year, came into
effect. Its 450 pages contain proposal for new
actions and measures intended to intensify the
blockade by stepping up actions aimed at
discouraging tourism and investment in Cuba, by
restricting financial flow and visits to the island
and by placing even more restrictions on family
remittances and exchanges in various spheres, the
aim being to bring about conditions which would
allow the US to intervene in Cuba, thus permitting
them to impose the "regime change" to which the US
president made reference on 20 May of that year.
The period covered by this report — the second
half of 2004 and the first half of 2005— has
witnessed the implementation of those measures; this
once again proves the US administration’s criminal
plans for the Cuban people.
- Steps taken by the
United States to intensify the blockade
8 June 2004, in compliance with President
Bush’s proclamation 7757, the Coastguard service
promulgated new regulations which place
restrictions on pleasure craft leaving US ports
with the intention of entering Cuban waters. It
can apply fines of US$25,000 or five years in
prison or both. In addition, those who violate
this provision can have their boat seized.
From the second three months of 2004, the US
Government, together with the federal
congressmen of the Miami mafia, intensified a
campaign of speculation and defamation over the
origin and destination of the Cuban dollar funds,
as well as pressure and threats of
investigations and sanctions in order to scare
all foreign banks that could have financial
relations with Cuba. In the framework of this
campaign, the US Federal Reserve imposed a fine
of 100 million dollars in May 2004 on the Swiss
Bank, UBS AG, for having supposedly violated the
US sanctions on Cuba, Libya, Iran and
Yugoslavia. The purpose of this was to prevent
the deposit, exchange into other currencies or
transfers through banks in third countries of
the dollars that Cuba obtains legitimately by
way of tourism, remittances and sales in
shopping centres, with the aim of preventing
Cuban importations, mainly of food, medicine and
fuel, thus promoting a collapse in the economy
and an extremely critical social situation.
27 August 2004, President Bush, on giving an
electoral speech in Miami, reaffirmed the need
to continue the blockade in order to topple the
Cuban Revolution, indicating that ‘the blockade
is a necessary element of this strategy’.
30 September 2004, the US Treasury Department
let it be known that, following the recent
changes to the Regulation for Control of Cuban
Assets, 31, CFR part 515 (the Regulations), US
citizens or permanent residents cannot legally
buy products of Cuban origin, including tobacco
and alcohol in a third country not even for
their personal use abroad. The penalty for
violating these Regulation can be a fine of as
high as one million dollars for corporations and
of US$250,000 and up to 10 years in jail for
individuals. Fines of up to 65 thousand dollars
can be imposed by the Office of Foreign Assets
Control (OFAC) of the US Treasury Department.
9 October 2004, the Under Secretary for
Western Hemisphere Affairs in the State
Department, Dan W. Fisk, in an unprecedented act
of aggression in the history of international
financial relations, announced that they were
setting up a "Group For Persecution of Cuban
Assets" to investigate new ways for hard
currency to move into and out of Cuba and ways
to stop these, giving particular mention to
‘tourism that has substituted the exportation of
sugar as the main source of income of hard
currency’.
In the second half of 2004, the OFAC declared
the Melfi Marine Corporation S.A. and Tour
Marketing Ltd to be "especially designated
nationals", and the SERCUBA company to be a "Cuban
national"; this resulted in the immediate
implementation of blockade measures to these
companies.
In January 2005, it turned out that the OFAC
had been interpreting the regulations on travel
to Cuba in such a way that US citizens are not
permitted to take part in meetings in Cuba which
are sponsored or organized by UN agencies unless
their first obtain a license to do so.
22 February 2005, the OFAC reinterpreted the
concept of ‘payment in cash and in advance’ to
purchases by Cuba of agricultural and medical
products in the United States, saying that this
means that this means that the payment must be
made before the merchandise is loaded in a US
port for shipping to Cuba. This measure, which
represents an extra obstacle for the limited
importations of food, came into effect 24 March
2005. The lack of security in the supplies,
derived from this interpretation, forced Cuba,
in the first four months, to purchase use
alternative food suppliers from third countries
in order to ensure the purchase of 3 million
dollars worth of food and agricultural products
that were originally going to be imported from
the United States. The transactions fell by 26%
between January and April of 2005 compared to
the same period in 2004, according to statistics
issued by the US Department of Agriculture. This
contraction includes a decrease of 52% in the
purchases of rice.
24 February 2005 an appeal court revoked the
29 March 2004 decision of a New York judge who
had ruled that the United States, in order to
comply with international treaties was obliged
to recognize Cuban company CUBATABACO’s rights
over the trade mark Cohíba in US territory under
the doctrine of famous trade marks. This new
decision goes against the international
regulations on the protection of brand names.
13 April 2005, it turned out the the Third
Circuit Appeal Court restored the guilty verdict
reached against the American citizen, Stefan
Brodie, former president of the company,
Purolite, who was tries in 2002 for having
conspired to violate the blockade imposed on
Cuba. Brodie had been absolved by the judge of
first instance, who ruled that there was no
direct evidence to prove his participation in
the sales to Cuba of ionized resin for water
purification.
On 29 April 2005, President Bush ordered the
Treasury Department to give 198 thousand dollars
from frozen Cuban funds to a resident of Cuban
origin, Ana Margarita Martínez, as part of an
arbitrary sentence against Cuba, that a state
court in Florida issued in 2001, establishing
the payment of 27.1 million dollars.
In April the new top executives of the
Canadian company Sherritt and their families
were denied entry into the United States as per
Title IV of the Helms Burton Law.
(Continued...
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