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Press Release from the Central Bank of Cuba
As is widely known, in late 2004,
Cuba had to take measures to substitute the Cuban
Convertible Peso for the dollar in monetary
circulation, with the goal of frustrating the
perfidious attempt by the United States government
to prevent dollars in cash that had arrived in Cuba
via completely legal channels from being utilized to
pay for part of our imports of goods and services.
At the time, it was extensively
explained how the U.S. government was bringing
pressures to bear against the Swiss Bank UBS to
prohibit it from carrying out its normal business
with Cuba. That attempt was based exclusively on the
terror being spread throughout the United States
with its proclaimed policy of “you’re either with us
or against us.”
As has occurred throughout all of
these years, the actions of our enemies were
defeated on that opportunity, as well: the dollar,
the symbol of their imperial power, was
humiliatingly expelled from Cuba; or commercial and
financial relations continued to expand, and the
credibility and respect for our country and its
financial institutions are growing every day.
It should be added that based on
that experience, our country’s far-sighted policy
has been to substantially increase the use of other
currencies in our international transactions, given
that we are persuaded that the irresponsible
materialistic U.S. policy, which has led it to fall
into unsustainable fiscal and commercial deficits
and placed its own currency in crisis, and the
tendency for its gradual depreciation is now
irreversible.
An example of how times have
changed for the dollar is that at this moment, a
simple statement by the president of the Central
Bank of China regarding the composition of its
reserves by currency type is enough to make the
dollar depreciate, as occurred very recently.
It should not be forgotten that
China today possesses the largest amount of monetary
reserves on the planet (more than $1 billion
dollars), four times more than those of the United
States; hence, any comment by the Central Bank of
China that is interpreted as an intention to reduce
the amount of dollars in its reserves can have a
negative impact on that currency.
To the great discomfort of the
United States, the fate of its currency now depends
– among other factors – on what is said in China.
That is the fragility of the dollar at this time.
In the specific case of the Swill
bank UBS and subsequently of another bank from that
same country, Credit Suisse, an unfortunate
subordination to the orders of the empire took
place, providing an irrefutable example of how the
United States imposes its laws in an
extraterritorial manner, and decides who can or
cannot do business with the institutions of other
nations that are supposed to be free and sovereign.
In the case of UBS, coercion and
blackmail may also be involved, given that an EFE
news agency report dated Oct. 29, 2005 indicated
that certain branches of that bank participated in
the United States “food for oil” program imposed on
Iraq, and according to investigations, at least five
Swiss businesses paid the Iraqi government some $1
million each to win contracts in that country within
that program. This was revealed to U.S. authorities,
who were conducting the aforementioned
investigations, and extraordinarily weakened their
ability to act independently of the United States,
even when they see themselves obliged to sacrifice
their professional ethics, even by lying.
It should be added that,
according international media reports, UBS was a
generous donor to the election campaigns of Bush and
his rival, John Kerry, which confirms its desire to
win the complacence of the U.S. government no matter
which party is in power.
More recently, the Swiss
newspaper Sonntagszeitung published an
article last Sunday in which it was justly noted
that in Cuba’s case, there are no international
sanctions but that nevertheless, the two
aforementioned Swiss banks had broken off their
business with our country.
This article said, among other
things:
“In the case of Cuba, which has
no international sanctions and is not in conflict
with the organizations of the United Nations, the
Cubans are boycotted by one country alone: the
United States of America.”
Questioned by the press, on
November 14, both banks offered the following
explanation to the Swiss newspaper Le Temps:
“UBS is explaining its decision
due to the high costs of monitoring respect for and
conformity with the regulations for dealing with
clients from the communist island. For Credit
Suisse, ‘Cuba is one of the sensitive countries,’
the bank’s spokesman said, without expanding on what
that means.”
In the same article, there are
statements by Carlo Lombardini, business lawyer for
the Geneva Bar Association, in which he says “Both
Swiss banks are influenced by the U.S. viewpoint of
the world. The cessation of transactions with Cuba
is one of the consequences.”
Finally, we must ask: Who decides
which countries are “sensitive” or not? And within
what parameters is that classification based?
Or could it be that nobody knows
that 50% of all the money-laundering in the world is
done in the United States? Shouldn’t this be taken
into account by the aforementioned banks in
considering that the United States is a truly
“sensitive” country with respect to acting in
accordance with the laws of its financial system?
The answer is very simple: the
actions of these two Swiss banks have nothing to do
with respect for the law or precautions in their
banking transactions. They are simply acts of
submission to the United States, which they do not
dare to admit.
Fortunately, there are few
institutions like UBS or Credit Suisse that
humiliatingly subordinate themselves to the United
States, and there is a growing number of agencies
and countries that are not disposed to blindly
allying themselves with an empire whose repeated
failures in the last few weeks are just the tip of
the iceberg of its irreversible decadence.
(Translated by Granma International)
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