13 Jun 2021

Cuba ambassador, Ms Patricia Pego Guerra, says her country is pinning its hope on the new United States administration to lift the economic, commercial and financial blockade.

Addressing the media in Gaborone on Thursday June 10, Ms Guerra said they were pinning their hopes on June 23 when the United Nations General Assembly would be expected to vote in favour of their country’s resolution, titled Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Blockade Imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.

She said in the current situation, in which humanity was facing an economic and social crisis accentuated by the COVID-19 pandemic, whose dimensions nobody was able to predict with certainty.

She said it was more necessary than ever that the international community demands the lifting of the blockade imposed by US government against Cuba, which constitutes the most complex and prolonged system of unilateral coercive measures ever imposed against any country.

She said the blockade was reinforced from April 2019 to March 2020 where it reached unprecedented levels of aggressiveness.

Ms Guerra said the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the US government against Cuba some six decades ago, is the most unfair, severe and prolonged system of unilateral sanctions ever applied against any country.

She said the sanctions, in essence and goals, were an act of unilateral aggression and a permanent threat against the stability of Cuba and also violates the purposes and principles enshrined in the United Nations Charter.

She further said they also hindered the normal development of international relations and seriously harmed the legitimate interests of many states, institutions and individuals throughout the world.

The ambassador further said the extraterritorial dimension of this policy had been brutally intensified with the full implementation of the Helms-Burton Act since May 2019. 

She added that the legislation was an affront to the principles of international law and trade rules, while it provides for economic pressure actions that are harmful to the sovereignty of Cuba and third world countries.

Ms Guerra said other measures harmful to the Cuban economy and people applied during this period were the increased persecution of Cuba’s financial and commercial transactions, the siege to deprive the country fuel supplies, the ban of flights from the US to Cuban provinces, except Havana and the campaign to discredit Cuban medical cooperation programmes.

She said during the period under review, the blockade had caused losses to Cuba of an estimated 5.5 billion US dollars, which represented an increase of around US$1.2 billion with respect to the previous period. ENDS