Cuban Foreign Minister Demands End Of US Blockade

Cuban Foreign Minister Demands End Of US Economic Blockade

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 26 (acn): Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla demanded on Tuesday the immediate end of Washington’s almost 50-year-old economic, trade and financial blockade of the Caribbean nation.

Speaking before the United Nations General Assembly, Rodriguez Parrilla said this US policy of aggression violates international law and causes only suffering to the Cuban people.

“For its nature and extent, the blockade against Cuba qualifies as an act of genocide and economic war. It is a hostile and unilateral action that must end unilaterally,” he noted.

The diplomat also referred to the ample and growing consensus among the American people against the blockade and in favor of a change of policy of the White House toward the island.

“Over 70% of the American people advocate the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba and 64% oppose the existing travel ban that violates the US citizens’ rights,” he pointed out.

“Two years after President Obama pledged to seek ‘a new beginning with Cuba,’ facts confirm that nothing has changed. It is obvious that the United States has no intention whatsoever to lift the blockade,” he added.

“The White House continues to pay more attention to the well-funded ‘special interests’ of an exiguous minority that has turned the policy against Cuba into a very profitable business,” Rodriguez Parrilla said.

“This is a new epoch and, in our opinion, this Assembly should lead a world mobilization to demand respect for the peoples’ right to live.

Let’s build another world order and let’s found a new collective ethics based on solidarity and justice,” he highlighted.

“This economic war brings great privation to the Cuban people and if there have been no human losses and a generalized traumatic condition among our population it is thanks to efforts of all of them and the willingness and work of our government,” he stated.

“We will not stop defending our right to live and work for our socio-economic development in conditions of equality and in cooperation with the rest of the world, without economic sieges or external pressures,” Rodriguez Parrilla said.

He also demanded the immediate release of Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez — five Cuban antiterrorists who remain unjustly imprisoned in the United States since 198 for monitoring right-wing groups that were planning and carrying out terrorist actions against the island.

Finally, the Cuban diplomat thanked the international community for their solidarity which was reflected by the support of 187 countries that voted in favor of a Cuban resolution demanding the end of the blockade.

Only the United States and Israel voted against while three nations (Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands) abstained.

ENDS

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