French Personalities Condemn US Blockade of Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

French Personalities Condemn US Blockade of Cuba

HAVANA, Cuba, March 25 (acn) Participants in the 18th CultuAmerica Festival that is underway in the French city of Pau condemned the US’s almost 50-year-old blockade of Cuba and demanded the immediate release of five Cuban antiterrorists who remain unjustly imprisoned in the United States since 1998.

Both topics were discussed on Wednesday during a lecture-debate in that French city – some 750 kilometers southwest of Paris – where the event’s president, Professor Jean Ortiz, officially declared that the event is against Washington’s unilateral measure and the situation of the Cuban Five, as the antiterrorists are internationally known.

Meanwhile, Maurice Lemoine, chief editor of Le Monde Diplomatique, explained the characteristics and violations committed during the legal process against Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon labañino and Fernando Gonzalez.

According to Prensa Latina news agency, Lemoine made reference to multiple actions carried out against the Caribbean nation and mentioned international and self-confessed terrorists Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, who live in the United States under the protection of the White House, as two of the main perpetrators and masterminds of these crimes.

Also present were the ambassador of Cuba in France, Orlando Requeijo, and that of Bolivia, Luzmila Carpio, as well as trade union leader Carlos Reyes, head of the resistance against last year’s coup d’état in Honduras.

http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2010/0325condenabloqueo.htm

[protocol rv]

1. I believe the word is economic embargo, not "blockade"

A blockade, in English, means a shut down by physical means of trade and transport into and out of the location being blockaded. If the USA were to blockade Cuba, they would physically place US military assets around the island, and use military force to stop transit into and out of the country.

The economic embargo has been condemned in the UN for many years.

[Judi Lynn]

2. You are wise beyond your years. You should instruct everyone else NEVER to use "blockade."

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"Denial of Food and Medicine:

The Impact Of The U.S. Embargo
On The Health And Nutrition In Cuba"

-An Executive Summary-

American Association for World Health Report
Summary of Findings
March 1997
After a year-long investigation, the American Association for World Health has determined that the U.S. embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban citizens. As documented by the attached report, it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system. But since 1992 the number of unmet medical needs patients going without essential drugs or doctors performing medical procedures without adequate equipment-has sharply accelerated. This trend is directly linked to the fact that in 1992 the U.S. trade embargo-one of the most stringent embargoes of its kind, prohibiting the sale of food and sharply restricting the sale of medicines and medical equipment-was further tightened by the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.

A humanitarian catastrophe has been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a high level of budgetary support for a health care system designed to deliver primary and preventive health care to all of its citizens. Cuba still has an infant mortality rate half that of the city of Washington, D.C.. Even so, the U.S. embargo of food and the de facto embargo on medical supplies has wreaked havoc with the island's model primary health care system. The crisis has been compounded by the country's generally weak economic resources and by the loss of trade with the Soviet bloc.

Recently four factors have dangerously exacerbated the human effects of this 37-year-old trade embargo. All four factors stem from little-understood provisions of the U.S. Congress' 1992 Cuban Democracy Act (CDA):

1. A Ban on Subsidiary Trade: Beginning in 1992, the Cuban Democracy Act imposed a ban on subsidiary trade with Cuba. This ban has severely constrained Cuba's ability to import medicines and medical supplies from third country sources. Moreover, recent corporate buyouts and mergers between major U.S. and European pharmaceutical companies have further reduced the number of companies permitted to do business with Cuba.
   
   
2. Licensing Under the Cuban Democracy Act: The U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments are allowed in principle to license individual sales of medicines and medical supplies, ostensibly for humanitarian reasons to mitigate the embargo's impact on health care delivery. In practice, according to U.S. corporate executives, the licensing provisions are so arduous as to have had the opposite effect. As implemented, the licensing provisions actively discourage any medical commerce. The number of such licenses granted-or even applied for since 1992-is minuscule. Numerous licenses for medical equipment and medicines have been denied on the grounds that these exports "would be detrimental to U.S. foreign policy interests."
   
   
3. Shipping Since 1992:The embargo has prohibited ships from loading or unloading cargo in U.S. ports for 180 days after delivering cargo to Cuba. This provision has strongly discouraged shippers from delivering medical equipment to Cuba. Consequently shipping costs have risen dramatically and further constricted the flow of food, medicines, medical supplies and even gasoline for ambulances. From 1993 to 1996, Cuban companies spent an additional $8.7 million on shipping medical imports from Asia, Europe and South America rather than from the neighboring United States.
   
   
4. Humanitarian Aid: Charity is an inadequate alternative to free trade in medicines, medical supplies and food. Donations from U.S. non-governmental organizations and international agencies do not begin to compensate for the hardships inflicted by the embargo on the Cuban public health system. In any case, delays in licensing and other restrictions have severely discouraged charitable contributions from the U.S.

Taken together, these four factors have placed severe strains on the Cuban health system. The declining availability of food stuffs, medicines and such basic medical supplies as replacement parts for thirty-year-old X-ray machines is taking a tragic human toll. The embargo has closed so many windows that in some instances Cuban physicians have found it impossible to obtain life-saving medicines from any source, under any circumstances. Patients have died. In general, a relatively sophisticated and comprehensive public health system is being systematically stripped of essential resources. High-technology hospital wards devoted to cardiology and nephrology are particularly under siege. But so too are such basic aspects of the health system as water quality and food security. Specifically, the AAWH's team of nine medical experts identified the following health problems affected by the embargo:

~snip~
Finally, the AAWH wishes to emphasize the stringent nature of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Few other embargoes in recent history - including those targeting Iran, Libya, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia, Chile or Iraq - have included an outright ban on the sale of food. Few other embargoes have so restricted medical commerce as to deny the availability of life-saving medicines to ordinary citizens. Such an embargo appears to violate the most basic international charters and conventions governing human rights, including the United Nations charter, the charter of the Organization of American States, and the articles of the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of civilians during wartime.

American Association for World Health
1825 K Street, NW, Suite 1208
Washington, DC 20006 More:
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html

[naaman fletcher]

3. For what its worth, I agree that the embargo should be lifted. nt.

[Mika]

4. Good on you!

We agree on this. :thumbsup:

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