Cuban Condemns US Coercive Policies at the United Nations

Havana, Sept 19 (ACN) Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel condemned at the UN General Assembly the US economic coercive policy and strongest pressures against Cuba in violation of international law and the UN Charter.

Cuba undergoes an asphyxiating economic blockade designed to reduce revenues and damage the people’s standard of living, have them face permanent shortage of food, medicine and other basic items, and also to damage the island’s potential for development, said the Cuban President during the General Debate at the UN General Assembly.

The head of state said that there is no act by Cuba that threatens the independence of the United States, its national security or that damage its sovereign rights or interfere with its internal affairs, or that affect the living of the US people. For these reasons—said Diaz-Canel—the behavior of the US administration is unilateral and unjustified.

He noted that the Cuban people is resisting and creatively overcoming every day in the face of the US economic war, which escalated to the most extreme, inhumane and cruelest levels in 2019 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cuba is not the first sovereign state to be the target for unilateral coercive measures, but it is the one resisting them for the longest time, despite the almost unanimous world condemnation of such measures every year at the UN General Assembly, which the US administration ignores with disrespect, said the Cuban leader.

He said that the measures, euphemistically called sanctions, have become the practice of powerful states who intend to act as universal judges to weaken and destroy the economies and isolate and submit sovereign countries.

Such pressures are currently affecting Venezuela and Nicaragua, while they have been before and afterwards, the prelude of invasions and toppling of some uncomfortable governments in the Middle East, said Diaz-Canel who also rejected the unilateral coercive measures imposed on Zimbabwe, Syria, North Korea and Iran.

The Cuban President also reiterated his country’s solidarity with the cause of the Palestinian people and expressed Cuba’s support of the right of the Saharawi people’s right to self-determination.