Cuba denounces at the UN the impact of the blockade on food production

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 12 (ACN) Cuba denounced on Thursday before the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council, the impact of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States on food production and food security of the Cuban people.

During the panel entitled "Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Food Security", Pedro Luis Pedroso, Cuba's permanent representative to the UN, highlighted how the Caribbean nation is facing the enormous challenges imposed by the blockade, which has intensified as never before in the last four years, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, together with a policy of unprecedented hostility.

As reported by the Cubaminrex website, the Cuban diplomat made reference to how only between April 2019 and March 2020, damages for an approximate value of over 428 million dollars were accounted for in the area of food.

"These damages would have been avoided if Cuban companies had been able to access the U.S. market without unfair and illegitimate restrictions," Pedroso stated.

He also highlighted the Caribbean nation's lack of access to financing from U.S. banks and the international credit system, due to the so-called "country risk", and since Cuba cannot make payments in U.S. dollars to third parties, this makes its normal access to international markets for food and basic necessities more expensive and difficult.

The text also illustrates the situation of hunger in the world, suffered by almost 690 million people and recognizes that the persistence of an unjust and unsustainable international order, burdened by decades of application of a savage neoliberalism, are the foundations of the exponential growth of poverty, exclusion, and food insecurity; at the same time that billions of dollars are squandered on military expenditures instead of being devoted to protecting life.