Cuba has appealed to Pakistan and international community for support to put an end to the financial, commercial and economic blockade imposed by the United States against it Cuba about four decades back.
Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, Cuban Ambassador in Pakistan, Custavo Machin Gomez, said that his country would submit 15 consecutive draft resolutions in the United Nations General Assembly on November 8 to put an end to the brutal sanctions of the uni-polar superpower.
He said that almost $86.108 billion damage had been done to the Cuban economy due to the 44 years' long sanctions, and alone in the 2005 the recorded loss was $4 billion.
Last year, he said, 182 member states voted in favour of Cuba, demonstrating almost unanimous rejection by the international community to the US brutal policy against Cuba and the application of extraterritorial laws as the so called Helms Burton Act, opposite to the Charter of the United Nations and principles of the International Laws and the regulations ruling the financial, commercial and economic relations among the states.
The Ambassador said that the blockade imposed by the US against Cuba was aimed at crippling the people exposing them to starvation and diseases, while the country was fully exercising its right to self-determination and defending its sovereignty, welfare and dignity.
He termed the blockade a systematic mass violation of human rights of the Cuban people, particularly the rights to health and food, thus causing serious humanitarian consequences.
Custavo said that the blockade is classified as genocide in virtue of Article II of Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of the Genocide, on December 9, 1948 and an act of economic war as it is established in the Naval Conference of London since 1909.
According to him, the direct economic damage caused to the Cuban people due to the long blockade was over $86 billion and this amount did not include the direct damage to the country's social and economic targets in the shape of sabotages and terrorist actions supported, organised and financed by the US.
"President Bush administration during last year has increased to unprecedented levels the aggressiveness and hostility against Cuba by severe application of acts and provisions of the blockade, thus openly violating the principles of the charter of the UN and the international law and taking no notice of the international community's claim", he said.
The Ambassador said that the role of so-called 'Commission for Assistance to a free Cuba' with its first report approved by the US President in May 2004 has supported the worsening financial, commercial and economic blockade against Cuba during last year.He informed the media that the persecution and repression against all those with any kind of link with Cuba from the most diverse regions of the world had reached unprecedented level.
In July 2006, he said, Bush administration put forwarded the second version on the anti-Cuban plan drafted by the commission thus confirming and widening the 2004's version. In the new document, it is recommended among other measures to create a specific inter-agencies task force for the persecution of the Cuban nickel; the reinforcement of the group for persecution of Cuban assets, the prohibition on selling medical equipment to Cuba.
The Ambassador said that the document also includes more severe regulations for sending humanitarian goods to Cuba, with the purpose of prohibiting donations sent by US religious organisations to their Cuban counterparts and sanctioning enterprises collaborating in drilling for producing gas and oil.
Responding to a question, the Cuban Ambassador said that his country rejects sanctions against any sovereign country.
He hoped that besides the members of Non-Aligned Movement, other countries would also support the Cuban resolution against the US sanctions in the coming session of the UN General Assembly.
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