Dear Cuba’s friends:

The economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States since the very triumph of the Revolution has caused loses to Cuba amounting to more than 82,764 billion dollars. This figure does not include the 54 billion dollars due to direct damages caused to economic and social targets occasioned by sabotages and terrorist actions financed and encouraged in the United States. The blockade on Cuba is the longest and jost cruel known to the human history. It is an act of economic warfare, a fundamental part of State Terrorism policy and it qualifies as an act of genocide.

It has extraterritorial characteristics since it illegally forces companies and citizens of other countries to follow US laws; formalized by the Torricelli (1992) and Helms-Burton (1996) Laws.

Torricelli Law prohibits Cuban commerce with the subsidiaries of US companies in third countries. It also obliges ships from third countries to wait no less than six months to land in US ports after having landed in Cuba ports.

Meanwhile, Helms-Burton Law gives legal strength to all blockade’s prohibitions. It attempts to prevent foreign investment in Cuba and assumes that the United States can decide on the sovereignty of other States.

Last year, President George W. Bush has reached unprecedented levels in his aggressive blockade policy against the Cuban people no matter the repeated and aljost unanimous will of the international community.

Only in 2004, the United States fined 77 companies, banking institutions, and NGOs for acts in violation of the blockade. Eleven of these are foreign companies or subsidiaries of US companies in third countries, such as Mexico, Canada, Panama, Italy, United Kingdom, Uruguay, The Bahamas and British West Indies (Anguila).

On June 30, 2004, measures included in the so-called "Commission for Help to a Free Cuba" report approved by Bush on May 6 of the same year came into effect. More than 80% of these measures has been applied.

Bush’s plans on Cuba are led to destroy the Revolution, restore capitalism and reinstate imperial domination over the nation. Some of the above mentioned measures are: to asphyxiate the economy, to increase restrictions on financial flow and travel, to create obstacles to the ties between Cuban residents in the US and their relatives on the island, to prevent all kind of exchanges between our nations, and to encourage conditions that facilitate US intervention with an eye to later annexation.

Despite blockade, Cubans’ decision to never renounce their independence, sovereignty and right to freely decide, has allowed them to create a more just and equal society that cares about other peoples all over the world, including the United States.

Each year since 1992, Cuba has introduced its draft resolution demanding an end to the blockade. The number of countries supporting this resolution has increased since then. Last year, 170 countries condemned the U.S. blockade on Cuba.

This year’s voting on the draft resolution will be on November 8th.

To read the whole report by Cuba on Resolution 59/11 of the United Nations General Assembly: "The necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba" click here:
<http://www.cubavsbloqueo.cu/Portals/0/INF BLOQUEO16 x 21 INGLES 2005.doc>

Best Regards,

Cuban Interest Section in Washington, DC.