Havana, June 14 (RHC)-- The Helms-Burton Act, enacted by the United States in 1996, is a flagrant violation of international law and dares to regulate the future of a sovereign State, the Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said Wednesday during a master conference at the opening of the 2nd International Seminar "Legal Implications of the Helms-Burton Act in the US legal system and its impact in the light of International Law".

During his speech, Rodríguez stressed the Helms-Burton Act seeks to destroy the Cuban people´s free self-determination as well as to levy their independence. “This Act is deliberately conceived to cause humanitarian damage”.

It is curious, he added, that five U.S. presidents have taken the trouble to avoid in any way a rigorous, in-depth discussion of the law.

The Helms-Burton Act greatly restricts Cuba’s commercial operations with U.S. businessmen, “It seeks to determine what is permissible or not,” he said.

He also indicated that the Helms-Burton Act also tries to present Cuba as a failed state to isolate it, demonize it, and make it appear that the unilaterally imposed measures are really necessary.

However, the Cuban minister assured that “the Helms-Burton Act has not worked to overthrow the Cuban government, nor to destabilize the country or to reverse the Cuban Revolution; it has worked to generate suffering to the Cuban people economically speaking”.

This Act not only modifies the set of unilateral coercive measures that comprise the blockade with an extraordinary scope but also intends to internationalize them and for this purpose intimidate and coerce third parties.

He recalled that in the most critical moments of the Covid-19 pandemic, the United States tightened its hostile blockade against Cuba and it was possible to check the obstacles deliberately imposed to prevent medical supplies from arriving in Cuba. (Source: Prensa Latina)