Paris, November 12 (RHC) -- The European Parliament will host next week an International Tribunal that will symbolically judge the U.S. blockade against Cuba, an event that will allow denouncing the extraterritorial impact of that policy, one of the witnesses said today.
The president of the association Cuba Coopération France (CubaCoop), Víctor Fernández, will appear as a witness in the process on November 16 and 17 in Brussels, on behalf of that organization and the State Movement of Solidarity with Cuba in Spain to present concrete examples of the consequences of the siege in force for more than 60 years.
Although the details of the effects of the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade will be presented at the International Tribunal, Fernandez shared with Prensa Latina general aspects of the denunciation on the problems it causes in the work of solidarity and cooperation in France and Spain.
The extraterritoriality of Washington's policy implies that companies refuse to sell products that would be sent to the island, causes increases in acquisition prices, affecting our capacity to execute projects, and makes the dispatch of merchandise extremely difficult, he illustrated.
According to the witness, sometimes there are delays of months in the delivery of containers destined for Cuba, which shippers usually justify with the lack of direct lines of ships, due to the fear of shipping companies of sanctions or the prohibition to operate in U.S. territory.
The issue of banks, which refuse to make transfers linked to the Antillean nation, indispensable to materialize our actions, also affects a lot, said the president of CubaCoop, which in the last 30 years has developed more than 150 projects in sectors such as water, sanitation, transportation, culture and sports.
We have seen partners withdraw from some of these initiatives due to the risk of sanctions and the prevailing pressures, he added.
Fernandez repudiated that these banking obstacles are also evident in family and individual relationships.
The power of extraterritoriality was multiplied as of 2019 through the measures adopted by Donald Trump's administration to tighten the blockade, among them the reinclusion of Cuba in Washington's unilateral list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
The consequences were not long in coming, and the main French or European banks have since refused any activity with the island, he denounced, recalling that specific cases will be addressed in Brussels.
The International Tribunal to symbolically judge the blockade was convened in July of this year by various organizations participating in the Peoples' Summit in Brussels.
The invitation was accepted by political forces, movements and jurists on both sides of the Atlantic, and the presence next week in the European Parliament of associations of American lawyers is generating expectations. (Source: Institute of Meteorology of Cuba)
