Mexico City, Oct 19 (Prensa Latina) Organizations from Mexico and around the world today condemned the maneuvers, pressures and blackmail of the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to prevent votes in favor of a Cuban resolution at the United Nations against the blockade.
In a statement signed by, among others, the José Martí Association of Cuban Residents in Mexico, Rubio’s violation of international law was denounced for attempting to prevent countries from exercising their sovereign right to vote on the document, scheduled for the end of October.
“We condemn the threats of sanctions, promises of tariffs, covert reprisals and undue pressure that make up the ‘blackmail diplomacy’ against heads of state and government of several countries carried out by the Secretary of State,” they said.
They considered these actions a flagrant violation of the principle of sovereign equality of States and non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations, established in international law and in the Charter of the United Nations itself.
They also categorically rejected the use of the United Nations (UN) to hold an event on the 19th at the request of the permanent mission of Washington, which “cynically calls it ‘Free Cuba: the oppression that Havana hides’”.
They stressed that, in Rubio’s desperation to avoid another diplomatic defeat, “through this farce, he wants to hide the collective punishment he is inflicting on the entire Cuban people and make the international community his accomplice.”
The organizations reaffirmed that the US blockade, the inclusion of Cuba on the list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism, the energy embargo and the constant sanctions on entities and people on the island are in practice “a genocide without bombs”.
They create “food and medicine shortages, deaths and all kinds of hardships,” they declared, stressing that the blockade of more than six decades – and intensified this year – violates the human rights of 10 million Cubans.
They called on all states not to give in to pressure and to vote in accordance with their foreign policy and the rules of international law.
“As has been demonstrated, the vast majority of the General Assembly condemns the criminal blockade, its extraterritoriality and advocates for justice and the right that Cuba has to decide its destiny, as it stated last year with 165 votes in favor of the resolution,” he recalled.
They also urged the people of the world to pressure their rulers to defend their sovereignty and self-determination in this vote.
The signatories of the declaration also include the Mexican Movement of Solidarity with Cuba, the Nuestra América Collective, the Network of Cubans Residing in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the Communist and Popular Socialist parties of Mexico, among others.
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