Bordeaux, France, Mar 23 (Prensa Latina) The leadership and the local committees of the France-Cuba association underscored on Saturday in their annual assembly their support to Cuba and its people in view of the US hostility and its blockade policy.

In the southern city of Bordeaux, a region famous for its wines, the organization with over six decades of solidarity work towards Cuba discussed its actions in 2023, Cuban reality and the economic, commercial and financial US blockade’s aftermaths on its society.

Delegates from regions, departments and cities such as Ardeche, Cote d’Or, Gironde, Hauts-de-Seine, Herault, Lille, Loiret, Marseille Provence, Midi Pyrenees, Paris, Val d’Oise and Vaucluse are participating in the meeting scheduled until tomorrow.

In the first day interventions, the Association’s Chair Fabrice Leclerc summarized the work of France-Cuba and the presence in events by 2023, among them the Tribunal against the US Blockade, held in Brussels, and shared the relevance of those that will take place by 2024, such as the 19th Continental Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba, in November in Paris, and the traditional Fête de l’Humanité.

Meanwhile, representatives of the committees referred to the need for joint work by associations, trade unions and political parties that support Cuba, the experiences of the initiative to send suitcases with medicines and the search for support from European lawmakers and local authorities for the cause of solidarity.

Likewise, they valued the communicational field, considering that many people in France and Europe think that the US blockade against Cuba ended with the administration of Barack Obama, who left the White House in 2017.

The 243 measures to tighten the blockade, adopted by his successor in the U.S. Presidency Donald Trump, the re-inclusion of Cuba in Washington’s unilateral States Sponsoring Terrorism list and the extraterritoriality of the blockade, were issues denounced in the interventions.

Leclerc read at the beginning of the annual assembly a message of recognition to France-Cuba transmitted by the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP), which greeted the forum and wished it success. Solidarity makes human beings great and that feeling has greatly helped Cuba to emerge victorious in the rough road it has had to live for the simple fact of defending our independence and sovereignty, the ICAP’s stated to the organization of over 900 members.

Today’s debates did not overlook the international reality, with words of regret for the terrorist attack that left over 60 deaths in Moscow on Friday and condemnation of Israel’s indiscriminate aggression against the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

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Washington, Mar 21 (Prensa Latina) A private Swiss bank is perhaps the penultimate victim of the extraterritoriality of the economic, commercial and financial blockade that the U.S. government is applying with full force against Cuba.

A sum of approximately 3.7 million dollars was agreed to be paid by EFG International in order to get rid of the accusations that the Swiss banking institution violated the coercive measures imposed by Washington on the Caribbean country and individuals from other nations which, according to its standards, are part of a unilateral black list.

The U.S. Treasury Department reported the “violation.” It says that between 2014 and 2018, Zurich-based EFG allegedly processed 868 securities transactions for clients in Cuba and for a Chinese national included on that list.

A report published in The Wall Street Journal noted that EFG, which has about 40 global subsidiaries, also processed five payments last year for another person blocked by sanctions imposed against Russia abroad.

The allegedly illicit transactions amounted to $30.4 million, Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) stressed.

As of June, EFG had some 146.5 billion Swiss francs (US$165.7 billion) in assets under management. The entity offers a range of financial services, including banking, investment, asset management and securities brokerage to institutional clients and individuals worldwide.

A spokesperson for the banking institution explained in an email that the company made the disclosures to OFAC in 2017 and 2023.

In the immediate term, EFG also restricted the accounts of clients blacklisted under U.S. sanctions. It will now require approval from its compliance department for any account activity of other clients that, although it did not emphasize on the agreement.

In calculating the fine, OFAC took into account EFG’s communication “of the alleged violations and its substantial cooperation, including through an internal investigation to identify exposure to customers facing U.S. sanctions,” the newspaper detailed.

The case highlights the risks faced by banks that have global customers and maintain general accounts in the United States, OFAC said.

But this is not the first time that a Swiss bank has appeared in a retaliation case for violating the blockade laws that for more than six decades have been the U.S. boot on Cuba’s neck.

There is a list of Swiss banks that have paid millions of dollars in fines for that reason.

Unfortunately, this is another irrefutable example of how the United States imposes its extraterritorial laws and tries to control with whom institutions in different parts of the world may or may not do business if they suffer the effect of its coercive measures.

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Caracas, Mar 20 (Prensa Latina) The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) said on Wednesday that the United States contributes to the destabilization of democratic processes in the region, with its permanent and warlike interference.

“It is not enough for them to confess that they intend to steal the natural resources of our countries, to qualify and threaten the governments of the Bolivarian Alliance now,” the executive secretary of the group, Jorge Arreaza, stated in a message on his X profile.

The official condemned, at the same time, the recent statements made by the commander of the US Southern Command, Laura J. Richardson, who singled out Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua for allegedly supporting “destabilizing activities in the region.”

“As Executive Secretary of the @ALBATCP I reject the cynicism, arrogance and brazenness of this US “Military Chief” (…) This chief of the Southern Command, like all her predecessors, will fail in her expansionist intentions to dominate the sovereign peoples of Our Latin America and the Caribbean,” Arreaza added.

Richardson has recently met with the repulse of Latin American and Caribbean nations for her constant statements on domestic issues and the Essequibo territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana.

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Damascus, Mar 20 (Prensa Latina) The Association of Syrian Graduates in Cuban Universities issued a statement in which they strongly condemned the hostile and interfering policy of the United States in the Caribbean island.

We reject this negative and harmful approach that was intensified during the last few days in a dirty and cheap effort to instigate acts of destabilization, the Association noted.

The text added that similar interference and slanderous acts by Washington were carried out by the Empire in Syria and other Arab nations during the so-called “Arab Spring,” bringing only chaos and deaths.

The group also expressed support for President Díaz Canel’s statement on Cuban authorities’ willingness to attend to the demands of the Cuban people, to listen, dialogue and explain the numerous steps being taken to improve the situation, always in an atmosphere of tranquility.

The difficult economic situation and the shortages and difficulties faced by the population on a daily basis are due to the impact of the blockade imposed for more than six decades, the Association pointed out.

It considered that the millions used to fund the reinforcement of an economic and communication war seek to exploit the natural irritation of the population against the government.

According to the Association’s board of directors and members, in the current wars, collaborators, mercenaries and lackeys are employed, just as they have been in other countries with the aim of causing cracks and divisions in society.

We take this opportunity to condemn the blockade and affirm that if the US Government had an honest concern for the welfare of Cubans, it would have lifted this blockade and removed Cuba from the arbitrary list of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism, the statement concluded.

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