HAVANA, February 9, 2012.- Johana Tablada, Deputy Director for North America at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, granted us an interview to discuss about the United States economic Embargo against Cuba, which has just arrived to its 50th anniversary under ten US Presidents.
Q: One of the arguments given by those who advocate for the Embargo is that it is an excuse for the Cuban Government to explain all its failures.
A: If it is an excuse then why not end the blockade, why they don´t lift it and let life tells where the truth lies? They don´t lift it because that way they pressure us, haunt us to later evaluate us and say: Look how badly they´re doing. It has been this way during 50 years.
P: Which are the major damages caused by the Embargo
A: We could spend the whole day talking about all damages, summing up, I’d say the essential aspect is that it has prevented Cuba from developing at its maximun capacity. The blockade prevents us from having relations with the United States and interacting with the rest of the World under normal conditions. Because Blockade has an extraterritorial dimension that puts pressure on third countries, aiming at collapsing the Cuban system just to impose one they prefer.
Q: But, don´t you commerce with all countries in the World?
A: The truth is that we cannot commerce with all. No product whose components are 10% Cuban can enter into the United States, therefore, if a Japanese enterprise whishes to use our nickel, later, it won´t be able to export the final product to the United States.
Besides, Blockade prohibits us to buy, in any region of the World, products with more that 10% of US components. Blockade prevents from and punishes any company who violates this.
Q: One of the arguments given by those who advocate for the Embargo is that it is an excuse for the Cuban Government to explain all its failures.
A: If it is an excuse then why not end the blockade, why they don´t lift it and let life tells where the truth lies? They don´t lift it because that way they pressure us, haunt us to later evaluate us and say: Look how badly they´re doing. It has been this way during 50 years.
P: Which are the major damages caused by the Embargo
A: We could spend the whole day talking about all damages, summing up, I’d say the essential aspect is that it has prevented Cuba from developing at its maximun capacity. The blockade prevents us from having relations with the United States and interacting with the rest of the World under normal conditions. Because Blockade has an extraterritorial dimension that puts pressure on third countries, aiming at collapsing the Cuban system just to impose one they prefer.
Q: But, don´t you commerce with all countries in the World?
A: The truth is that we cannot commerce with all. No product whose components are 10% Cuban can enter into the United States, therefore, if a Japanese enterprise whishes to use our nickel, later, it won´t be able to export the final product to the United States.
Besides, Blockade prohibits us to buy, in any region of the World, products with more that 10% of US components. Blockade prevents from and punishes any company who violates this.
Vessels which enter a port or place in Cuba are prohibited from loading or unloading any freight at any place in the U.S. for 180 days.
Financial transactions are also affected by Blockade; we cannot open accounts at Banks if it is a branch or subsidiary of a U.S. bank , and with globalization it´s hard to operate under those controls.
All vessels entering Cuban ports are prohibited from entering into the United States for 180 days. ¿Who would like to come to the Caribbean with the prohibition to later enter the most important ports in the zone?
There are even laws in the United States penalizing foreign investments in Cuba, punishing them (investments)
Q: Who has been punished?
A: Two examples, the executives of the Canadian company Sherrit were denied visas to the United States after they invested in Cuba´s nickel; Spanish company Sol Meliá had to choose between keeping business in Florida and their investments in Havana.
Q: All this seems contradictory considering US policy to sell food to Cuba?
A: There is not a “policy”. It is only a window in the blockade result of a strong campaign by the agriculture lobby in the United States, together with humanitarian organizations which consider a cruelty to deny food and medicines.
You can´t even call it “trade” because we are not allowed to sell anything and it is carried out under archaic and unprofitable commercial conditions, there is no credit, we have to pay in advance and in cash.
Q: The oil lobby is most powerfull than the agriculture, the presence of oil in Cuban waters could open a bigger window?
A: We don´t know that yet but there is an increasing consensus among United States citizens to lift the prohibitions on travel, to reestablish relations and also, to authorize US oil companies to participate in the Cuban oil program. Cuba does not discrimate US companies in any way.
Blockade affects all sectors of society
Q: Obama authorized travel to all Cuban Americans and eliminated the restrictions to the remittances. Now, US officials complain that Cuba did not respond with other gestures?
A: We publicly expressed that we are open to dialogue without conditions and in 2009, we presented the United States a draft of an agenda with seven issues. We included Blockade but also less sensitive issues of common interest, a draft of migratory accord, the reestablishment of the direct postal mail, an agreement for the fight against drug trafficking, the cooperation in natural disasters and the strengthening of the ties between our scientific communities. They never responded.
Q: Isn´t it too much to ask Obama to end the Embargo, when only the Congress can do that?
A: Blockade is very complex scalffolding of sanctions and not everything is codified by Congress. Besides, in almost all these restrictions there is a section stating that these can not be applied should these affect US national interest or the President stipulates the contrary.
The President of the United States has a long list of prerogatives to provide more flexibility to issues like medicines, this way, Cuban children would have more access to medicines, antibiotics and equipments whose absence cause difficulties some surgical procedures.
Q: One of the reasons of the Embargo is that Cuba did not compensate the companies that were nationalized in 1959. Is this true?
A: US citizens were not the only ones, at least 15 other countries –Switzerland, Germany, Spain, Spain- had properties nationalized. All have been compensated and some of those companies are again in Cuba. The United States was the only one who did not accept the compensation agreement, the Bay of Pigs invasion they were planning at the moment, was more attractive to them
Q: What prospects do you see in the future?
A: The vast majority of US citizens woud like to have good relations with Cuba. To many of them, as well as to many Cubans, the idea of working together for a project of social justice still is more attractive than the idea to struggle to have a place among the “famous 1%”. Cuba, still poor and blockaded, demonstrated that it is possible to build a society in which all children have a place where to sleep and a school to attend, something that´s still a miracle to many in the world. Just for this reason, Cuba deserves that the Blockade dissappears. (Cubaminrex)
