Cuba in Geneva: Right to Development without Blockade

Cuba on Thursday reiterated its commitment with development despite the blockade the United States has maintained on the island for over 50 years ago, during a speech at the UN Human Right Council (HRC).

Cuban delegate Juan Antonio Quintanilla stated that the main obstacle for the right to the development of the Cuban people is the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by Washington.

That blockade is a massive, blatant and systematic violation of the human rights of a people, particularly the right to development, Quintanilla noted.

The diplomat stated that the blockade´s direct economic affectation up to December 2010 on common price, calculated very conservatively, amounts to a figure over 104 billion USD.

“Cuba will continue denouncing this unilateral, absurd, illegal and morally unsustainable policy, which purpose to yield the Cuban people´s patriotic decision to preserve its sovereignty has not fulfilled, or will fulfill,” he stated.

Progresses reached thanks to the solidarity cooperation and integration such as ALBA (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America) has not depended on the support by developed countries, which is almost nonexistent, Quintanilla said.

Unequal exchange has been deepened, official assistance to development reduces in real terms, and the transference of technology keeps on being very limited and highly determined, the Cuban diplomat stated.

The absence of solutions to the most dangerous development problems and the sufferings of billions of people who live in poverty and underdevelopment conditions, will also affect industrialized societies, Quintanilla said.

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