In response to a bill which aims to further tighten the United States economic blockade of Cuba and undermine the sovereignty of third countries, the following message by the Department of International Relations of the Communist Party of Cuba was released on April 14.
To all parties and friendly organisations:
As already known, there are ongoing attempts — promoted and encouraged by the US Republican ultraright and the reactionary sectors of the Cuban community in the USA — to make the US Congress pass a bill introduced by US congressmen Helms and Burton. This is a new manoeuvre aimed at tightening and internationalising the illegal blockade against Cuba, and undermining the sovereignty of all nations.
This bill, which violates the most basic standards of international law and free trade, tries to impose a judicial process on any entity whose economic links with Cuba involve former US properties nationalised after the triumph of the Cuban revolution.
In our country, the nationalisation process was carried out in the most legal way in accordance with international law and under the 1940 Constitution and the Fundamental Act of 1959. Therefore, it can be categorically asserted that there are no US properties in Cuba.
As part of this process, the Cuban government has always considered compensation for nationalised properties an issue for negotiation and agreement, as has been the case with similar agreements made between former owners of nationalised properties and governments in other countries.
For over 30 years, Cuba has reiterated its willingness to negotiate on this issue with the USA. This has been ignored by the US government because its real objective is not to secure compensation for its citizens, but to overthrow the political and economic system in Cuba — the result of the Cuban people's sovereign decision.
As a new unacceptable element, there is an unprecedented fact in US legal practice and international law. In the Helms-Burton Bill, the category of owners affected by the nationalisation process includes people of Cuban origin who were Cuban citizens at the time of the expropriations, but are now US citizens. This, together with all its other conditional elements, would render it impossible for Cuba to begin the negotiation process to normalise relations with the USA.
Once again, this bill makes evident that the blockade against Cuba is not — as the US government pretends — a bilateral issue, but an instrument of its active global policy against our country. This policy is constantly being tightened and, in this particular case, attempts to reverse Cuba's progress in reorienting its international trade and financial relations and in creating joint ventures with foreign capital.
The permanent and fruitless objective of US policy is to strangle Cuba economically while "quarantining" Cuba's markets and investments.
The Helms-Burton Bill is a gross violation of the sovereignty of all states: its extraterritorial character tries to reaffirm the role of the US imperialism as world gendarme, it interferes in the affairs of citizens of third countries with threats of reprisals against those who have economic links with Cuba, and it empowers the US government to implement it not only against Cuba but also against any country where US citizens make expropriation claims.
In our particular case, it is also an insult and a flagrant violation of the principles of sovereignty, self-determination and non-interference in the internal affairs of a country because it tries to dictate the "steps" and the "requirements" for the "democratisation" of our country, forgetting that ours is a fully independent country, firmly determined to continue as such.
In the last three years, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted — by an overwhelming majority — three resolutions condemning the blockade against Cuba. Likewise, there is a huge international solidarity movement which demands the unconditional lifting of the blockade. Therefore, to pass the Helms-Burton bill would be an open challenge to the international community.
We call on all parties and friendly organisations to express, once again, their solidarity with our country by strengthening their efforts to counteract this dirty, anti-Cuban manoeuvre and to reaffirm the full right of the Cuban people to choose their own destiny without pressures or conditions.