Havana, Apr 11 (Prensa Latina) The Helms-Burton Act represents a strong obstacle to any attempt to improve relations between Cuba and the United States, warned a high-ranking official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs during a parliamentary session on Thursday.
Speaking at a debate of the International Relations Commission, the director for the United States of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, specified that it is a question of an unprecedented law applied against any country due to its complexity and objectives.
As long as this law is not erased, the idea that the two countries can improve their relations is neither credible nor sustainable,’ he said.
According to Fernandez de Cossio, proof of the obstacle represented by the initiative -considered a legal freak against the island- by the previous president, Barack Obama, in which a bilateral rapprochement took place (2015 and 2016).
The official explained in the International Relations Commission of the People’s Power National Assembly that the Helms-Burton Act reflects the way in which U.S. imperialism sees Cuba and its goal of turning it into a colonial dependency.
The parliamentary session took place in a context of escalation in the aggressiveness of Donald Trump’s administration towards the largest of the Antilles, with the strengthening of the economic blockade as a spearhead.
In particular, the White House uses political threat and blackmail, starting with the use of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, a chapter of extraterritorial scope aimed at Cuba’s economic asphyxia, which previous governments in Washington avoided its full execution.
However, Fernandez de Cossio warned that the anti-Cuban initiative has been practically fully implemented since its entry into force in 1996.
The complex text contains four titles, and its essence is to bet for the change of regime in the island.
According to the director general for the United States of the Foreign Ministry, the law is based on two lies, the consideration of Cuba as a threat to the national security of the northern country and that the nationalizations carried out in the first years of the Revolution were not legal.
In that sense, he stressed the full attachment to international law of that process, and the fact that the United States did not accept to negotiate compensations because its bet was to overthrow the Revolution.
At the beginning of the debate, the president of the International Relations Committee of the Parliament, Yolanda Ferrer, pointed out that the Helms-Burton Law represents a direct attack on the sovereignty and political system of the largest of the Antilles.
He also ratified that the law is inapplicable and has been rejected by Cubans.
ef/apz/mgt/wmr
