Cuba has reiterated calls on the international community to exert more pressure on the United States for the removal of the economic blockade it placed on her since 1962.
The government of the Caribbean island says the continuous blockade had been devastating, culminating in economic stagnation and suffering. Pedro Luiz Gonzalez, the Cuban Ambassador to Ghana said “so far we are suffering. If you arrive in Havana, you would know how bad the blockade has been”.
Ambassador Gonzalez said the 57-year old blockade has seriously undermined Cuba’s quest to grow and expand its economy, explaining that, the acquisition of medicines for healthcare and attempts to expand its industries had been rendered impossible.
He said despite decades of international pressure, the Americans had maintained the punitive policy adding that, “It is very strong, it is unjust, it is affecting the over 11.2 million people living in Cuba”.
According to him, as recent as 2017, 191 nations of the world adopted the United Nations Resolutions against the blockade but the intransigence of the United States and its close ally, Israel had been resounding.
He said but for the blockade, the number of Africans studying in Cuba could have been more than the current 19,000 and therefore called on well-meaning nations to increase the pressure for the review of the policy.
He said the U.S currently had a military base in a territory belonging to Cuba, for which a paltry sum of $4,000 is paid annually in return; an amount Cuba has failed to acknowledge. John F Kennedy, the then U.S President, in 1962 announced the imposition of the blockade on Cuba after Soviet missiles were found installed in the island during Cuba’s revolution.
The blockade was initially a Naval one against offensive weapons but has since been expanded to cover all types of goods and air transport.