Cuba, Iran and Venezuela denounced on Wednesday in the "International Seminar on Unilateral Coercive Measures (MCU) and its Impacts" held in Vienna, the illegitimacy and illegality of these actions, for which they consider They should be discarded as an option by the international community.
A statement issued after the closing of this event indicates that in a globalized world, resorting to unilateral sanctions to punish or isolate another state "is not legitimate or legal" and adds that economic sanctions are inconsistent with human rights values.
It also warns that because of such predictable and costly implications, sanctions should be seen as weapons of war and means of aggression and considered as crimes against humanity.
The document states that "the three countries sponsoring this event are firm in defending the principles of the right to self-determination, non-intervention and equality of nations, with the conviction that multilateralism and international law must be the answer to the unilateral coercive measures ".
Referring specifically to the US leadership in that "illegal behavior," the statement accuses the US government of using the MUC as an instrument to impact or force a change in the policy of another state.
During the last decades, he highlighted at another time, he spared no effort to resort to commercial sanctions, interruption of financial and investment flows, freezing of assets, travel bans, "to impose his will on another State" and "acting as self-proclaimed police global, tramples all the rules and international law. "
In this regard, remember that since 1984 the United States imposed more than 27 different sanctions regimes on several States and only between 2009 and 2015 penalized different banks with $ 13 billion in seven countries.
As regards Cuba, it refers specifically to the resurgence of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States on the island and emphasizes that "since its design, this policy of economic aggression has been one of the longest unilateral sanctions systems. and hard ones implemented against any country. "
He also points out that Iran's experience shows that the real reason for imposing unilateral measures, especially with extraterritorial implications, is not humanitarian or peace and security, but to impose its will on other nations.
(Embacuba Austria-Prensa Latina)