London, February 13 - Under the motto, "Trump has gone - time to end sanctions on Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela", a virtual event organized by the solidarity campaigns in the United Kingdom with these three countries was held today.
Cuba's Ambassador to London, Barbara Elena Montalvo, stressed that an unprecedented 242 sanctions, with 136 of them having extraterritorial effects, were applied by the Trump Administration against the island. In a tight summary, she mentioned the most significant ones and examples of the damages they cause.
"For the first time, the damages caused by the blockade exceeded the figure of five billion dollars in one year; the Trump Administration intensified them during the pandemic: it ignored the demands to relax the sanctions to facilitate the confrontation with COVID 19", she denounced.
Montalvo also affirmed that the State Department's decision to include the Caribbean island in the list of countries sponsors of terrorism is aimed at "defaming the Cuban government and hindering any attempt to restore bilateral relations".
In the opinion of the panelists, unilateral coercive measures violate the principles of International Law; they are aimed at provoking a regime change and directly affect the population.
"Neither the United States nor the European Union has the right to sanction any other country," said Maite Mola, Vice President of the Party of European Left.
The representative of the Spanish United Left Party in the European Parliament, Manu Pineda, pointed out that this is a new type of dirty war, in which coercive measures "replace tanks and rifles, but pursue the same objective, to attack the sovereignty of these countries".
Carlos Ron, President of the Venezuelan Simon Bolivar Institute for Peace and Solidarity among Peoples, described them as a "collective punishment", and stressed the importance of supporting the Venezuelan people in the present circumstances, for humanitarian reasons. Activist Coleen Littlejohn, who has been working in Nicaragua for 41 years, said that these actions not only affect the population, but also create uncertainty for foreign investors.
The debate was moderated by Christine Blower, member of the House of Lords of the British Parliament, who called for continued solidarity campaigns in defense of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela. During the debate, she acknowledged Cuba's medical cooperation to face the pandemic, in spite of all the difficulties caused by the blockade.