CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

MEANING OF THE RECENT MEASURES ADOPTED BY THE US GOVERNMENT REGARDING THE BLOCKADE AGAINST CUBA.

 Media campaign around most recent measures of the US Government regarding the blockade against Cuba.
The media and diplomatic offensive mounted by the US Government could wrongly lead some to think the blockade imposed for over 50 years by the US Government against Cuba has started to be dismantled. However, nothing could be further from the truth.
The recent measures adopted by the White House refer to specific issues like the elimination of certain restrictions on the visits of Cubans living in the US to their relatives in Cuba, and on remittances from Cuban-Americans to their family members in our country; the widening of the range of items that can be sent to Cuba in packages as gifts; and the granting of licenses for US companies to extend certain telecommunication operations in Cuba.
These measures, though making amends for a serious injustice as it gives Cubans living in the US back their right to visit their family members in Cuba -which was snatched by the George W. Bush Administration- are not enough and very limited. These measures do not go beyond the intention to return to the existing situation on family relations in 2004, when the blockade against Cuba was fully in effect and implemented.
Likewise, despite the elimination of said restrictions, Cubans living in the US without family in Cuba are still banned from traveling to our country. Also, those measures do not address at all the constitutional right of US citizens to freely travel to Cuba, the only country in the world they are prevented from traveling to.
The eventual granting of licenses for US companies to extend certain telecommunication operations in Cuba is not a new measure, for since 1992 a legal framework to offer those services to our country was established. Nevertheless, since that same period, the different US administrations have limited that possibility to telephone communications, and even restricted the kind of service US companies can provide. It is important to point out that so far nothing recently announced shows those limitations or restrictions will be changed.
 The case of the Company Philips.
In a recent Reflection by Comrade Fidel Castro, he describes in details a clear example of the technological blockade by the US government against Cuba and how it has affected, in this particular case, the cooperation programs on public health carried out by Cuba and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
This Reflection is about the decision of the Dutch firm Philips to stop, since early 2007, the supply of spare parts and computer programs for a considerable amount of expensive and sophisticated medical equipment bought by Cuba to that firm. That equipment was planned to be used in health centers with Cuban medical personnel in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, as well as in other health care centers in Cuba.
In March 2007, the main office of Philips for Latin America confirmed the Cuban authorities that the US Government had requested them to supply detailed information about the equipment that the firm had supplied to Cuba, claiming that some of them contained computer programs and, in some cases, certain components which had been patented by the United States. They also referred to the “brutal intransigence on the part of the US Government in terms of equipment regulations and license applications regarding Cuba”.

Recently, in June 2009, after paying a fine of 100.000 Euros to the current US Government, Philips finally deigned to communicate that very soon they would supply the spare parts for the equipment they had sold to Cuba. However, the situation forced the Cuban Government to stop buying products from that firm. As a result, a considerable human damage to Cuban and Venezuelan patients was caused. Such damage has not been compensated to date.

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