"An Island on a Continent"

• Text of the Resolution of the African Union (AU) on lifting the blockade imposed on Cuba by the US

Havana, Feb 20 (Prensa Latina) The Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Bruno Rodríguez, expressed his gratitude to Africa for the permanent support against the blockade that the United States has maintained for more than six decades against the island.

The highest representative of Cuban diplomacy highlighted that at the XXXVII Summit of the African Union, recently held in Ethiopia, he approved for the fifteenth consecutive time a resolution that calls for the end of Washington’s siege.

Rodríguez highlighted that this forum also condemned the inclusion of the Antillean nation in the State Department’s unilateral list of countries that supposedly sponsor terrorism, and requested its withdrawal.

The text of the organization made up of 55 African States reaffirmed this Sunday its full support for the Resolution that the UN General Assembly approves each year on this issue.

He also regretted the measures implemented by the United States Government since November 9, 2017, which reinforce the blockade, and expressed his deep concern about the expansion of its extraterritorial nature.

He recognized that the hostile policy of the White House is the main obstacle to Cuba’s implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Text of the Resolutionof the African Union (AU)on lifting the blockade imposed on Cuba by the US:

The Assembly,

1.      EXPRESSES serious concern about the continuous and illegal economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on the Cuban government and people;

2.      REAFFIRMS its full support to the resolution of the UNGA “Necessity to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”;

3.      REGRETS the regression in the bilateral relations between Cuba and the United States and once again, calls upon the Government of the United States of America to lift the long standing and unjustifiable economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on the Cuban people;

4.      ALSO REGRETS the measures implemented by the Government of the United States since 9th November 2017, which strengthen the blockade and EXPRESSES DEEP CONCERN over the widening of the extraterritorial nature of the blockade, including the full implementation of Chapter III of the Helms-Burton Act (based on paragraph 334 of the G-77 Ministerial Declaration of 2023, which maintains the same language agreed in 2022);

5.      EXPRESSES serious concern about the arbitrary inclusion of Cuba in the unilateral list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism, which has further exacerbated the financial prohibitions and restrictions to Cuba emanating from the blockade; therefore, CALLS for the removal of Cuba from that list;

6.      ACKNOWLEDGES that the negative impact of the blockade is aggravated and even crueler in the current context, when Cuba is facing the economic and social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic;

7.      ALSO ACKNOWLEDGES that the blockade is the main obstacle for Cuba’s implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and shares this concern due to the importance that the African Union attaches to the achievements of the objectives on the said agenda;

8.      ALSO REAFFIRMS its solidarity with the people of Cuba.