U.S. Prevents Spanish Bank from Offering Services to Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

Source: La Prensa

U.S. Prevents Spanish Bank from Offering Services to Cuba

Madrid, Sep 10 (Prensa Latina) The economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the U.S. on Cuba over 54 years ago, prevented Spanish Banco Santander from offering services to representatives of the Caribbean island in this country, trascended here today.

A press release of Havana's embassy in Madrid revealed the system of sanctions of Washington prevented the Santander from having sales outlets at the Cuban General Consulates in the cities of Barcelona, Sevilla and Santiago de Compostela.

'It is disappointing that three Cuban consulates have been banned from receiving services from a Spanish entity to improve attention to their users', lamented the Cuban ambassador to Spain, Eugenio Martinez.

The diplomat attributed those restrictions to 'obscure and unjustified unilateral decisions of the U.S. that affect negatively the Cubans and third countries'.

Read more: http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id=3556&SEO=u.s.-prevents-spanish-bank-from-offering-services-to-cuba

[elleng]

1. 'obscure and unjustified unilateral decisions of the U.S.

that affect negatively the Cubans and third countries'.

[Mika]

2. Most US sanctions against Cuba are extraterritorial- against entities trading w/Cuba.

The goal of the US sanctions was to 1)- cripple the Cuban economy 2)-impoverish Cubans so that they would 3)- rebel against their gov't.
Mission accomplished on points one and two. Nada on three.

[cstanleytech]

5. Which is hardly surprising since to rebel they would have needed things like weapons

as well as the training in their use but since it is an island getting those things was a significant obstacle.

[ret5hd]

7. hmmmm...Castro seemed to pull it off.

Just saying'.

[cstanleytech]

10. Ya but Castro had access to weapons

back then but the Cuban as a whole have had almost access to weapons to engineer any coup assuming the majority of them ever wanted to which I doubt since Castro did remain in power.

[Mika]

13. Cuba has one of the largest civil militias per capita of any western nation.

They do annual training and exercises. Members keep their guns at home.

Decades of information blackout & US agit-propaganda here have created many false narratives about Cuba ... such as yours.

[ret5hd]

14. Man...Care to repost that in English?

Or using a syntactical structure that I can decipher?

[Joe Chi Minh]

23. Could you be more specific ? I can't see any

error in his syntax. It's a very lucid post.

[ret5hd]

24. Maybe you could explain it to me.

[Joe Chi Minh]

25. Actually, I mistook another post for this one that

you are referring to. However, I think the import of the post is clear enough. Here is my reading of it - under the original post :

'Ya but Castro had access to weapons back then but the Cuban as a whole have had almost access to weapons to engineer any coup assuming the majority of them ever wanted to which I doubt since Castro did remain in power.'

Castro was able to procure weapons back then, but most Cubans would have been able to get hold of weapons to lend force to a 'coup', had they so wished - which is doubtful since Castro remained in power.'

However the point is best made by Mika's post #13, immediately below it, pointing out that Castro's Cuba had a very well-armed civil militia.

[ret5hd]

26. Thank you. That makes sense and I agree.

[ronnie624]

9. Not surprising in the least

that civilians were targeted by the US, and deprived of the necessities of life for purely self-serving ideological reasons. It's a standard MO of US foreign policy.

[cstanleytech]

11. Not disagreeing and I think it was a bad move by the US government to use a stick

rather than a carrot which is what the US should have done.
Hopefully though things will change and the US and Cuba will both try to work together and be good neighbors.

[ronnie624]

15. A carrot for what?

To entice Cubans to submit to further exploitation by US capitalists? It probably would not have worked. Coercion and force is usually required to relieve other nations of their sovereignty.

[cstanleytech]

16. A carrot to entice the Cuban government to gradually allow the Cuban people more freedom and

more say over their own government.
The Cuban government appears to be moving in that direction now however but if the US had not had a stick up its ass maybe it would have happened sooner but all it accomplished with the embargo was to push Cuba further away.

[ronnie624]

19. The US dominated global system

has never demonstrated a concern for human rights or a concern for the will of people. It has imposed and supported dictatorships all over the place. The sanctions against Cuba have always been for the purpose of imposing economic ideology.

[geretogo]

21. Right on .

[burrowowl]

3. U$A business as usual

[Deuce]

4. Disturbing...

[FLPanhandle]

6. There is nothing to stop Spanish firms from operating in Cuba

In fact most European countries operate and trade with Cuba.

This example stopped a Spanish bank from using a US company for credit card transactions in Cuba. The bank is free to use any non-US company.

Silly article that reads more like Cuban government propaganda....no surprise, it is a from a Cuban government official.

[carla]

8. Sorry, FLP, but

the sanctions ALSO prevent third parties from offering the services sought by the Cubans. Third party transactions that help Cuba are under sanction. You should know this, considering the authority with which you write. Perhaps a bit of research would be in order...

[Mika]

12. The sanctions mean that entities that do biz in/with US entities cannot do biz in/w Cuba

That is the extraterritorial nature of the US's sanctions on Cuba.

[cstanleytech]

17. I am willing to bet though that atleast some companies simply used 3rd parties that they owned

to still do business inside Cuba regardless of what the US law said.

[Mika]

18. Maybe. But, it's the reason that Aspirin isn't available to the Cuban health system.

There are private resellers who purchase Aspirin and resell it at tourist hotel shops at a high price.

Bayer cannot sell Aspirin in the USA if Bayer sold it directly in Cuba.
Ignorance of all of this makes it very easy for the Cubaphobes to mewl that the Cuban gov't is so inept that they don't even have Aspirin... Ignoramuses agree.

[geretogo]

20. As long as Fascist America can suppress Cuba and destroy its economy for 60 years it can boast

to the world how horrible socialism is like they are doing to us here by privatizing every thing under the sun
creating very rich and very poor and then blame it on too much socialism . Castro was too smart to fall for
for our tyranny .