No cigar as banks cut off Cuba

[Judi Lynn]

June 28, 2008
No cigar as banks cut off Cuba
Joanna Blythman on US interference


IT SEEMS that our banks are doing the United States's dirty work these days. Lloyds TSB and Barclays have been telling British customers who have financial dealings with Cuba to take their business elsewhere. Why? Because they're scared. Not of the British government - which nominally encourages trade with Cuba and has a policy of positive engagement with the island - but of the US.

Blinded by rabid anti-socialist, anti-Castro sentiment, for 48 years the US has conducted a vendetta against this peaceful Caribbean island by imposing a crippling economic blockade, one that has wilfully impoverished the Cuban people and been roundly condemned for 16 years running by the UN General Assembly. In 2007, 184 countries, including the UK, voted against it - only four didn't. The whole world, apart from the US, its thuggish sidekick, Israel, and a couple of obscure statelets, believes this punitive blockade should be lifted.

Cuba appears on America's blacklist of state sponsors of terrorism, along with pariah states such as Sudan and North Korea. US legislation has long criminalised any company doing business with Cuba, and it is enforced with McCarthyite zeal - American business people have been fined and imprisoned. Even a director's fact-finding visit to the island could land a US company in trouble.

Unable to carry its anti-Cuba argument abroad, the US uses its economic muscle to get what it wants outwith its own borders. Thus any transnational company or its subsidiary with a presence in the US - even if not based there - can face swingeing penalties. Swiss banking giant, UBS, for instance, has had to pay the Federal Reserve a fine of $100 million for dealing with Havana.

More:
http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2369430.0.no_cigar_as_banks_cut_off_cuba.php

[Texano78704]

1. Shades of 9-11

September 11, 1973, that is.