The dismissed case, one of the first filed based on the infamous Helms-Burton Act, was initiated by Javier Garcia Bengochea last year in the South Florida U.S. District Court and sought compensation on the grounds that the plaintiff had commercial property rights to waterfront property used by Carnival since 2016, in the port of Santiago de Cuba, according to The Wall Street Journal.

“The decision could portend difficulties for plaintiffs seeking to use the provision,” the Journal noted. Other U.S. judges have dismissed similar legal challenges against MSC Cruises S.A. and Norwegian Cruise, which cited Title III of the Helms-Burton, an extraterritorial law that impacts not only Cuba, but the U.S. people and third parties, as well.

The announcement by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, and the Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security, to eliminate, as of June 5, 2019, all general licenses for “people to people” group educational trips and deny licenses to non-commercial aircraft – as well as passenger and recreational vessels, including cruise ships – severely impacted the number of visitors to Cuba, deliberately causing severe economic damage to the country.

The move has affected not only the tourism industry, but also individual lodging providers and the self-employed in our nation.

The prohibitions additionally limit the right of U.S. citizens to travel and those of many sectors interested in doing business on the island. In fact, companies such as Carnival, Norwegian Cruise and Royal Caribbean lowered their economic growth projections in 2019 following the decision made by the Trump administration to further restrict travel to Cuba.

The genocidal White House policy toward our nation has not been eased, even under the extreme conditions created by the pandemic. “During these months of COVID-19, more than a dozen extreme sanctions have been imposed against trade, banking transactions and donations of necessary medical equipment and supplies,” noted Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez recently, on Twitter.

(Source: Granma)

-To consider null any complaint covered in it, regardless of the citizenship of the filing it.

-To reaffirm the disposition of the government of the Republic of Cuba, expressed in the laws of nationalization, concerning a fair compensation of the expropriated properties to natural or legal persons who held US citizenship at that time.

- That these compensations for the properties nationalized to the United States can be settled as part of a negotiating process between the US. and Cuban governments.- Compensation claims must be examined alongside with the compensation to which the Cuban State and people are entitled, due to the damages caused by the blockade and the aggressions of all kinds, whose responsibility is entitled to the US Government.- Any person, natural or legal from US. who uses the procedures established in the Helms-Burton Act, accepts its terms or tries to use them to the detriment of others is excluded of these future and possible negotiations.It is appropriate to notice that the Helms-Burton Act recognizes the right to establish claims, under the protection of its courts, to persons who at the time of nationalization were not US citizens. and acquired this condition afterwards. Another aspect to highlight is Section 6 of Article 302 where it clearly states that “no US court. will invoke “The Act of State Doctrine ” to refrain from making a determination on the substance of an undertaken action … “We wonder where the independence of the judicial power of that country has gone. Is it not evident that we are witnessing a flagrant interference of the legislative power in the areas of competence of the judiciary at the expense of its independence of action, and that all this constitutes, undoubtedly, a violation of the constitutional order of that State, the very essence of its institutional system, the separation of powers and the so-called checks and balances based on the idea that it is not enough to separate powers and guarantee their independence, they should be given the means to defend their own powers from intrusions of another one?BLINDED BY THE THIRST FOR DESTRUCTIONIt is appropriate to quote now James Madison, considered one of the Founding Fathers of the United States and its Constitution, when he said:”To what expedient will we then resort to keep in practice the necessary division of powers among the different departments, as established by the Constitution? The only answer that can be given is that since all precautions of an external nature have been inadequate, the defect must be replaced when designing the internal structure of the government, in such a way that its different constituent parts can be, by their mutual relations, the means of keeping each other in their place.”Even, the Helms-Burton Act goes against judicial precedents established by US courts, which, according to its legal system, establish the action for the solution of the conflicts brought to them.The Act of State Doctrine is the precedent of justice in the United States today, and for the first time was applied in the case Underhill vs. Hernández in 1946, when he said:”Every sovereign State is bound to respect other sovereign States each other’s independence, and the courts of a country cannot meet in session to judge the acts of another country’s government carried out within its own territory. The reparation of grievances by reason of these acts must be obtained using the means that sovereign powers may use in their relations with each other “.On March 23, 1964, the Supreme Court of the United States, upon hearing of the Sabbatino vs. Banco Nacional de Cuba, established:”In spite of how burdensome it may be to the public norm of this country and to the member states, we conclude that an expropriation of this nature is best served at the national interest as well as at the progress towards the goal of International Law governing among nations, keeping intact the Act of Sovereign Power Doctrine so that in this case its application reigns.”

Not even the legal system of said nation respects the Helms-Burton Act, its authors blinded by their desire to destroy the Cuban Revolution, by their interest in bending and submitting a people whose dignity and courage, is recognized within the community of nations, which has helped to confront them, and resist aggressions, in defense of its freedom, their independence and its sovereignty.

AGAINST THE INTERNATIONAL ORDERThe transgression of the international legal order by the United States government is manifested, among others, in their position on the Cuban government’s nationalizations, which goes against Resolutions 2625 (XXV) and 1803 of the United Nations. The latter notes that:”Nationalization, expropriation or requisition, must be based on reasons of public utility, security or national interest, which are recognized as superior to the mere private or particular interest, both national and foreign. In these cases, the corresponding compensation will be paid to the owner in accordance with the rules in force in the State that adopts these measures in the exercise of its sovereignty and in accordance with International Law, he adds. In any case where the question of compensation gives rise to a dispute, the national jurisdiction of the State that takes such measures must be exhausted.”
“However; by agreement between sovereign States and other interested parties, litigation may be settled by arbitration or international judicial settlement.” On the other hand, its claim to limit the process of investment of foreign capital is another violation of the international law, as this process is recognized as a vehicle for the development of peoples, as formulated in instruments of both the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. For these reasons, we cannot understand each other. The permanent denunciation by all honest and goodwill people facing this unbalanced and illegal act, the call for sanity, respect for the legal order of States and the international community, imposes at this time when firmness, unity and loyalty of our people shall prevail.

(Granma)

The Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Cuba condemns in the strongest terms the measures announced by the United States Government on 4 June 2019, further tightening the economic blockade imposed on Cuba for over 60 years, at a cost for the Cuban economy which amounted to over 134 billion dollars in 2018 at current prices, and to the figure of 933 billion dollars, taking into account the devaluation of the US dollar vis-à-vis the price of gold in the world market.

According to what has been learned, this new escalation, effective as of 5 June, further strengthens the hard restrictions already imposed on US citizens to travel to Cuba, includes an absolute ban on any vessels from the United States and immediately prohibits cruise ships from visiting our country.

The intent continues to be to extract political concessions from the Cuban nation through suffocation of the economy and hurting the population. In this particular case, these measures are also aimed at preventing the American people from knowing the Cuban reality thus bringing down the effects of the slanderous propaganda that is fabricated on a daily basis against our country.

Such actions disregard the majority view of Americans, whose interest to know Cuba and exercise their right to travel was proved by the 650 thousand US travelers who came in 2018, together with half a million Cubans residing in the United States.

Last 17 April, National Security Advisor John Bolton, at an anti-Cuban show attended by the mercenaries defeated in Bay of Pigs and family members of the henchmen of the Fulgencio Batista tyranny, announced that his government would restrict non-family travel to Cuba. This individual is known for having taken over the US foreign policy towards the Western Hemisphere, which constitutes the main threat to peace and stability of the whole region.

The United States supports the Monroe Doctrine openly, with which it tries to deny the sovereign equality and the right to self-determination of every nation of the hemisphere.
The recent attacks against Cuba are grounded on new pretexts. The best-known excuse is the defamatory accusation of Cuba’s military interference in Venezuela. This lie has been publicly and repeatedly rejected by the Cuban government.

They have even gone to the unscrupulous point of proposing Cuba to betray its convictions and the principles that have sustained the foreign policy of the Cuban Revolution, in return for promises of negotiation or relief from the draconian and criminal measures making up the economic blockade.

The solidarity of Cuba with constitutional President Nicolás Maduro Moros, the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution and the civic and military union of its people, is non-negotiable. The more than 20 thousand Cuban cooperation workers who, on a voluntary basis and selflessly, are providing social services in that country, most of them in the field of health, will remain there cooperating with that sister nation as long as they are welcome by the Venezuelan people.

For Cubans, betrayal is not an option. We are not naïve. It’s already been 150 years of hard struggle for our independence, having to face from the outset the hegemonistic ambitions of the US imperialism.

Cuba will not let itself be frightened or distracted from the essential and urgent tasks for the development of our economy and the construction of socialism. Closely united, we shall be able to face the most challenging adversities. They cannot suffocate us, nor can they stop us.

Havana, 5 June 2019

(Cubaminrex)

When dictator Fulgencio Batista decided to flee Cuba, a large number of his cronies joined the expedition. Some 25 suitcases accompanied him onto the aircraft and he pressed a bulging briefcase to his chest. The briefcase contained dollars and Batista, who trusted no one, feared losing them. He was well acquainted with his traveling companions, the many outrages they had committed and the shady operations they ran.

The money had been given to him by his closest relatives, like Andrés Domingo and Morales del Castillo, Presidential secretary; José López Vilaboy and Manuel Pérez Benitoa, although the latter had been in New York since the end of December, when he took Batista’s children to the city, along with 43 million dollars that were deposited in the dictator’s account, although the story goes that he deposited 42 and kept a million himself.

Lopez Vilaboy couldn’t get a seat on the planes that took off with the dictator’s pals, obliging him to seek refuge in the Guatemalan embassy in Havana.

These days, with the United States government re-activating the Helms-Burton Act’s Title III, granting the right to file court claim to those who were not citizens of that country at the time of nationalizations, a character known as José Ramón López, who says he is the son of Cuban businessman José López Vilaboy, has asserted that, pre-1959, his father’s properties included the Rancho Boyeros airport, Cubana Airlines, the Colina Hotel, and other buildings.

Let us recall how the Cuban Ministry for the Recovery of Misappropriated Assets acted in these cases, as the body charged with processing nationalizations and confiscations, among other tasks.

In the case of Mr. José A. López Vilaboy, 27 charges were filed against him and his spouse, for illicit enrichment, along with 15 other persons who served as front men for his companies and businesses.

To mask and “legalize” fraudulent financial operations, his clan of henchmen had the support of the firm Pérez Benitoa, Lamar, and Otero, with its battery of lawyers ready to facilitate illegalities. The three partners were related by conjugal ties with the Batista family, and other politicians tied to the dictatorship.

In terms of Cubana de Aviación, in his book Las Empresas de Cuba, 1958, Guillermo Jiménez Soler refers to a “passenger and cargo aviation company, valued at 22 million, with 796 workers and offices at 23 and O Streets, Vedado, Havana.” It was based on Cuban capital, both private and state, with the Economic and Social Development Bank (Bandes)as its principal owner. Among prominent shareholders was Fulgencio Batista.

Via murky financial schemes, another portion of the shares were owned by entities controlled by Batista’s henchmen, and others close to the regime, while the Air Federation trade union also held stock.

“The Bandes had become the owner at the end of 1958 by converting into shares loans granted for the company’s rehabilitation, amounting to 11 million, which, as of 1955, included the participation of (another bank) Banfaic, later replaced as lender and shareholder,” according to the aforementioned book.

More than two thirds of the company’s private capital belonged to

Fulgencio Batista through the Rocar real estate corporation, registered as property of Andrés Domingo Morales del Castillo and Manuel Pérez Benitoa. Batista had been gradually transferring his shares to José López Vilaboy, the second largest shareholder, figurehead and manager of these financial maneuvers.

The private stock was distributed among 200,000 common shares, of which 68,021 were controlled by the Unión Inmobiliaria de Construcciones S.A. with Vilaboy at the head, and the rest were held by another 200 shareholders, including Luis G. Mendoza and Company, Jorge Barroso, Julio B. Forcade, and others. Its vice-presidents were José M. Casanova Soto, José M. Garrigó Artigas, both shareholders, and as secretary Dr. Antonio Pérez Benitoa Fernández, who had been married to Mirtha Batista Godínez, Batista’s daughter from his first marriage.

When the Ministry of Recovery of Misappropriated Assets’ team of officials, commercial experts, and auditors finished their work, it came to light that Mr. José López Vilaboy was not an enterprising businessman as he appeared, but a skillful figurehead in the service of President Fulgencio Batista. Thus, on February 3, 1960, the newspaper Revolución published on its front page an article with the headline: “Properties of Vilaboy and his front men confiscated.” It was announced that Cubana de Aviación, the Rancho Boyeros airport, the Colina Hotel, and many other businesses would became state property.

The article specified that the Ministry of Recovery of Misappropriated Assets had confiscated all his properties, and Vilaboy was charged with 27 counts of illicit enrichment under the protection of public power, including cases involving his spouse, Carmen Bagur Peñalver – who also benefitted from illegal enrichment – as well as those of 15 people who appear as figureheads in his operations.

Among the additional assets confiscated from Vilaboy and other frontmen were 51% of the airport restaurant and half of the parking area there; the Mañana newspaper; the airport’s radio station; the Mañana subdivision; a lease for the Mañana tile factory; half of a tourism company in Cienfuegos which owned the valuable Hotel Jagua; and a residence, valued at more than 20,000 pesos, located at 1255 17th Street, in Vedado.

Another Vilaboy property confiscated was the Banco Hispano Cubano, which was placed under the control of the National Bank of Cuba.

The properties illegally acquired by Vilaboy were returned to the service of the people, under the management of the new state’s agencies: Cubana de Aviación, the airport and parking lot were handed over to the Ministry of Transportation; the newspaper Mañana was awarded to the Ministry of Communications; the subdivision and residence in Vedado, to the National Housing Institute; the Colina and Jagua hotels, and the airport restaurant went to the National Tourist Industry Institute (INIT); the match company to the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA); and the tile factory was handed over to the Ministry of Public Works.

All loans and mortgages owed 15 persons were cancelled, and it was clarified that the Ministry’s confiscation of the airport restaurant involved the 51% ownership held by Vilaboy, recognizing Elpidio Pizarro as the legitimate owner of the remaining portion.

Likewise, only half of the airport parking lot was confiscated, since two other individuals legally owned the remainder.

As for the Mañana subdivision, only pending monthly payments for homes sold were awarded to the state, without affecting those who had paid off their mortgages, who were given titles, if they had not yet received this document.

Precisely as proven, Vilaboy was involved in multiple businesses, becoming a real gangster. Batista lent him ten and a half million pesos, which would be paid with the money saved by “waived” taxes and, for the airport business, they tricked the former owner, making him believe that he would be moved him to another location by the dictator and his pal.

Thus the company was obliged to sell, for just over one million pesos, and to improve the site, a Bandes loan of more than four million was granted – yet to be repaid.

This is but one of the cases among hundreds processed by the Ministry for the Recovery of Misappropriated Assets, which are now the object of claims by those who, like their predecessors, have never thought of the Cuban people’s interests.

(Granma)

Strangely, the date was chosen by the current U.S. government to announce new aggressive measures against Cuba and to reinforce their implementation of the Monroe Doctrine.

The Revolutionary Government rejects, in the strongest terms possible, the decision to now allow action to be taken in U.S. courts against Cuban and foreign entities, and to aggravate impediments to entering the United States faced by leaders and families of companies that legitimately invest in Cuba, in properties that were nationalized. These are actions established in the Helms-Burton Ac,t which was denounced long ago by the international community, and which the Cuban nation has repudiated since its promulgation and implementation in 1996, with the fundamental goal of imposing colonial tutelage on our country.

We repudiate, as well, the decision to reinstate limits on remittances that Cuban residents in the U.S. send to their families and friends, to further restrict travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba, and impose additional financial sanctions.
We strongly denounce references that attacks against U.S. diplomats have occurred in Cuba.

They attempt to justify their actions, as is customary, with lies and coercion.
Army General Raúl Castro stated this past April 10: “Cuba is blamed for all evils, using lies in the worst style of Hitler’s propaganda.”
The U.S. government resorts to slander, to cover up and justify the obvious failure of its sinister coup maneuver, designating in Washington an impostor “President” for Venezuela,

They accuse Cuba of being responsible for the strength and determination shown by the Bolivarian Chavista government, the country’s people, and the civic-military union defending their nation’s sovereignty. They lie shamelessly, alleging that Cuba has thousands of military and security troops in Venezuela, wielding influence, and determining what happens in this sister country.

They have the cynicism to blame Cuba for the economic and social situation Venezuela is facing after years of brutal economic sanctions, conceived and implemented by the United States and their allies, precisely to economically asphyxiate the country and cause suffering within the population.

Washington goes so far as to pressure governments in other countries to attempt to persuade Cuba to withdraw this unlikely supposed military and security aid, and even to stop lending support and solidarity to Venezuela.

The current U.S. government is well-known, within the country itself and internationally, for its unscrupulous use of lies as a tool in domestic and foreign policy. This is an old habit among imperialism’s practices.

The images are still fresh of President George W. Bush, with the support of current National Security John Bolton, indecently lying about supposed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a lie that served as the pretext to invade this Middle Eastern country.

Recorded in history, as well, are the bombing of the Maine anchored in Havana, and the self-inflicted Gulf of Tonkin incident, episodes that served as pretexts to unleash brutal wars in Cuba and Vietnam.

We cannot forget that the United States used fake insignia painted on the planes that carried out bombings here as a prelude to the Playa Girón invasion, to hide the fact that they were U.S. aircraft.

It should be clear that the U.S. slanders are based on an absolute, deliberate lie. Their intelligence agencies have more than enough evidence, surely more than any other state, to know that Cuba has no troops in Venezuela, and does not participate in military or security operations, even though it is the sovereign right of independent countries to determine how they cooperate in the area of defense, which is not a U.S. prerogative to question.

Those making this accusation have more than 250,000 soldiers and 800 military bases abroad, some of them in our hemisphere.

This government also knows, as Cuba has repeatedly stated publicly, that the more than 20,000 Cuban collaborators, more than 60% women, are undertaking in this South American country the same work currently being done by another 11,000 professionals from our country in 83 nations; contributing to the provision of social basic services, fundamentally in healthcare, which has been recognized by the international community.

It should also be absolutely clear that our firm solidarity with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is Cuba’s right as a sovereign state, and also a duty that is part of our tradition and among the irrevocable principles of the Cuban Revolution’s foreign policy.

No threat of reprisal against Cuba, no ultimatum or pressure on the part of the current U.S. government will dissuade the Cuban nation’s internationalist vocation, despite the devastating human and economic damage caused by the genocidal blockade to our people.

It is worth remembering that thuggish threats and ultimatums have been used in the past, when Cuba’s internationalists supported liberation movements in Africa, while the United States supported the opprobrious apartheid regime. Cuba was expected to renounce its solidarity commitments with the peoples of Africa in exchange for a promise of forgiveness, as if the Revolution needed to be pardoned by imperialism.
At that time, Cuba rejected the pressure, as we reject it today, with the greatest disdain.
Army General Raúl Castro recalled this past April 10, “Over 60 years, facing aggression and threats, Cubans have shown the iron will to resist and overcome the most difficult circumstances. Despite its immense power, imperialism does not possess the capacity to break the dignity of a united people, proud of its history and of the freedom conquered with so much sacrifice.”

The Cuban government calls on all members of the international community and U.S. citizens to put an end this irrational escalation and the hostile, aggressive policy of the Donald Trump government. Member states of the United Nations rightly demand, year after year almost unanimously, an end to this economic war. The peoples and governments of our region must ensure that the principles of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace prevail, for the benefit of all.

The President of the Councils of State and Ministers Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez declared this past April 13, “Cuba continues to have confidence in its strengths, its dignity, and also in the strength and dignity of other sovereign, independent nations. But Cuba also continues to believe in the people of the United States, the homeland of Lincoln, who are ashamed of those who act beyond the boundaries of universal law, in the name of the entire nation.”

Once again, Cuba repudiates the lies and the threats, and reiterates that its sovereignty, independence, and commitment to the cause of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean, are not negotiable.

Two days before the commemoration of the 58th anniversary of the victory at Playa Girón, a historic site within our national territory, where mercenary forces backed by imperialism bit the dust of defeat, the Cuban Revolution reiterates its resolute determination to confront the aggressive escalation of the United States, and prevail.

Havana, April 17, 2019.

The goal is the extermination of a nation. Let’s imagine two hypothetical scenarios, impossible for those of us who have confidence in our ability to resist and our people’s courage.

First: The imperialist enemy and its allies, making use of their military might, manage to occupy most of the country and establish a transitional government, after proclaiming the end of the Revolution.

Second: The division, deceit, and discouragement sown by the enemy, the betrayal, force us to “let the sword fall,” as in 1878, a Baraguá cannot be ruled out. A transitional government is established and U.S. troops occupy the country to guarantee the arrival of “humanitarian aid.” Would we then have “free and democratic” elections? No, the transitional government, handpicked by the occupation forces, cannot call elections until the United States Congress says so. So, after who knows how many years, the U.S. Congress approves elections. What about the economic, commercial, and financial blockade? Is it lifted when the end of the Revolution is proclaimed? No, that’s not the plan; it remains intact during the transition, to keep the pressure on.Well, continuing the hypothetical story, the transition is over, we have an acceptable, Yankee style president and government. Will the blockade be lifted? One might think so, but no, that’s not what the Helms-Burton stipulates.

The U.S. President or his proconsul must certify to Congress that all properties, nationalized or confiscated in accordance with revolutionary and international law, have been returned, or compensation paid, to their former U.S. owners, including Cubans who after 1959 became Cuban-Americans. The value of this “indemnity” or “compensation,” was estimated in 1997 by U.S. experts as approximately 100 billion dollars.

The renegotiation the Guantanamo Naval Base agreement is also contemplated, with no guarantee of its return. To pay for this compensation, the Cuban governments would be obliged to take out loans, perhaps from the IMF, which would mean interest payments and create an endless spiral of plunder. We would fall into the hands of holdout funds that buy distressed bonds, better known as vulture funds. Cuba would owe a practically unpayable debt.

How could a devastated, depleted country, impoverished by war and occupation, pay off such a debt, a country that would have lost a good part of its children of working and reproductive age? We would remain in the hands of gangsters willing to extract every last drop of our national wealth.

We are going to talk clearly, speak Cuban, as Fidel said: The thought and work of Cuban Communists will endure, Cuba will endure, “We Cubans are made of iron and can resist the most difficult trials.” We will rise, over and over again, generation after generation, to defend our freedom.