In a statement sent to Prensa Latina, its president, Argentine union leader Julio Fuentes, stated that this action “further deepens the systematic blockade that has been in place for decades by cutting off fuel supplies and thus greatly increasing the hardships of the Cuban people.”

In the statement of condemnation, Fuentes specified that “this recent energy strangulation is not an isolated event: it is another link in a chain of imperialist aggressions that extends for more than sixty years.”

“The CLATE denounces the policy of extortion and interference by the United States against sovereign and independent countries in our region. It is yet another attack on international law, self-determination, and regional peace,” he emphasized.

And it adds: “As public sector labor organizations in Latin America and the Caribbean, we demand the lifting of the criminal blockade and the cessation of pressure and sanctions against countries that wish to maintain commercial, economic, and diplomatic ties with the island.

“Defending Cuba is defending our own continental sovereignty,” it asserts. CLATE, in turn, calls on labor, social, and political organizations in the region to express their condemnation and to coordinate actions of active solidarity with Cuba in each of our countries.

jdt/oda/mh