6 Latin nations support Moscow over U.S. sanctions
Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia are siding with Russia in its complaint that U.S. economic sanctions against Moscow over the downing of a Malaysian airliner violate the charter of the World Trade Organization.
At a meeting of the WTO General Council in Geneva, Switzerland, on Thursday (July 24), representatives of the six Latin American countries expressed support for Moscow’s position, according to the Reuters and RIA-Novosti news agencies. Zimbabwe joined them.
On July 16, Washington imposed sanctions that bar several Russian banks, energy and defense companies from obtaining loans in U.S. dollars. The Russian Foreign Ministry declared those sanctions illegal and contrary to WTO rules.
Some of the Russian companies targeted are the oil giant Rosneft, natural gas producer Novatek, the Rostec holding company, and the banks Gazprombank and Vneshekonombank.
Rosneft has signed agreements with Cuba regarding offshore oil exploration. Vneshekonombank, or Bank of Foreign Economic Activity, is the institution that’s handling Russia’s investments in the Cuban economy. (For background in Progreso Weekly, click here and here and here.)
In effect, Washington holds Moscow responsible for the downing over Ukraine on July 17 of a Malaysia Airlines plane, in which 298 people died. Moscow, in turn, blames the Ukrainian government.
The plane went down over an area of eastern Ukraine that is held by Russian-backed separatists.
In a commentary published in the Cuban media on July 18, Fidel Castro blamed Ukraine for the shoot-down and expressed his “repudiation for the action of such an anti-Russian, anti-Ukrainian and pro-imperialist government.”
Speaking in Geneva on Thursday, the Russian delegate to the WTO, Gennadiy Ovechko, said that “we consider all these destructive actions by the U.S. as interference with business operations of the companies which the U.S. authorities are trying to situate in the political context, which they neither belong to nor are in any way part of.”
The Cuban delegate to the WTO is Anayansi Rodríguez Camejo.
