Cuba warns against ‘law of the jungle’ as Foreign Minister denounces US pressure

Foreign Minister Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla of Cuba addresses the General Debate of the UN General Assembly’s 81st session.

Cuba’s Foreign Minister warned the UN General Assembly on Saturday that escalating military and economic pressure in Latin America and the Caribbean was threatening international law, while accusing the United States of intensifying a decades-long campaign to isolate and weaken his country.

Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla said the international system was witnessing an alarming rise in “expansionism, usurpation, plunder” and military and economic aggression, arguing that fundamental principles of the UN Charter , including the sovereign equality of States, were under sustained attack.

He called for the United Nations to be preserved and strengthened while becoming “more democratic and effective” and closer to the peoples it serves.

Much of the Foreign Minister’s address to the Assembly’s annual debate focused on Cuba’s longstanding confrontation with the United States, which he said had entered a more dangerous phase since January.

Mr. Rodríguez Parrilla accused Washington of imposing what he called an “energy blockade”, intimidating countries against exporting fuel to Cuba and placing new restrictions on goods and services destined for the island.

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