Castro slams Philips for helping US 'harm' Cuba, Venezuela

Castro slams Philips for helping US 'harm' Cuba, Venezuela
By Carlos Batista (AFP) – 14 hours ago

HAVANA — Cuban ex-president Fidel Castro on Monday slammed Dutch
multinational Philips as a "traitor" for not delivering spare parts for
medical equipment due to the US economic embargo on Cuba.

Castro, 83, and still head of the Cuban Communist Party, charged in an
editorial in official media that Philips' "backing down and betrayal of
Cuba and Venezuela" stemmed from US pressure under former president
George W. Bush, and has not changed much under President Barack Obama.

The United States and Cuba do not have full diplomatic relations.
Washington has had a full economic embargo on Cuba since 1962.

Oil-rich Venezuela is Cuba's key regional ally, and keeps Havana's
deeply strained central economy just barely afloat. Hundreds of Cuban
doctors in turn work in Venezuela's national health system.

While the United States has made enough loopholes in its own sanctions
to become a leading supplier of food to Cuba, most US industrial and
manufactured goods still cannot be sold directly to the Americas' lone
communist government.

Castro said that in 2006, at the request of Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez, Cuba bought from Philips and Germany's Siemens thousands of
pieces of advanced medical equipment for the two countries.

The retired Cuban leader, who left power that year after almost 50 years
at Cuba's helm, said Siemens "kept its promises."

But Philips, despite a purchase of 3,553 pieces of equipment worth 72.8
million dollars, did not deliver spare parts due to what Castro said it
called "brutal intransigence" on the part of unnamed US authorities.

Only in June did Philips deliver the needed spare parts, Castro said,
after it paid a 100,000-euro fine to the Obama government.

"No one has compensated Cubans, or Venezuelan patients under the care of
doctors, for the human suffering caused," Castro wrote.

However US law permits states to sell agricultural, medical and
information technology products on a cash basis to Cuba. Since 2000,
such sales have totaled more than three billion dollars. So Castro
charged the United States with violating the loophole it made in its own
sanctions.

Castro said Venezuela "is more threatened than ever" by "imperialism" --
usually Cuban shorthand for the United States, so the need for bilateral
cooperation was stronger than ever.

Just Thursday the US Treasury eased restrictions on travel and money
transfers to Cuba by Cuban-Americans five months after Obama announced
the measures in a bid to improve ties with the communist island.

The move also allows US telecommunications network providers to link to
Cuba with fiber-optic cables and satellite technology, permits US
wireless telephone providers to enter roaming service agreements with
Cuban firms, and allows US satellite broadcasts to the island.

When it first announced planned changes in April, the White House said
the move was intended to encourage expanding democratic and political
rights in Cuba.

AFP: Castro slams Philips for helping US 'harm' Cuba, Venezuela (8
September 2009)
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