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NEWS
Cuba blasts
Swiss banks for cutting off business
HAVANA, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Cuba's central bank blasted Swiss banks UBS
and Credit Suisse on Thursday for cutting off business dealings with
Cuba, saying they had bowed to U.S. pressure.
In a statement, the central bank said the United States' long-standing
economic embargo against the communist nation led to the banks'
"pitiful" decision.
"The actions of these two banks have nothing to do with respect of the
law or looking after their banking transactions. It is simply an act of
submission to the U.S., which they don't dare confess," the Cuban bank
said.
The Swiss banks said on Sunday in response to a published report they
had stopped doing business with "sensitive" countries," including Cuba,
citing the difficulties and expenses involved.
A UBS spokesman said other "sensitive countries" included North Korea,
Iran and Sudan.
The U.S. government under President George W. Bush has tightened its
four-decade-old Cuba embargo by imposing regulations on dollar
transactions that make it more difficult to do business there.
The embargo is aimed at undermining the government that, under Fidel
Castro, has run Cuba since a 1959 revolution.
The actions of the Swiss banks, the Cuban bank said, are "an irrefutable
example of how the U.S. imposes it laws outside its borders and decides
with whom institutions of other supposedly free and sovereign nations
can and cannot do business."
Despite the pullout of UBS and Credit Suisse, it said a growing number
of countries and organizations are refusing to follow "an empire whose
constant failures in recent weeks are just the tip of the iceberg of its
irreversible decline."
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