00:00And to go deep into this news, into this issue, we invite now law expert and political analyst Yvonne Tellez.
00:07Hello Yvonne, welcome to From the South, pleasure to greet you.
00:12Thank you Alejandra, happy to be here.
00:16Yvonne, violence against Cuba, including terrorism, has long been tolerated by Washington, however Cuba's response to it hasn't.
00:25In this context, how is that double standard being exposed once again after this indictment against Army General Raúl Castro
00:33and other military leaders of the island nation?
00:38Okay, well I think that one of these criticisms, the recurring criticisms in international relations is the perception of selective
00:51accountability.
00:53That is, some leaders are sanctioned and prosecuted, while others committing comparable acts or even segregate acts are treated differently
01:07depending on the geopolitical alignment.
01:09We can see that, for example, regarding Israel and regarding its current prime minister, just as an example.
01:17So, I think that international law derives legitimacy from the consistency.
01:24So, when the enforcement appears to be selective, then the accusations of double standard inevitably emerge.
01:34So, we have, for example, regarding Cuba, we have Guantanamo as examples.
01:39We have the post-9-11 experiences.
01:44And we have, for example, the inconsistent responses to human rights violations around the world.
01:51So, I think that in this case, we have to recognize that there is a possibility, or that's not a
01:58possibility, that double standards are being applied here.
02:01And that doesn't mean that we have to ignore, for example, I don't know, maybe democratic deficits or human rights
02:11concerns in certain states.
02:14I mean, both discussions can coexist.
02:17That doesn't mean that disregarding, for example, double standards doesn't mean that we're not taking into account human rights violations
02:25or other concerns.
02:26But this is something completely different, because what we're seeing here is this is just not a bilateral dispute between
02:36Cuba and the United States.
02:38I think we have to be very clear that there are broader questions about international legality, about sovereignty, about the
02:47selective accountability.
02:48And I think the future of the hemispheric relations, because we know that the United States, and that's President Trump,
02:59has intensified its pressure on Cuba through economic sanctions, renewed sanctions, political pressure, democratic pressure.
03:09And now, this charges against the former president, someone who's almost 100 years old, regarding something that, I don't know,
03:23happened a couple, I mean, almost 30 years, almost 30 years ago, almost, approximately.
03:34I think that to bring that into account right now, when it's something that has been long discussed between both
03:44countries, it just allows and paves the way for the discussion that selective accountability is being used here.
03:55And that is double standards, of course.
03:57And also, how does these actions, this escalation of hostilities against Cuba, fit into the wider strategy imposed by Washington
04:08and targeting governments of sovereign nations, and that also recessed the hegemony of the U.S.?
04:16And how can we connect as well these actions with the fact that the U.S. is just a few
04:22months away from the midterm elections?
04:26Okay, well, I think this is a correlation between those different facts, those different spaces, because this is, what we're
04:38seeing right now is most of, one of the most important escalations between the U.S. and Cuba relations in
04:45decades.
04:46Because what we're seeing here is we're just moving from a confrontation, a kind of a classic confrontation between sanctions
04:53and diplomacy into the realm of criminal prosecution against the former head of state.
05:00So this is politically and symbolically enormous.
05:04And, of course, this resembles previous strategies used by Washington in cases such as Venezuela, where those criminal indictments, I'm
05:16sorry, are intertwined with this geopolitical pressure and with regime change narratives.
05:23So I think there's one question that comes over here as well.
05:29Is this legal?
05:31One can say that the legality here is contested because, yes, the United States can invoke domestic criminal jurisdiction because
05:40the people here that died were U.S. citizens.
05:45But from an international law perspective, a broader strategy raises significant debates regarding the extraterritoriality, this accountability, this selective accountability,
06:02this coercive measures that are unilateral, of course, and the respect for the sovereign equality.
06:10If we use this and we relate to the upcoming U.S. elections and we know that there's a high
06:17possibility that Trump and his government may have very strong backlashes in these elections.
06:26So there's something that we can, I mean, it's completely difficult or impossible to separate the U.S. policy towards
06:35Cuba from these elections, upcoming elections and these dynamics, particularly in Florida, where we have the Cuban-American vote.
06:50And this remains very and highly politically influential and very important for Trump's government.
06:59So I think that Latin America, we have seen the region has historically observed Cuba and we have seen how
07:07Cuba and the Cuban policy often fluctuates according to the U.S. electoral initiatives.
07:14So I think the relationships between Cuba are not stable long-term relationships or strategies, but they tend to be
07:25more emotionally related to the vote of the Cuban-Americans and related to the running candidates.
07:35So I think that this is not something that we can take isolated because this has a very strong relationship,
07:44as I said before, and highlighting, for example, the Florida vote.
07:50And going back to an idea that you just mentioned, can the U.S.
07:56credibly position itself as a defender of international law while also maintaining, as you said, sanctions, unilateral and coercive measures
08:06on military aggressions as well against other nations?
08:09Is it possible?
08:11Well, no, I don't think that we are in the possibility of defending the U.S. towards its accountability to
08:24international law.
08:25Well, I think in a way, international law has become redefined by these foreign policy that the U.S. has
08:38been this is not new, but I think with under Mr.
08:43Trump's administration that the second administration has been redefined.
08:48And in this case, international law and the disputes that come along have been addressed through mechanisms consistent, not consistent
08:59with international law, with due process or with the respect to sovereign equality.
09:04So I think that if we see this under international law lens, we're going to see that sovereign equality of
09:13states is being contested.
09:15The principle of non-intervention is being contested.
09:17The limits of extraterritorial jurisdiction are being contested as well.
09:23The politicization of criminal justice, this is lawfare, is being contested.
09:29The selective enforcement and this, of course, the humanitarian consequence of these coercive measures.
09:37If we take all these elements, we're going to see that those are elements that belong to international law.
09:44And all of those, all of these are being contested by the U.S. behavior.
09:49So from a technical standpoint, we cannot defend or even understand or state that the United States has been respectful
10:01of international law.
10:03Definitely not.
10:05Thank you. Thank you very much, Yvonne, for your time here from the South and this critical moment for the
10:11Cuban people at this very moment.
10:13Thank you for the invitation as well.
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