Havana - In addition to the direct damages to the Cuban economy, the U.S.-imposed blockade on Cuba for almost 60 years has lacerated the development of sport and culture in the Caribbean nation.
For Cuban authorities and the people, the full access to those expressions of the human activity has been a social achievement that contributes to raising the quality of life and it is necessary to maintain.
However, as a result of the U.S. blockade, the National Institute of Sports, Physical Education and Recreation (INDER) cannot acquire in the United States some implements of several brands necessary for the practice of sports, such as baseball (our national sport), softball and archery, among others.
According to INDER, those articles are mandatory as stipulated in the official regulations of many international federations.
The inability to have access to those implements in the U.S. market has forced Cuba to import them from distant places, raising its price from 20 to 30 percent of the real value.
The blockade has also hindered the work of the Cuban doping laboratory. Retention cases of samples in the United States belonging to athletes from other countries whose sports authorities resorted to the services of the island's institution, which is a reference center in Latin America, have been recorded.
For its part, the U.S. blockade has hindered the fulfillment of the purpose of the Cuban Revolution to disseminate and promote culture, an indispensable element for education and development.
The blockade has caused losses in that sector exceeding $29,483,000 million USD from April 2015 to the same month in 2016, according to a report on the damage from that U.S. unilateral measure that will be voted on at the UN General Assembly on October 26.
According to the text, if that hostile policy does not exist, the U.S. market could be the main source of supply of a wide range of raw materials, materials, tools and equipment used by Cuban artists, artisans and designers. Instead, such products should be purchased elsewhere at higher prices up to 40 percent.
Those damages range from obstacles to the acquisition of musical instruments for Cuban conservatories and schools to the impossibility of buying materials and several inputs for the restoration of piece of work or places considered as national heritage or, even, a World Heritage Site.
