Feature: U.S. embargo tramples on Cubans' human rights, trade opportunities

HAVANA, May 27 (Xinhua) -- Maria Antonia Martinez, a 72-year-old Cuban troubled by diabetes and high blood pressure, has been struggling to obtain necessary medications due to restrictions imposed by U.S. economic sanctions.

"The U.S. government violates the human rights of Cubans," said Martinez, who was a secondary school teacher for over 40 years.

"For many senior citizens, medicines are essential to improving our quality of life and living longer," said Martinez, voicing frustration at how the economic sanctions restrict the Cuban pharmaceutical industry's access to crucial resources.

Martinez is one of the millions of Cubans who continue to suffer from the six-decade U.S. trade embargo against the Caribbean nation.

Reinerio Villegas, 56, operates a small farm in the Havana district of Arroyo Naranjo together with his wife and sons. He expressed his desire for the end of the blockade and the restoration of normal commercial activities with the United States.

If the United States were to lift the embargo, struggling Cuban farmers could export various crops to the nearby U.S. market, he told Xinhua.

"The United States is just 90 miles (nearly 145 km) away from Cuba," said Villegas. "I have no doubt we could find new business opportunities if they ended this inhumane blockade."

According to Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, the U.S. embargo has cost the island's economy more than 150 billion U.S. dollars.

"The (U.S.) blockade causes humanitarian harm, suffering, hardships, and anguish not only because it is a violation of international and humanitarian law, but because it is an act of war in peacetime," he said.

Havana resident Yeny Dominguez, who works in the travel industry, said the embargo clearly hampers tourism from the United States, which would otherwise be a natural source of visitors for the island given its proximity.

"The U.S. government strives to keep U.S. citizens from visiting this beautiful country," she said, adding "we will not surrender anyway, despite the U.S. blockade."