A/HRC/4/61 page 4 sector amounted to US$ 9.8 million for teaching and technical resources, US$ 2.3 million for maintenance of school buildings, and US$ 4.4 million for educational material. As to the transport sector, the Government estimated that damages amounted to US$ 174 million. The economic damages were mainly a consequence of being denied access to the markets of the United States and having to purchase materials and goods elsewhere at a higher cost. For example, the Government indicated that the blockade meant that Cuba was not able to purchase Braille machines for blind and partially sighted children from the United States, where they were available at a price of US$ 700, but instead had to purchase them from third countries at the higher price of US$ 1,000. 7. The Government indicated that the State Department of the United States had made unfounded references to human rights violations in Cuba, with the sole aim of fabricating a pretext to continue its policy of hostility and blockade and even an eventual military aggression against the Cuban people. It was inadmissible that the United States continued to adopt laws and measures to strengthen the embargo and worsen the living conditions of the Cuban people in defiance of the international community’s reiterated condemnation of unilateral coercive measures. 8. The Government invoked its sovereign right to denounce the harm that the embargo had caused to its people, to the people of the United States, to third countries and to international law, and indicated that it was now more important than ever for the international community to vigorously pronounce itself against such practices. Mexico [Original: Spanish] [21 December 2006] 1. In its response, the Government of Mexico indicated that it considers the application of unilateral coercive measures, and any attack on the self-determination of peoples, to be contrary to international law and international humanitarian law, and to affect negatively the full realization of human rights, including the right to development. 2. The Government indicated that it had not promulgated or applied laws extraterritorially or imposed unilateral coercive measures, through recourse to war and militarism, on any other nation or State. Equally, the Government had no observations to make about negative effects of unilateral coercive measures on its population. Trinidad and Tobago [Original: English] [8 December 2006] 1. In its response, the Government indicated that Trinidad and Tobago had not been subject to any unilateral coercive measures and that it did not support imposition of such measures. -----