Solely the US and Israel voted towards the thirtieth vote in 30 years by the UNGA to denounce America’s Cuba blockade
The United Nations Normal Meeting has overwhelmingly voted in favor of a decision condemning the US embargo on Cuba for the thirtieth yr in a row. Solely the US and Israel voted towards the measure on Thursday, whereas Ukraine and Brazil abstained.
Since 2019, the US has “escalated the siege round our nation, taking it to a good crueler and extra humane [sic] dimension, with the aim of intentionally inflicting the most important doable injury on Cuban households,” Cuban International Minister Bruno Rodriguez advised the assembled representatives.
The diplomat slammed US President Joe Biden for persevering with the “most strain” coverage of his predecessor Donald Trump relatively than resuming the development towards warming relations Barack Obama set in movement throughout his final yr in workplace.
Whereas acknowledging the Biden administration had made some extraordinarily restricted strikes to open up flights, remittances, and consular companies with Cuba, Rodriguez argued that “the blockade, which has been tightened to the intense, continues to be the central factor that defines the US-Cuba coverage.”
Since Biden has been in workplace, the embargo has value the Cuban economic system an estimated $6.35 billion, Rodriguez stated – a determine that interprets to greater than $15 million per day. Whereas he pressured he didn’t blame the US for all of Cuba’s issues, denying its affect as “the principle explanation for the deprivations, scarcities and hardships suffered by Cuban households can be failing to inform the reality,” he defined.
The US abstained from a vote condemning the embargo for the primary time in 2016, shortly after Obama restored official relations with the island. Nevertheless, Trump resumed earlier presidents’ efforts to isolate the socialist nation. Washington imposed the embargo in 1960 after Fidel Castro’s revolution overthrew the US-friendly Batista authorities and nationalized properties belonging to Americans.
Each the Trump and Biden administrations have held up “human rights” to justify a long time of financial strangulation, an argument Cuba’s deputy UN ambassador, Yuri Gala, dismissed as illogical.
“If the USA authorities actually did take care of the well-being, human rights and self-determination of the Cuban folks, it might carry the embargo,” he stated, including that Washington might carry the financial restrictions presently choking off financial alternatives for would-be capitalists.
As a substitute, Rodriguez argued, the US was weaponizing Large Tech and media “in a virulent disinformation and disparagement marketing campaign towards Cuba … utilizing our youngsters, youths and artists because the targets of this political and media bombardment.”
Washington imposed additional sanctions on Cuba final yr, condemning the police response to an outbreak of protests that started with outcry over meals and drug shortages and morphed – with the US’ assist, based on Havana – into violent anti-government demonstrations.
You possibly can share this story on social media:
Supply hyperlink
