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u s embargo of cuba
US and Israel Only 'No' Votes as UN Members Demand End to 61-Year Cuba Embargo
It was the 31st straight year that the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly condemned the crippling U.S. blockade on the socialist nation.
Nov 02, 2023
As they have done every year since 1992, United Nations member states voted near-unanimously on Thursday to demand an end to the U.S. economic blockade on Cuba.
By a vote of 187-2 with one abstention, the U.N. General Assembly approved a Cuban draft resolution affirming the "necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial, embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba."
The U.S. and Israel cast the only votes against the resolution, while Ukraine abstained.
Speaking at U.N. headquarters in New York, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla called the embargo an "illegal, cruel, and inhumane policy" and "an act of economic warfare in times of peace."
"Cuba is prevented from buying from U.S. companies and its subsidiaries in third countries, equipment, technologies, medical devices, and end-use pharmaceuticals, and is therefore forced to acquire them at exorbitant prices by way of intermediaries or to replace them with less-effective generic drugs," Rodríguez said, providing one example of how the blockade harms the Cuban people.
Nevertheless, Rodríguez vowed that Cuba would "continue to build bridges with the people of the U.S."
That includes by paying for economically disadvantaged medical students to study in Cuba, provided they serve underprivileged communities when they return home.
Rodríguez also expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are enduring what numerous experts have called a "genocidal" assault by Israeli forces in which more than 9,000 people—including over 3,700 children—have been killed.
U.S. Deputy Ambassador Paul Folmsbee insisted that his country "stands resolutely" with the people of Cuba.
"We strongly support their pursuit of a future with respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms," he added.
Representatives of the world's nations voiced a chorus of condemnation of the U.S. blockade.
Peruvian U.N. Ambassador Luis Ugarelli said his country "shares the view of practically the entire international community" that the embargo is illegal and violates the principles of the U.N. Charter.
Noting Cuba's successful development of multiple Covid-19 vaccines, Bolivian Ambassador Diego Pary said, "Just think how many lives could have been saved if Cuba had the freedom and the opportunity to share the vaccine successfully developed in Cuban laboratories."
Ambassador Aurélie Flore Koumba Pambo of Gabon asserted that the embargo is "clearly a hostile act to region and continental cohesion" whose "impact is more and more harmful to the Cuban people."
U.S. peace activists agreed, with women-led CodePink accusing President Joe Biden of "not only turning a deaf ear to the international community," but also "ignoring the democratic voice of his own people" as "over a hundred resolutions condemning the blockade have been passed across the U.S."
CodePink continued:
The U.S. embargo has a negative impact on all sectors of Cuba's economy and has unquestionably worsened the quality of life of Cubans by limiting their access to basic necessities, including medicines, food, and fuel. According to the Cuban government, from March 2022 to February 2023, the blockade caused an estimated $4.8 billion in losses to Cuba, representing more than $555,000 for each hour of the blockade. The inclusion of Cuba in the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism... exacerbates the impact of the economic embargo. This has led to a massive increase in the number of Cubans migrating to the United States in search of economic opportunities.
The blockade began during the administration of President John F. Kennedy, who according to close confidant and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., wanted to unleash "the terrors of the Earth" on Cuba following Fidel Castro's successful overthrow of a brutal U.S.-backed dictatorship.
Successive U.S. administrations subsequently supported a decadeslong campaign of exile terrorism against Cuba, which included failed assassination attempts, subversion efforts, economic warfare, and covert operations large and small in a fruitless policy of trying to overthrow Castro and reverse Cuba's revolution.
As Cuban officials relish in noting, a dozen U.S. administrations have come and gone since the revolution's triumph.
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Mexican President Urges US to Stop Fueling Migration With Sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela
"We're going to keep insisting on addressing the root causes of migration," said Andrés Manuel López Obrador. "Sanctions and blockades cannot be maintained."
Oct 03, 2023
Stressing the need for "addressing the root causes of migration," Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador on Monday blamed U.S. sanctions against countries including Cuba and Venezuela for driving the surge of migrants crossing his country to seek better lives in the United States.
Speaking at his daily press briefing, López Obrador said that 10,000 migrants per day make their way to Mexico's border with the United States. The president lamented the deaths of nine Cuban women and one girl who, after entering Mexico from Guatemala, were hiding in an overloaded cargo truck that crashed in the southern state of Chiapas on Sunday. Seventeen other migrants were injured in the crash.
López Obrador linked the migrants' deaths to the internationally condemned U.S. embargo of Cuba, which according to a 2018 report by a United Nations commission has cost the small island nation at least $130 billion over the past seven decades.
"That's why we're going to keep insisting on addressing the root causes of migration, the origins" he said. "Get to the core and stop politicking, think human rights over ideology. Sanctions and blockades cannot be maintained. We must help... the countries with the most poverty. There must be universal brotherhood."
López Obrador repeated his criticism of ongoing U.S. military aid to Ukraine in the face of so much poverty and suffering closer to home.
"How much have they destined to the war in Ukraine, $30 or $50 billion for the war, which is the most irrational thing there can be, and harmful," he said.
At last Friday's press briefing, López Obrador noted that the U.S. is spending "a lot more... for the war in Ukraine than what they give to help with poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean."
The president urged the U.S. "to remove blockades and stop harassing independent and free countries" and to implement "an integrated plan for cooperation so the Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans, and Ecuadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans wouldn't be forced to emigrate."
"Remove blockades and stop harassing independent and free countries."
López Obrador's remarks—which came as senior Biden administration officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and Attorney General Merrick Garland prepared to visit Mexicothis week—echo recent comments by Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
"The blockade against Venezuela has had a boomerang-type response, now hitting the very United States, which is the one who decided to impose the blockade. So, knocking at their door is the population that they drove into poverty," Petro—Colombia's first leftist president—toldDemocracy Now! on September 21.
"Many [Venezuelans] have left, and now what they want is to make it to the United States," he said. "How can one partially reduce the exodus? Well, lift the blockade against Venezuela."
"The scars of history, the invasions from before, the old imperialism, the old domination continue to weigh against humanity," Petro added. "That is why a government such as the Biden administration should... let the scars heal. They're not going to go away, but let them heal. End blockades and open up a plural dialogue, which I think would benefit all of us, both in North America and in South America."
Under U.S. pressure, Mexico has cracked down on migrants in an effort to stop refugees, asylum-seekers, and those looking for better economic conditions from reaching the countries' shared border. Checkpoints, discrimination, and alleged human rights crimes—including shootings with live ammunition and rapes—have increased in parts of Mexico, especially near its southern and northern borders.
Meanwhile, human rights defenders have documented continued "frequent and severe" abuse of migrants and some American citizens allegedly perpetrated by U.S. Department of Homeland Security personnel at the southern border.
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Mexican President Vows Global Push to End 'Inhumane' US Embargo of Cuba
One peace group praised AMLO for "once again providing such an important voice against U.S. imperialism and bullying."
Feb 13, 2023
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador vowed over the weekend to lead a worldwide movement to end the 61-year U.S. embargo of Cuba.
"We are going to continue demanding the removal, the elimination of the blockade against Cuba, which is inhumane," López Obrador, popularly known as AMLO, said Saturday in a speech attended by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
"Mexico will lead a more active movement so that all countries unite and defend the independence and sovereignty of Cuba."
"And not only when it comes to voting at the U.N., which is always won. Only one or two countries abstain or vote against" annual resolutions condemning the embargo, AMLO continued, referring to the U.S. and Israel. "The majority of the countries of the world are in favor of the elimination of the blockade, but the assembly passes and it's back to the same thing."
"Mexico will lead a more active movement so that all countries unite and defend the independence and sovereignty of Cuba," said AMLO, who denounced Washington's attempts to treat the Caribbean island "as a terrorist country or put them on a blacklist of alleged terrorists."
\u201cAMLO says that Mexico will lead a worldwide movement to end the U.S. blockade on Cuba.\u201d— Kawsachun News (@Kawsachun News) 1676218568
Anti-war activists from CodePink praised AMLO for "once again providing such an important voice against U.S. imperialism and bullying."
Last summer, the Mexican president boycotted the Summit of the Americas, held in Los Angeles, due to the White House's refusal to invite officials from Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela to the meeting.
"Together with friends in Mexico and around the world, we will unblock Cuba," CodePink tweeted Sunday.
Following Obama-era efforts at normalization, former U.S. President Donald Trump intensified Washington's crackdown on the small island nation, implementing more than 240 punitive policies even as Cubans endured acute shortages of food and medicine amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
One of the Trump administration's most "despicable" actions, according to critics, was its last-minute decision to put Cuba back on the State Department's list of "State Sponsors of Terrorism" (SSOT), a move that has derailed the provision of economic aid and loans made by international financial institutions.
Despite Democratic lawmakers' pleas and President Joe Biden's own campaign pledge to reverse his predecessor's "failed" approach to Cuba, the White House imposed additional economic sanctions against the island following anti-government protests in July 2021 and has so far refused to remove the country from the SSOT blacklist.
Last month, a group of 160 mostly U.S. lawyers implored Biden to "immediately initiate a review and notification process to remove Cuba from the SSOT list," writing that "there is no legal or moral justification" for the country to remain on it.
That letter from the Alliance for Cuba Engagement and Respect came a few months after more than 10,000 people and 100 progressive advocacy groups signed an open letter demanding, to no avail, that Biden reverse Trump's terrorism designation for Cuba and reinstate Obama-era policy toward the nation.
Meanwhile, Cuba has continued to send doctors to various parts of the world to help tackle Covid-19 and other diseases. In defiance of more than six decades of harmful U.S. sanctions, the biggest export of the island, which has a lower child mortality rate than its more powerful and hostile neighbor to the north, is medical care.
On Saturday, AMLO thanked Díaz-Canel for sending Cuban doctors to provide healthcare in remote areas of Mexico.
Díaz-Canel, for his part, also expressed gratitude during his visit to Mexico's southeastern port city of Campeche.
"I once again thank our brother nation for its solidarity with the Cuban people, who have faced tremendously difficult challenges in the last few years and months due to a combination of the blows of nature and the effects of the toughened blockade," said Díaz-Canel.
"I once again thank our brother nation for its solidarity with the Cuban people, who have faced tremendously difficult challenges in the last few years and months."
Last summer, a few weeks after 55 House Democrats joined their Republican counterparts to defeat Rep. Rashida Tlaib's (D-Mich.) legislative attempt to make it easier for an economically battered Cuba to import food grown by U.S. farmers, the island was further devastated by a catastrophic oil fire.
Despite the best efforts of a handful of progressive lawmakers who urged the Biden administration to do more, the U.S. limited its disaster response to phone consultations and refused to repeal sanctions even as they created barriers to delivering humanitarian aid. Mexico, by contrast, dispatched firefighting resources to help contain the blaze.
On Saturday, AMLO awarded Díaz-Canel the "Order of the Aztec Eagle," Mexico's highest honor for foreigners. Previous recipients include Gabriel García Márquez, a Colombian novelist and Nobel literature laureate, and Nelson Mandela, a South African anti-apartheid organizer and eventual president of his country.
In addition, AMLO and Díaz-Canel participated in bilateral talks to outline plans for further cooperation on matters of trade and healthcare.
“The U.S. government should lift, as soon as possible, the unjust and inhuman blockade of the Cuban people," AMLO said Saturday. "It's time for a new coexistence among all the countries of Latin America."
The Mexican president argued that U.S. policy toward Cuba "is completely worn out, anachronistic, it has no future or point, and it no longer benefits anyone."
"Its people and government are deeply humane," AMLO said of the island nation. "Long live the dignified people of Cuba!"
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