United Nations – The UN General Assembly on Thursday called for an end tothe decades-old US embargo on Cuba, adopting a resolution by anoverwhelming majority and rejecting US moves to criticize Havana’s humanrights record.
It was the 27th time that the 193-nation assembly has issued the call tolift the embargo imposed in 1962.
The resolution presented by Cuba was adopted by a vote of 189 to 2 with noabstentions. The US and its ally Israel voted against while Ukraine andMoldova did not vote.
The United States failed to win support for eight amendments criticizingCuba’s human rights record. The US, Israel and Ukraine voted in favor ofthose amendments. The Marshall Islands joined them in one vote.
President Donald Trump’s administration points to Cuba’s repression ofpolitical opponents and curbs of freedom of expression as a reason formaintaining the economic embargo.
Taking the podium, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez slammed the Trumpadministration as a “government of millionaires that imposes cruelpolicies”, citing the US treatment of migrant children separated at theborder with Mexico and “locked in cages.”
“The US government does not have the least moral authority for criticizingCuba or anyone else with regards to human rights,” said the foreignminister.
Rodriguez argued that the embargo was a “flagrant, massive and systematicviolation” of human rights in Cuba, notably by denying access toUS-produced medicines and medical technology.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley dismissed the vote on the US embargo, which hasbeen an annual exercise since 1992, as a “waste of everyone’s time” becauseit did not address Cuba’s human rights situation.
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“It’s one more time that countries feel they can poke the United States inthe eye,” Haley said of the vote.
“But you’re not hurting the US when you do this. You are literally hurtingthe Cuban people by telling the regime that their treatment of their peopleis acceptable.”
Last year, the resolution calling for an end to the embargo was adopted bya vote of 191 to 2. The United States and Israel were the only twocountries that voted “no”.
That vote took place after Washington for the first time abstained in thevote in 2016 as former president Barack Obama pursued a thaw in relationswith Havana.
Ties between Cuba and the US have been in decline under Trump, who hasrejected the previous administration’s moves to improve ties with Havana.
The resolution is non-binding but carries political weight. – APP/AFP
