By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC TIMES 

Since 1962, the United States has maintained a crippling economic embargo on Cuba. The UN General Assembly on Thursday called for an end to the decades-old US blockade on Cuba. The UN voted overwhelmingly 189-2 in favor of ending the embargo. The US and its ally Israel voted against while Ukraine and Moldova did not vote. This was the 27th time that the 193-nation assembly has issued the call to lift the embargo imposed. The vote has been made every year since 1992.  Before the vote,  the United States put on the table eight amendments criticizing Cuba’s human rights record. The amendments also failed, with only the US, Israel and Ukraine voted in favor of them. The UN vote to end the embargo is mostly symbolic, as it is not enforceable. The General Assembly does not have the power to end the embargo, only the U.S. Congress does. Cuba uses the annual favorable UN vote as a PR campaign against the U.S. to expose its isolation on the issue. 

“Incalculable human damage has been caused by the blockade, which is qualified as an act of genocide. It is also a violation of International Humanitarian Law, if it were a conflict.” 

Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley dismissed the vote on the US embargo, as a “waste of everyone’s time” because it did not address Cuba’s human rights situation.  “There are no winners here today. There are only losers. The United Nations has lost,” said Haley.  “Most of all the Cuban people have lost and are left once again to the brutal whims of the Castro dictatorship.”