UN General Assembly votes on the necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba. at UN world headquarters in New York, NY June 23, 2021. (UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)

By  Gary  Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

UNITED  NATIONS  –  NEW YORK –  The UN General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly called for an end to the decades-old US blockade on Cuba.  A total of 184 countries voted in favour of a resolution to demand the end of the US economic blockade on Cuba, for the 29th year in a row, with the United States and Israel voting against.  Since 1962, the United States has maintained a crippling economic embargo on Cuba.  In the meeting held in-person  at UN headquarters in New York, three countries – Colombia, Ukraine, and Brazil – abstained.   As expected, the US and its ally Israel voted against it again.  With overwhelming backing from the international community, the resolution has been approved ever since 1992 when the General Assembly began to vote annually on the issue, with the sole exception of 2020, due to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

U.S. Blockade Is ‘An Act of War’:    Cuban Foreign Minister

Credit: UN Photo /   Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Cuba, addresses the United Nations General Assembly during the vote to end the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, present during the vote in the General Assembly Hall, said that the blockade was a “massive, flagrant and unacceptable violation of the human rights of the Cuban people”. He added that the embargo is about “an economic war of extraterritorial scope against a small country already affected in the recent period by the economic crisis derived from the pandemic”.  Rodriguez estimated 2020 losses to be $9.1 million.

The diplomat said that the sanctions have made it harder for his country to acquire the medical equipment needed to develop COVID-19 vaccines as well as equipment for food production.

“Like the virus, the blockade asphyxiates and kills, it must stop”

-Cuba Foreign Minister 

U.S. Says Sanctions Necessary For Cuba To Advance Democracy 

Political Coordinator for the US Mission, Rodney Hunter, said during the vote that sanctions are “one set of tools in Washington’s broader effort toward Cuba to advance democracy, promote respect for human rights, and help the Cuban people exercise fundamental freedoms”.  He maintained that despite the blockade, the US recognizes “the challenges of the Cuban people” and therefore, the US was “a significant supplier of humanitarian goods to the Cuban people and one of Cuba’s principal trading partners”.

The embargo is rooted in the Cold War, when Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries seized power.  The General Assembly does not have the power to end the embargo, only the U.S. Congress does.   Critics of Cuba say Havana uses the annual favorable UN vote as a PR campaign against the U.S. to expose its isolation on the issue.