For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We haven’t heard that for a very long time. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the United Nations General Assembly on the resolution which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone (not including abstentions):
Year | Votes (Yes-No) | No Votes |
1992 | 59-2 | US, Israel |
1993 | 88-4 | US, Israel, Albania, Paraguay |
1994 | 101-2 | US, Israel |
1995 | 117-3 | US, Israel, Uzbekistan |
1996 | 138-3 | US, Israel, Uzbekistan |
1997 | 143-3 | US, Israel, Uzbekistan |
1998 | 157-2 | US, Israel |
1999 | 155-2 | US, Israel |
2000 | 167-3 | US, Israel, Marshall Islands |
2001 | 167-3 | US, Israel, Marshall Islands |
2002 | 173-3 | US, Israel, Marshall Islands |
2003 | 179-3 | US, Israel, Marshall Islands |
2004 | 179-4 | US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau |
2005 | 182-4 | US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau |
2006 | 183-4 | US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau |
2007 | 184-4 | US, Israel, Marshall Islands, Palau |
2008 | 185-3 | US, Israel, Palau |
2009 | 187-3 | US, Israel, Palau |
2010 | 187-2 | US, Israel |
2011 | 186-2 | US, Israel |
2012 | 188-3 | US, Israel, Palau |
2013 | 188-2 | US, Israel |
Each fall the UN vote is a welcome reminder that the world has not completely lost its senses and that the American empire does not completely control the opinion of other governments.
Speaking before the General Assembly, October 29, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez declared: “The economic damages accumulated after half a century as a result of the implementation of the blockade amount to $1.126 trillion.” He added that the blockade “has been further tightened under President Obama’s administration”, some 30 US and foreign entities being hit with $2.446 billion in fines due to their interaction with Cuba.
However, the American envoy, Ronald Godard, in an appeal to other countries to oppose the resolution, said: “The international community … cannot in good conscience ignore the ease and frequency with which the Cuban regime silences critics, disrupts peaceful assembly, impedes independent journalism and, despite positive reforms, continues to prevent some Cubans from leaving or returning to the island. The Cuban government continues its tactics of politically motivated detentions, harassment and police violence against Cuban citizens.”[1]
So there you have it. That is why Cuba must be punished. One can only guess what Mr. Godard would respond if told that more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest;[2] that their encampments were violently smashed up; that many of them were physically abused by the police.
Does Mr. Godard ever read a newspaper or the Internet, or watch television? Hardly a day passes in America without a police officer shooting to death an unarmed person?
As to “independent journalism” – what would happen if Cuba announced that from now on anyone in the country could own any kind of media? How long would it be before CIA money – secret and unlimited CIA money financing all kinds of fronts in Cuba – would own or control most of the media worth owning or controlling?
The real reason for Washington’s eternal hostility toward Cuba? The fear of a good example of an alternative to the capitalist model; a fear that has been validated repeatedly over the years as Third World countries have expressed their adulation of Cuba.
How the embargo began: On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”[3] Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo against its everlasting enemy.
Notes
- Democracy Now!, “U.N. General Assembly Votes Overwhelmingly Against U.S. Embargo of Cuba”, October 30, 2013
- Huffingfton Post, May 3, 2012
- Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba (1991), p.885
–more than 7,000 people were arrested in the United States during the Occupy Movement’s first 8 months of protest–
If that much incarceration had happened in some Asian country, the USA stalwarts had taken this issue to the UNO and put severest possible sanctions against that country.
in general i agree just at the end it seems that it is propagating a cuban system… which i don’t like at all
If the cuban system works, it should work independently of the capitalist. Try to develop a socialist system connected with a capitalist world, it’s like cheating. Cuba’s system would be taking the merit of the incentives produced by the system they criticize.