https://themilitant.com/2019/11/16/un-vote-end-washingtons-economic-war-against-cuba/
UN vote: End Washington’s economic war against Cuba
By Seth Galinsky
and Lea Sherman
Vol. 83/No. 43
November 25, 2019
UNITED NATIONS — For the 28th year in a row, the U.N. General Assembly
voted Nov. 7 to demand the U.S. rulers end their economic, commercial
and financial embargo against Cuba. The resolution passed with 187 votes
in favor. Only the governments of Brazil and Israel joined Washington to
vote against it. Two governments abstained, Colombia and Ukraine.
For several months the U.S. government has escalated its economic
aggression, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez told the assembly,
“increasing the suffering, shortages and damage done to our people.”
The U.S. capitalist rulers have never forgiven the Cuban people — led by
Fidel Castro and the July 26 Movement — for overthrowing the Fulgencio
Batista dictatorship in 1959 ending the imperialist domination of their
country. And for carrying out a socialist revolution showing the
capacities of workers and farmers to build a society based on human
solidarity, not dog-eat-dog capitalist greed.
Every U.S. president since — Democrat and Republican alike — has waged
economic war against the Cuban people, their government and their
revolution.
Rodríguez listed many of the recent U.S. attacks, including blocking
Cuba from importing fuel by sanctioning and threatening maritime
shipping and insurance companies; reinstating limits on remittances
Cuban Americans send to their families on the island; banning Cuba from
leasing airplanes or purchasing just about anything with more than 10%
U.S. components; tightening the squeeze on banks that handle Cuban
transactions; and ending cruise ship stops as well as direct flights to
Cuban airports, except for Havana, measures aimed at sabotaging tourism
and the income it brings to those on the island.
US proclaims ‘right’ to punish Cuba
Before Rodríguez spoke, U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft denounced the
resolution, saying the embargo was just Washington asserting its
“sovereign right” to “choose which countries we trade with.”
She said nothing about the objection raised by almost every speaker
during the two-day debate — that Washington dictates that all other
governments and corporations around the world also punish Cuba or face
U.S. retribution.
The U.S. ambassador slandered the Cuban government, claiming it “abuses”
its own people and violates their human rights. She pushed Washington’s
lie that Cuban doctors who volunteer for the country’s health care
missions around the world, are “held in servitude.”
And she claimed that Cuba is allowed to purchase $100 million worth of
agricultural products and medicines from the U.S. but refuses to do so.
Cuban Foreign Minister Rodríguez answered her, citing examples of
medicines and medical devices that Washington refuses to allow Cuba to get.
He explained how Washington imposes restrictions on Cuba that no other
nation faces to buy the few products exempted from the embargo. Cuba has
to pay cash up front; is not allowed to buy on credit; Cuba is
prohibited from using its own ships to transport goods it can purchase;
and, he said, “banks that process our transactions are persecuted.”
“Who in the world trades under these conditions?” he said.
Pointing to U.S. military interventions around the world, as well as
widespread police brutality, the racist application of the death
penalty, and abusive treatment of immigrants in the U.S., Rodríguez
said, “The U.S. government doesn’t have the tiniest bit of moral
authority to criticize Cuba or anyone else over human rights.” He noted
that fully one-quarter of all those incarcerated in the world are in
U.S. prisons.
But not every representative who voted for the resolution did so out of
solidarity with Cuba. Finnish representative Jukka Salovaara, speaking
in the name of the European Union, said EU members were voting for an
end to the embargo because “critical engagement” is necessary to
undermine Cuba’s political and economic system.
The latest moves intensifying the U.S. embargo, he complained, were
“very damaging for Cuba’s burgeoning private sector” and “EU economic
interests.”
He called on Cuba “to pursue a comprehensive reform and modernization
agenda,” code words for bringing back capitalism, and echoed the U.S.
slanders that Cuba violates human rights.
Cuba’s example of solidarity
Rodríguez didn’t need to answer the U.S. slander on Cuba’s international
solidarity missions, which include thousands of doctors and nurses in
dozens of countries. One ambassador after another, regardless of their
government’s opinions on Cuba’s revolution, spoke about their experience
with Cuban internationalist volunteers.
“The majority of members of this organization have profited from Cuba’s
invaluable assistance, solidarity and support,” stated Ingha Rhonda
King, the representative of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. “In the
areas of health care and humanitarian assistance, Cuba’s contribution to
underserved areas in the world is unparalleled and was typified with its
role in the fight against the Ebola epidemic in Africa.”
Belize Ambassador Lois Young said the U.S. embargo is meant “to drive a
wedge between Cuba and the rest of the world,” and this was “unacceptable.”
Representatives of several African governments noted the role of Cuba in
helping them win independence from colonial rule and in the fight
against South African apartheid. In the 1988 battle of Cuito Cuanavale,
the combined forces of Cuban internationalists, Namibian freedom
fighters and Angolan soldiers defeated an invasion by the white
supremacist South African army.
By the early 1990s, Namibia gained its independence from South Africa,
Nelson Mandela was freed and the hated apartheid regime crumbled.
Cuba has been “at the forefront of contributing to the freedom and
independence of my country,” Nelville Gertze, Namibian U.N. ambassador,
said.
Despite U.S. hostility and slanders, Cuban Ambassador Rodríguez said
Cuba does not “renounce our willingness to achieve a civilized
relationship” with Washington “based on mutual respect and recognition
of our profound differences.”
The Cuban Revolution, its 60-year battle resisting the U.S. capitalist
rulers’ aggression and economic war, and its internationalist solidarity
with working people the world over stand as an example for workers and
farmers to emulate, including in the U.S.
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David Hume
“ In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees
of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral
evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ”
― David Hume,