On Thursday, for the 30th year in a row, members of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voted overwhelmingly in favour of removing the United States’ (US) decades-long embargo on Cuba. 185 countries voted in favour of the resolution, titled “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba,” with only the US and Israel opposing it and Brazil and Ukraine abstaining.
“Thirty years have passed since the UNGA began to annually demand the end of this policy, which has been typified as an act of genocide,” Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez said, highlighting that the US embargo has the effect of a “permanent pandemic.”
Camino a Guane, en el extremo occidental del país, escuché al Canciller @BrunoRguezP. Él habló alto y claro ante el mundo. Nuestra verdad puede sonar dura. Pero el #Bloqueo es inconmensurablemente más duro. Es brutal. #MejorSinBloqueo pic.twitter.com/vCExd0xEpD
— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) November 3, 2022
The US embargo of Cuba has been in place since 1960, following the Cuban revolution, when Fidel Castro nationalised American assets. The embargo has cost Cuba at least $150 billion over the past 60 years, with $6.35 billion of damage to the Cuban economy in the first 14 months of the Biden administration, amounting to more than $15 million a day.
Before the vote, Rodriguez accused the US of escalating “the siege around our country, taking it to an even crueler and more humane dimension, with the purpose of deliberately inflicting the biggest possible damage on Cuban families” since 2019. He emphasised that the Biden government had continued the Trump-era “maximum pressure” strategy, despite easing some measures concerning US flights to Cuba, remittances, and consular proceedings that had in no way helped “modify American economic, commercial and financial measures.”
Parecería innecesario, pero de vez en cuando se hace útil recordar al gobierno de EEUU, incluso dentro de la ONU, que #Cuba está fuera de sus froteras.
— Carlos F. de Cossio (@CarlosFdeCossio) November 3, 2022
“The blockade, which has been tightened to the extreme, continues to be the central element that defines the US-Cuba policy,” Rodriguez underlined. He did not blame the US “for all the difficulties our country faces today” but said “those who deny its very serious impacts or fail to recognise that it is the main cause of the deprivations, scarcities, and hardships suffered by Cuban families would be failing to tell the truth.”
He accused the US of running “a virulent disinformation and disparagement campaign against Cuba” through its media, resorting to “the most diverse methods of non-conventional war, using our children, youths, and artists as the targets of this political and media bombardment.”
EEUU ha desplegado campaña de desinformación y manipulación vs Cuba.
— CUBAONU (@CUBAONU) November 3, 2022
Si le interesa lo q sucede en Cuba, q levanten el bloqueo, q dejen de patrocinar e impulsar un supuesto cambio constitucional en Cuba.
Q detengan las transmisiones de radio y TV ilegales. #MejorSinBloqueo pic.twitter.com/98DDQDpOjv
Similarly, Venezuela’s Alternate Ambassador to the UN, Joaquín Pérez, asserted that the embargo is an “obsolete suffocation policy is the most unjust and prolonged one that has ever been applied against any country,” adding, “It seems that economic coercion is the US government’s preferred tool to extend its interests.”
Following the vote, US Political Counselor to the UN John Kelley told the Assembly that Washington would continue to hold the Cuban government accountable for widespread protests last July, during which authorities responded with “crackdowns on peaceful protesters, journalists, and human rights defenders” and ordering harsh sentences on even minors. “We join international partners in urging the Cuban government to release political prisoners immediately and unconditionally and to protect the freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly of all individuals in Cuba,” he stated.
Es imposible cuantificar la angustia generada por el bloqueo, manifiesta en los apagones y la inestabilidad del servicio eléctrico, el desabastecimiento y las largas colas para adquirir productos de 1ª necesidad, los obstáculos a proyectos de vida de las familias y de los jóvenes
— Bruno Rodríguez P (@BrunoRguezP) November 3, 2022
Kelley also maintained that the US remains “committed to the Cuban people in their pursuit of freedom, prosperity, and a future with greater dignity,” and had focused “our efforts on democracy and human rights and fundamental freedoms.” “We stand with the Cuban people and will continue to seek ways to provide meaningful support to them,” Kelley affirmed, pointing out that the US is Cuba’s biggest trading partner and that Washington had supplied Havana with $295 million worth of agricultural goods, including food, in 2021 alone.
Deputy Permanent Representative of Cuba to the UN Yuri Gala, however, slammed the US’ accusations of human rights violations, saying, “Cuba does not need lessons on democracy and human rights, much less from the United States,” adding, “If the United States government was really interested in the welfare, human rights and self-determination of Cubans, it could lift the blockade.” He took aim at the US’ hypocrisy by saying it is trying to be an advocate for individual freedoms in Cuba but still has not “reversed the restrictions that are having a direct impact on Cuban entrepreneurs in areas such as software development, hospitality, and other areas.”
Biden has faithfully applied the worst of Trump’s 243 additional & illegal sanctions on Cuba that make basic trade & purchases of good nearly impossible. It’s a deliberate act of violence whose only aim has been to strangle Cubans into submission.
— Manolo De Los Santos (@manolo_realengo) November 3, 2022
In April, Cuban officials held talks with their American counterparts for the first time in four years to address the monumental surge in the migration of Cubans to the US, which Havana says is a direct result of Washington’s coercive economic measures.
Subsequently, in May, various Latin American and Caribbean said that they would not attend the Americas Summit in Los Angeles the following month unless the US rescinded its decision to exclude Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Cuba.
On the morning of the vote, Party delegates from New York sat in at the UNGA to observe the vote and also met with Cuban leaders.
— Communist Party USA (@communistsusa) November 4, 2022
(3/4) pic.twitter.com/3Sycn8KNVN
After the US confirmed that no representatives from Cuba, Venezuela, or Nicaragua would attend the 9th Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles in June, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador honoured his threat to boycott the Summit if any country from the region was excluded. He reaffirmed that “there can’t be a Summit of the Americas if not all countries of the American continent are taking part.”
The Cuban government had expressed hope that the Biden administration would revoke its status as a state sponsor of terrorism, imposed under now-former President Donald Trump, but to no avail.