Cuba Embargo a Prolonged Genocide

At the end of this month, on October 29, the General Assembly of the United Nations will discuss, for the seventeenth time, a project of a resolution against the most universal, prolonged, and a low-blow of a violation of international law, human rights, and a people’s sovereignty: a 50-year-old embargo imposed by imperialists against Cuba. The official name of Cuban delegation’s proposal is: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.”

According to a resolution approved last year, the debate on this issue in the General Assembly will be conducted on the basis of a report by the Secretary General regarding the effects of the embargo against Cuba, estimated at around $93 billion, of which $3.775 billion was the impact in 2007 alone. The report was prepared with cooperation of more than 100 countries, 20 UN agencies and other international organizations.

With majority support received in previous assemblies and the worldwide awareness of the damages brought about by the embargo year after year, it will be very difficult for Cuba’s proposal not to be ratified again, just as forcefully. But Cuba is hoping for a result better than the 184 votes it received last year, when only 7 votes were missing from the unanimity of 191; excluding, of course, the United States, the 192nd member of the UN.

In this period of grave financial crisis shaking the powerful economic system of the United States, the majority of countries – including many of America’s ideological allies – will understand better than ever the severity of a loss of nearly $4 billion a year for a small nation like Cuba. The situation is further worsened by the destructive contribution of nature’s blind forces to the conscious action of the empire’s political forces. Hurricanes Gustav and Ike added their destruction to the actions of the most complete, prolonged, and exhaustive program of destruction by U.S. governments against Cuba.

It is therefore natural that in the context of this blatant, massive, and systematic violation of the sovereignty and human rights of the Cuban people, the embargo seems to the world as immoral and repulsive as few other circumstances could be, and is condemned even by countries that oppose Cuba’s socio-political system. This causes a political and moral decline of the authors of the embargo, which is a yet another reason why the world expresses increasing support for Cuba’s demands.

However, many population sectors remain unaware because of their ignorance and because they support the embargo for ideological reasons, fueled by old anticommunist propaganda against Cuba, the only remaining, poor sustenance of that propaganda. These sectors should follow the debates about the report in the U.N. General Assembly, as they’ve been taught, among other superficialities, the simplistic comparison of the difficult supply situation in Cuba to the abundance on the markets of other countries, just as poor as the Caribbean nation, but never subjected to disasters such as the embargo.

Moreover, they’d have an incentive to find out on their own the reason why it’s possible for the blocked and assaulted Cuba to maintain, among other socio-cultural advances, health care and education systems on the same or even higher level than bigger countries which do not suffer any outside aggression. They would then appreciate another fact that knows no precedent: the extraordinary humanism of the Cuban revolution, which maintains advanced health care and education systems despite difficulties in the normal course of life and despite the losses caused by the embargo. Moreover, those systems are generously shared with other nations. This includes, to a greater glory of Cuba and to an embarrassment of the United States, free study of medicine for poor North American youths at the Latin American School of Medicine.

They could also explain the contradiction which is in front of them, but to many remains invisible: supermarkets of our pauperized country overflow with merchandise and food, but the majority of our compatriots don’t even know it and could never afford what those supermarkets offer. Those sectors could also abandon the poor mental scheme of “bad” socialism and “abundant and progressive” capitalism, and acquire a more authentic vision of the world we’re living in. For example, try to find a reason why in a country full of supermarkets, our children suffer from undernourishment on a level absolutely unknown in Cuba.

Nevertheless, despite the isolation and bad reputation acquired by the authors of the embargo, they maintain it, conscious of the fact that it’s a case of genocide against a people, according to the description of genocide in the Geneva Conventions. The meaning of the politics and actions of the U.S. in the embargo against Cuba are specifically categorized by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime [of Genocide] of 1948.

The entire international judicial order holds an obligation, also including the arrogant gringo empire, to not engage in activities it has been pursuing by means of the embargo. It’s logical that, as a result, the embargo of the United States against Cuba increases America’s isolation and bad reputation. Apart from the seven countries which accompanied the U.S. until last year with their votes, the economic war against the heroic island has had extensive consequences against the sovereignty rights of third countries, their businesses, and citizens, as the Helms-Burton Act has given the embargo an extraterritorial character.

That war even violates political and human rights of U.S. citizens and Cubans residing in the United States, as one of the damages inflicted by the embargo is a ban on travel to Cuba. This violation is complemented by restrictions on legal travel from Cuba to the United States, against the agreements between the two countries, along with the impulse to grant protective asylum to those who risk their lives traveling illegally by sea. Finally, there is the cynicism of propagating the notion of “the Cuban people” risking their lives for “liberty”, while a wall is being erected and death handed to other Latin Americans on the Southern U.S. border.

The gringo government has committed numerous misdeeds in its support of the embargo, which, by the way, should have ended after the first resolution of the U.N. General Assembly. This coming October 29, the world will surely vote again in favor of the Cuban complaint, but imperial arrogance will yet again flaunt its contempt for international legality. But Cuba will not allow the U.S. to continue their violations without ever denouncing them. It is not only Cuba’s right, but also its will not to hesitate a moment in its fight for respect.