No to the Embargo Against Cuba

The international community newly reasserted its disapproval of the embargo against Cuba. With 188 votes in favor of condemnation, two against, and three abstaining, the United States heard, in the United Nations Headquarters in New York for the 23rd time, the countries of the worlds’ disapproval of 50 years of commercial and financial boycott against Cuba.

However, despite the international communities’ disapproval, the United States maintains the anachronistic measure, as ex-President Mauricio Funes called it in 2009, referring to the boycott against Cuba which has caused so much loss for the noble nation.

The embargo consists of sanctions from Washington on businesses that do transactions with Cuba, like the recent fine of $9.97 billion on French bank BNP Paribas. This results in large costs in Cuba for things that could be found at low costs in Miami, Mexico or Costa Rica, to cite three countries very close to the island, excluding their neighbors in the Caribbean.

It was the Republican government of Dwight Eisenhower that initiated the sanctions against Havana in 1960 after the success of the Cuban revolution on Jan. 1, 1959. In 1962, the sanctions were expanded by John F. Kennedy; since that date, the embargo has strengthened during various occasions. Eleven administrations of the imperialistic nation have preserved the anachronistic embargo without producing the desired effects: destabilization of the revolution.

The document that asks the White House to stop its sanctions was not endorsed by the United States or Israel, while the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau abstained. By the way, the constitution of one of the islands states that the island cannot vote against the United States.

The resolution reiterates the call to not promulgate or enforce actions against the sovereignty and equality of the nations and to not interfere in domestic issues, trade and freedom of navigation, objectives and principles consecrated in the U.N. Charter. Additionally, it expresses a sense of worry for the extraterritorial character of the American embargo, manifested in the application of laws such as Helms-Burton of 1996.

Cubans have left gracefully, despite Washington’s disastrous measures, which have affected Cuba economically of a value of $1,112,534 and incalculable human damage, and which have not avoided the more than $116 billion caused by the embargo.