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U.N. Votes Against Cuban Embargo for 22nd Year

By: Derek // News Briefs, World News

For the 22nd year in a row, the United Nations General Assembly closed ranks in a vote to condemn the U.S. commercial, economic, and financial embargo against Cuba. The final tally was 188-2, with three abstentions. Only Israel sided with the U.S. Since U.N. resolutions are unenforceable, the annual vote is symbolic only.

In what has increasingly become a distant historical recollection, restrictions against Cuba were implemented by President Eisenhower more than a half-century ago, in 1960, and then strengthened by the Kennedy administration in 1961 and 1962 to a near total embargo. Though presidents’ of both parties have come and gone since then – some increased restrictions and some relaxed them – the embargo remains in place.

U.S. officials maintain that the embargo is but one of many tools used to attempt to improve the abysmal human rights record of the Castro government that took power in 1959 under Fidel and continues today with his brother Raul. Millions of dollars worth of American properties in Cuba were confiscated during that 1959 revolution. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez spoke before the General Assembly, saying, “Our small island poses no threat to the national security of the superpower. The human damages caused by the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba are incalculable.” (Derek Dowell – VNN) (Image: Flickr | Christian Frei Switzerland)