Vol. 76/No. 44      December 3, 2012

The U.N. resolution, titled “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed by the United States Against Cuba,” passed with 188 votes in favor. Only the governments of Israel and Palau voted with Washington against the resolution. Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained.

In his speech before the vote Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Bruno Rodríguez noted that under U.S. President Barack Obama the last four years have been “characterized by a persistent tightening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade” against Cuba.

The embargo began in October 1960, when the administration of President Dwight Eisenhower banned U.S. exports to Cuba, with the exception of some food and medicines, to punish the Cuban people for the 1959 socialist revolution, which brought the working class to power and an end to U.S. domination.

In February 1962 President John F. Kennedy made it a total embargo, banning imports from Cuba and the export to Cuba of products from other countries that have any U.S. component. Every U.S. administration has maintained the embargo since then.

The Obama administration has especially tightened the extraterritorial restrictions of the U.S. economic war against the revolution, forcing corporations based in other countries to abide by the embargo. One way this is done is through fines imposed by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control.

In June this year, a $619 million fine was imposed on the Dutch bank ING for alleged violations of U.S. sanctions against Cuba and other countries, the highest fine ever imposed on a foreign bank.

So far the Obama administration has imposed fines totaling more than $2 billion, Rodríguez said, “double the amount during both terms of George W. Bush.”

Rodríguez also gave examples of medicines and medical equipment that Washington prevented Cuba from purchasing, including Levosimendan, a medicine used to treat heart problems in small children, and Elspar, for treating leukemia.

“While we note and welcome Cuba’s recent changes to allow greater self-employment and liberalize the real estate market, Cuba still has one of the most restrictive economic systems in the world,” complained U.S. Ambassador Ronald Godard, prior to the vote. He demanded that the Cuban government open “state monopolies to private competition,” fully empower Cuban entrepreneurs, and adopt “the sound macro-economic policies that have contributed to the economic success of many of Cuba’s neighboring countries in Latin America.”

“Nobody believes the U.S. government is interested in the freedom of the Cuban people after it stained it during a half century, backing bloody dictatorships in Cuba and the whole region,” replied Rodríguez. “What it wants is a government in Cuba that is servile to U.S. interests and that is not going to happen.”
 
 
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