Vol. 78/No. 41      November 17, 2014

The U.S. embargo against Cuba has been in effect since October 1960. Every U.S. administration since has maintained it with the aim of imposing hardship on the island and punishing Cuba’s workers and farmers for overthrowing the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1959 and wresting political power from the capitalists and landlord exploiters.

Government representatives from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean condemned the U.S. embargo, noting its impact on Cuba’s economy, as well as the social advances of the revolution in face of these difficulties. Several representatives thanked Cuba for its help in establishing education and health programs in their countries and applauded its unparalleled contribution to the fight against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.

“Cuba has made solidarity its foreign policy, as has been reaffirmed recently” in West Africa, said Yanerit Morgan, Mexico’s ambassador to the U.N.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said the embargo has resulted in estimated damages totaling some $1.1 trillion. He noted the stepped-up use of its crippling provisions, which have included the imposition of fines totaling some $11 billion against 38 banks for carrying out transactions with Cuba.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Ronald Godard said that while Cuba’s contributions to the fight against Ebola are “laudable, they do not excuse or diminish the regime’s treatment of its own people.” Revealing the U.S. rulers’ unyielding desire to reimpose capitalist exploitation and U.S. domination of the island, he said Cuba “will not thrive” until it adopts “the sound macro-economic policies that have contributed to the success of Cuba’s neighbors in Latin America.”

“Cuba will never renounce its sovereignty, or the path freely chosen by its people to build a more just, efficient, prosperous and sustainable socialism,” Rodríguez said earlier. “It will never forego its quest for a different international order.”
 
 
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