For the 16th consecutive year, the United Nations has overwhelmingly voted for a resolution urging the US to lift its 47-year long economic embargo against Cuba.
The resolution was adopted just days after US President George Bush pledged to continue to ignore the international community by strengthening the crippling economic sanctions, and called on other countries to donate to a multi-billion dollar "freedom fund" to support regime change in Havana to overturn Cuba's socialist system.
The non-binding resolution, which called upon "all states to refrain from promulgating and applying laws and measures … in conformity with their obligations under the Charter of the United Nations and international law", was voted for by 184 countries. It urged "states that have and continue to apply such laws and measures to take the necessary steps to repeal or invalidate them as soon as possible in accordance with their legal regime". Only four countries voted against — US, Israel, Marshall Islands and Pilau, while Micronesia abstained.
Although non-binding, the vote reflects the further isolation of the US's hardline stance against Cuba, amid Cuba's diminished isolation in the context of the current revolutionary upswing in Latin America. The trade embargo is one part of an aggressive campaign that the US has waged against Cuba since the 1959 revolution, and has increased in ferocity since 1992, when US Congress passed the Torricelli Act, forbidding US companies and overseas subsidiaries from engaging in any trade with Cuba; foreign ships that have docked in Cuba from docking in the US for six months; and Cuban migrants in the US from sending remittances to their families in Cuba.
Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque said that the sanctions had cost Cuba more than US$89 billion. According to an October 31 UN News Centre report, he said it was a "blatant, massive and systematic" violation of human rights.
Perez Roque condemned the US for arrogantly disregarding repeated UN resolutions, arguing "anyone can understand the level of socio-economic development that Cuba would have attained had it not been subjected to this unrelenting and obsessive economic war".
According to a November 1 Sydney Morning Herald article, Cuba slammed Australia's role in attacking it at the UN, even though Australia ended up voting for the resolution calling for an end to the blockade. Australia's ambassador to the UN, Richard Hill, stated that Australia's vote should not be seen as support for the island nation, commenting that "Holding political prisoners, and failing to comply with international human rights standards is not an internal matter …" A spokesperson for the Cuban government responded by saying "A government like Australia's has no moral authority to criticise Cuba".