U.N. to U.S.: Lift the embargo on Cuba

The U.N. General Assembly (UNGA) resoundingly voted to end the decades-long U.S. embargo on Cuba. 185 of the body’s 190 nations accepted the resolution presented earlier today by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque against the blockade.

Despite such an ample majority against the embargo, today’s vote was nonbinding and largely symbolic. For that matter, today marks the 17th straight year that the UNGA has overwhelmingly voted against the embargo. It is a fact that has not gone unnoticed by the UNGA’s president- Nicaraguan Miguel D’Escoto:

"The U.S. government simply cannot tolerate the existence of a place like Cuba, which rises up like a heroine of solidarity and a champion of the values that the world needs for the survival of the human species," D’Escoto said….

However, D’Escoto said that "on a number of occasions, I have wondered what the Assembly is good for when votes passed by an overwhelming majority and which reflect the wishes of 95% of the UN’s members are utterly ignored."

U.S. President George W. Bush recently vowed to keep the embargo in place, a move expected to continue with the next president according to some Cuban officials.

Image- daylife.com (“An old car passes next to a billboard that reads "70 percent of Cuban people have been born under the Embargo" in a highway in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Oct. 31, 2006.”)
Sources- The Latin Americanist, Reuters, Granma, AP