NAM to U.S.: Drop Cuba embargo

Days before the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Egypt, members of the bloc called on the U.S. to drop its decades-long economic embargo on Cuba.

According to a statement issued by the NAM summit secretariat, the embargo is against international law and has caused massive economic damage to the Cuban people. The U.S. must end the blockade and comply with U.N. resolutions, said the statement produced on Monday.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez went further in criticizing not only the U.S. but what he deemed as the hegemony of the West:

"The rich countries of the West continue to bet on the preservation of an international order that is based on the use of force, technology, and economic power against the weakest," he said at the ministerial meeting of the 15th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The unfair order "makes an unequal distribution of the wealth and it is based on irrational patterns of consumerism, destroys the environment and jeopardizes life in the planet, thus making it possible for a few to concentrate the economic and political power and make them decide for all of us," said Rodriguez, whose country holds the rotating NAM presidency from 2006 to 2009.

The NAM was founded in 1961 as a bloc neutral of the Cold War superpowers (U.S. and Soviet Union) though it has struggled to find its identity in the post-Cold War era. The 118-member NAM currently strives to maintain political independence from the U.S. while also creating consensus for underdeveloped countries.

Cuba will cede the presidency of the NAM to Egypt during the summit scheduled to begin on Wednesday.

Image- Voice of America (Cuba President Raul Castro spoke at a Non-Aligned Movement meeting in Havana last April)
Online Sources- Deutsche Welle, IPS, Xinhua