A total of 184 countries on Wednesday voted in favour of a resolution to demand the end of the US economic blockade on Cuba, for the 29th year in a row, with the United States and Israel voting against.
In the meeting held in-person on Wednesday at UN headquarters in New York, three countries – Colombia, Ukraine, and Brazil – abstained.
With overwhelming backing from the international community, the resolution has been approved ever since 1992 when the General Assembly began to vote annually on the issue, with the sole exception of 2020, due to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. While the Assembly’s vote carries political weight in terms of international diplomacy, only the US Congress can lift the economic, commercial, and financial embargo in place for five decades.
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, present during the vote in the General Assembly Hall, said that the blockade was a “massive, flagrant and unacceptable violation of the human rights of the Cuban people”.
He added that the embargo is about ”an economic war of extraterritorial scope against a small country already affected in the recent period by the economic crisis derived from the pandemic”. Mr. Rodriguez estimated 2020 losses to be $9.1 million.
The diplomat said that the sanctions have made it harder for his country to acquire the medical equipment needed to develop COVID-19 vaccines as well as equipment for food production.
”Like the virus, the blockade asphyxiates and kills, it must stop”, he urged. Läs artikel