The assembly voted 179-3 in favor of the resolution, with two abstentions. Representatives of the United States, Israel, and the Marshall Islands voted “no.” The UN general Assembly has voted every year since 1992 to oppose the U.S. embargo. Each time it has received a bigger majority. This year the resolution received six votes more than last year.

The trade embargo against Cuba was imposed by the administration of John F. Kennedy in 1962, and has been maintained through nine administrations, Democratic and Republican alike. It has been reinforced with a ban on travel to the island by most U.S. residents.

In the past decade the embargo was tightened by the 1992 Torricelli Act and, four years later, the Helms-Burton Act. Both had extraterritorial reach, providing legal grounds for upping the pressure on third countries to cease trading with Cuba. The Torricelli Act barred foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from engaging in such commerce. Under the Helms-Burton Act, U.S. businessmen whose property was expropriated by Cuba’s workers and farmers after the January 1959 revolution were given permission to sue companies abroad that invest in those properties.

In preparation for the vote, the Cuban government presented a report detailing the impact of Washington’s economic war. “Of the $625 million in damages to Cuba’s foreign trade in the year 2002 alone as a consequence of the blockade,” it stated, “$178.2 million, or 26 percent, were a direct result of its extraterritorial effect.”

Trade in food and medicines with third countries was “drastically cut off as a result of the Torricelli Act,” it stated.

The Cuban government has estimated that the embargo has cost the country more than $70 billion. In addition, it says, the financial toll of countless attacks and acts of sabotage by right-wing forces organized and backed by Washington amounts to $54 billion.

In his November 4 address, Pérez Roque answered charges made in the debate by Washington’s UN ambassador Sichan Siv, who accused the Cuban government of human rights violations. “The United States does not have the moral authority or the right to judge the issue of human rights in Cuba,” said the Cuban foreign minister.

“The only violations of human rights committed in Cuba,” Pérez Roque said, “are those inflicted on our people by the blockade, and the ones committed by the United States in the naval base in Guantánamo, occupied against our will.”

U.S. authorities are holding 660 people from 43 countries in their Guantánamo prison camp, which was set up in January 2002 after the U.S. assault on Afghanistan.

Pérez Roque demanded the release of the “five young Cubans who have been unjustly imprisoned” in the United States. They are Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, René González, and Fernando González, who are serving prison terms of between 15 years and a double life sentence. They were framed up on conspiracy charges resulting from their activities in gathering information about right-wing Cuban-American groups operating in Florida—organizations with long records of violent attacks against Cuba.

At the conclusion of his speech, the Cuban foreign minister asked delegates at the UN Assembly to approve the resolution “on behalf of a generous and courageous people.

“They should not confuse our openness to dialog with the illusion that this people that has not been conquered will surrender,” said Pérez Roque. “They should not make the mistake of believing that Cuba can be dominated some day. That would be very costly for the aggressor.”  
 
 
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