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Vol. 75/No. 41      November 14, 2011

 
UN condemns 51-year
embargo against Cuba
 
BY SETH GALINSKY  
UNITED NATIONS—For the 20th year in a row, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly voted to condemn the U.S. embargo of Cuba. Only the delegates from the U.S. and Israel voted against the resolution. Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands abstained.

Under the administration of President John F. Kennedy, Washington first banned all exports to Cuba beginning Oct. 19, 1960, except for some food and medicines, seeking to punish the Cuban people for the 1959 revolution, which ended U.S. domination of the island. In February 1962 Kennedy banned all U.S. trade. Every president has maintained the embargo ever since, at times strengthening or relaxing restrictions.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez pointed out that the embargo has cost Cuba “more than $975 billion in damages” over the last five decades.

In a September meeting with Latino groups, President Barack Obama claimed, “We’re prepared to show flexibility [toward Cuba] and not be stuck in a Cold War mentality dating back to when I was born.” At the same time he said there would be no “new relationship with Cuba” unless the Cuban government takes “the proper steps to open up its own country.”

“Despite the false image of flexibility the current U.S. administration attempts to portray, the blockade and sanctions remain intact,” Rodríguez told the Assembly. “They are fully implemented and their extra-territorial character has been intensified in recent years.”

“The increased persecution of Cuban financial transactions around the world,” noted Rodríguez “is a distinctive feature of the Obama administration.”

In a report on the embargo to the U.N., the Cuban government notes that U.S. companies’ subsidiaries in third countries are banned from carrying out any kind of transaction with companies in Cuba. Washington says that even non-U.S. companies are prohibited from selling any product or service to Cuba “if more than 10 percent of their technology consists” of U.S. components. Ships that dock at Cuban ports are banned from entering U.S. ports.

In January the Obama administration froze $4.2 million destined for Cuba from the U.N. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which combats the three diseases in 150 countries. Washington backed down amid protests by the Cuban government and others. In May the Treasury Department issued a four-year license allowing release of the funds.

In August the Treasury Department fined the French shipping company CMA CGM $640,000 for shipping services to Cuba, Sudan and Iran. That same month the Treasury Department forced JPMorgan Chase Bank to remit more than $88 million to resolve charges that it had wired money to Cubans and made a loan involving Iran.
 
 
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