US, Israel Only ‘No’ Votes as UN Members Condemn Cuba Embargo for 30th Straight Year

"Today's U.N. vote clearly shows that the global community is calling on the U.S. to lift its brutal embargo on Cuba," CodePink co-founder Medea Benjamin asserted.

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Peace advocates on Thursday said that the near-unanimous vote by United Nations member states to demand an end to the US economic embargo of Cuba underscores the imperative for the Biden administration to lift the crippling 60-year blockade.

For the 30th straight year, UN General Assembly members voted in favor of a Cuban resolution condemning the embargo, first enacted during the administration of then-President John F. Kennedy, who according to close confidant and historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., wanted to unleash “the terrors of the Earth” on Cuba following Fidel Castro’s successful overthrow of a brutal U.S.-backed dictatorship.

Thursday’s vote was 185-2, with only the United States and Israel dissenting, and Ukraine and Brazil abstaining.

“The Biden administration talks about the need for a rules-based international order. Today’s UN vote clearly shows that the global community is calling on the US to lift its brutal embargo on Cuba,” CodePink cofounder Medea Benjamin said in a statement.

Benjamin added that US President Joe Biden “should respect global opinion” and return to former President Barack Obama’s “policy of normalizing relations with Cuba.”

Manolo De Los Santos, co-executive chair of the People’s Forum, wondered, “What would Cuba be like today, if the blockade didn’t hinder its development?”

“It is impossible to quantify the pain generated by power cuts, long queues to purchase food, the obstacles to the life projects of families, particularly young people,” he added. “Cuba has a right to live!”

Speaking before the UN General Assembly Thursday, Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla noted that “more than 80% of the current Cuban population was born under the blockade,” which he called a “deliberate act of economic war” akin to “a permanent pandemic, a constant hurricane.”

Rodríguez said that since then-President Donald Trump rolled back most of the reforms set in motion by Obama, the United States “has escalated the siege around our country, taking it to an even crueler and more inhuman dimension, with the purpose of deliberately inflicting the biggest possible damage on Cuban families.”

Taking aim at  Biden, Rodríguez added that “the current US administration does not have a policy of its own toward Cuba. It acts out of inertia and continues the inhuman policy of maximum pressure instituted during the presidency of Donald Trump.”

Rodríguez said the embargo has cost Cuba more than $6.3 billion during the first 14 months of the Biden administration, or more than $15 million per day.  In 2018 a United Nations commission estimated the total cost to the Cuban economy of the 60-year blockade was at least $130 billion.

Members of CodePink plan to rally against the embargo Thursday afternoon in San Francisco. This follows CodePink protests to #LetCubaLive in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. over the past several days.

CodePink is set to cap a week of action Saturday by joining with the Cuban-American group Puentes de Amor to send a plane loaded with 8.5 tons of food and medicines to the besieged island.

“Unfortunately,” said CodePink Latin American coordinator Samantha Wherry, the shipment “represents a tiny gesture compared to the billions of dollars of harm caused by the US blockade.”

The peace activists have three demands: An end to the US blockade, lifting of all travel and economic restrictions on Cuba, and removal of Cuba from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Successive US administrations backed a decades-long campaign of exile terrorism against Cuba, attempted subversion, failed assassination attempts, economic warfare, and covert operations large and small in a fruitless policy of regime change.

Meanwhile, a dozen US administrations have come and gone since the triumph of the Cuban revolution in 1959.

Brett Wilkins is is staff writer for Common Dreams. Based in San Francisco, his work covers issues of social justice, human rights and war and peace. This originally appeared at CommonDreams and is reprinted with the author’s permission.

29 thoughts on “US, Israel Only ‘No’ Votes as UN Members Condemn Cuba Embargo for 30th Straight Year”

  1. What a pant load.

    So outta 195 countries in the world, 2 are for the embargo. Does Israel do/did any trade with them at any time?

    That leaves 193 countries to trade with. Don’t blame Cuba’s economic woes on America’s head up the arse evil embargo.

    The Castro’s were/are monsters. Evil fcccing monsters.
    Oh. And socialism is slavery.

    1. You can’t be that ignorant. The U.S. won’t allow any of those other countries to do business with Cuba. You’re a mofo.

      1. Is that right, except people from my country can, and do fly there regularly for holiday, medical services, etc.

        But go ahead, and pretend this island prison is anything but hell for its citizens while the Castro’s became billionaires.

        How are you this ignorant?

        1. First of all, Castro and his family were never billionaires. So you’re the ignorant buffoon here. Second of all, no one goes to Cuba for medical care, because they have little equipment, and no meds. Speaking of meds, too bad there isn’t one to cure abject stupidity. Your doctor would prescribe it for you if he could.

          1. Is that your entire argument? Calling me stupid?
            What a failure you are. Your complete lack of knowledge of the subject, and slavish devotion to a murderous pig like the Castro brothers reminds me of the worst of the Trumpsuckers. To each his own. I guess being antiwar, anti-government comes with caveat’s, hmmmmmm?

            Medical tourism at some fine azz clinics reserved especially for foreigners. (Not for the peasants) Look it up, sport.

            Forbes in 2005, and 2006 listed the murderous dictator’s wealth from $550,000,000, to next year at $900,000,000. Skimming money off of renting out Cuban doctors to generate income.
            Nice:)

            I’m sure the political prisoners in Kilo 8 share your…lickspittle posture of subservience to evil men.

            Perhaps the school in your trailer park can invest some money in sum gud boks 2 reed.

            You have a wonderful, not being tortured by murdeous thugs in a Cuban political prison, kinda day. :)

          2. https://oec.world/en/profile/country/cub/

            Buhahahahaha…slapping belly
            …buhahahahhhhhhaaaaaaa…
            snort…buhahahahhhaahahaha…giggle…too much?:)

            Oh, and I can buy any number of Cuban cigars at my pleasure, Montecristo (my fav), Chohiba, etc, right here at home, or like many of my fellow countrymen who fly South in winter, first class exclusive resorts, just one flight away.

            GRIN

          3. I get the point. You are so ignorant you think it’s bliss. Again, and for the last time: stuff yourself back into your mother’s ass and take a bite.

          4. So, to be clear, you have absolutely no answer to anything I presented.
            Merely the ugliness of your shriveled soul.

            This makes me sad Jeffery, so very sad.

            I shall forgive you.

          5. This guy is clearly a troll, and I suggest ceasing your engagement with him. Anyone who makes comments like he did is just spouting outright and blatant lies & propaganda, and is not worthy of a response.

          6. Yeah, blocked him. It’s actually the third persona he’s used to have a run at me on multiple sites.
            Can’t say exactly where I picked him up, seems to be an advanced evolutionary digital form of herpes.

    2. I’m going to suggest that you do some reading on the Cuban Revolution and its origins… To take on American Empire by such a small country is historic. It was one of the greatest revolutions of our times.

      1. Yes, it was.

        Then descended into the typical socialist hellhole.
        I suggest you do some reading, perhaps give a thought to the victims of Kilo 8.
        The Castro’s were/are murderous monsters.

          1. Mr.Knapp, you would not have posited the idea that both could be true at the same time if you thought I was not cognizant of the concept.

            Yeah?:)

          2. It can be simultaneously true that you are a murderous monster and have a family. That’s how much credibility your dishonest propagandistic comment has.

          3. Cuba Libre ! it was always my impression that Castro and Che were the good guys back in the day, when they got rid of Batista and his death squads, back when I was a student in England.

  2. It is time to lift the antiquated embargo, as I read this I am having flashbacks. Decades of the same old bs. I’m totally PINK on this issue.

  3. Oh I get it! The US has been challenged on this because it used Cuba as its own playground for decades…

  4. Is anyone going to question or challenge Israel on its treatment of the Palestinians???…

  5. An embargo imposed this long should be considered a CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY and it should be challenged as such.

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