UN CONDEMNS ANTI-CUBA EMBARGO FOR 16TH YEAR

(The following article is from the November 16-30, 2007 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $25/year, or $12 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $25 US per year; other overseas readers - $25 US or $35 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St. Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on October 30 to urge the United States to lift its embargo against Cuba. This was the sixteenth consecutive annual resolution on "The necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". It was adopted by a record vote of 184 in favour (including Canada), four opposed (the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands), and one abstention (Micronesia).

     In a stinging attack on U.S. policy, Cuba's Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said the embargo has cost Cuba more than $89 billion in more than 40 years, the equivalent of $222 billion in current dollars.

     Perez Roque mentioned U.S. film makers Michael Moore and Oliver Stone as examples of how Washington restricts freedom of speech by hampering their efforts to film in Cuba. "With its grotesque persecution of the honest word And independent art, the president of the United States is emulating the inquisition of the Middle Ages," he said. Ignoring world opinion, President George W. Bush has rejected any easing of sanctions, instead elaborating plans to impose capitalism in Cuba.

     Cuba's report to the United Nations prior to the Oct. 30 vote noted that "The US blockade imposes its criminal provisions on Cuba's relations with other countries that make up this General Assembly. The blockade prevents Cuba's trade with companies based in your countries, delegates, not only US companies but also companies from the countries that you represent in this Assembly and which are subsidiaries of US corporations. Nor can vessels with flags from your countries call at US ports, delegates, if they previously carried goods from or towards Cuba. That is the Torricelli Act, signed by President Bush Sr. in 1992. The US blockade also prevents the companies from the rest of the world, those of your countries, delegates, from exporting to the US any products containing Cuban raw materials; and it also prevents those companies from exporting to Cuba products or equipment containing more than 10% of American components."

     Bush's plans for the "Restitution of Property Rights", the report said, would mean taking away the land from hundreds of thousands of farmers who now own their land either individually or in cooperatives, in order to reinstate the landowners' system. It would also imply evicting millions of Cubans from their homes in order to return their properties or plots of land to their former claimants.

     The Permanent Committee of the US Government for Cuba's Economic Reconstruction plans to implement a harsh neoliberal adjustment program in Cuba, including the privatization of education and health services and the elimination of social security and welfare. Retirements and pensions would be removed and retirees would be offered the chance to do construction work as part of a so-called "Body of Cuban Retirees."