On 28 October, for the 23rd year in a row, the international community as represented by the UN General Assembly (UNGA), voted almost unanimously to support Cuba's yearly report on “the necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States.” This year's vote in favour of ending the blockade replicates last year's pattern: of the UNGA's total of 193 members, 188 countries voted to support the resolution, while the US and Israel — as always — voted against. Palau, the Marshall Islands and Micronesia abstained. Addressing the UNGA forum, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez explained that the blockade “has seriously impeded the economic development of the country. Although our social and health system have prevented the loss of life, no honest person in the world or in the US can support its devastating consequences.” Speaking on behalf of the Group of 77 countries, Costa Rica's representative to the UN Carlos Mendoza condemned the blockade, saying that “human lives are threatened and public health is debilitated; same with education, culture, sports, finance, banking, external commerce and foreign investment.” “Since 1991, we have introduced the same resolution year-in and year-out,” said Alexander Morago, first secretary of the Cuban Embassy in Cairo, at a press conference last week. “Unlike the UN Security Council's resolutions, UNGA resolutions are non-binding and hence unenforceable. But we continue to present our reports to keep our cause alive and inform the world's nations of the illegal — and ultimately genocidal — impact of the blockade on the Cuban people. All I can say is that the US blockade is a policy against life.” The Cuban diplomat is right. His accusation is confirmed by an oft-quoted declassified US State Department report dated 1958-60 (Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume VI, Cuba) that spells out the US aim to use the blockade as an instrument to choke the Cuban economy and starve its people. “Every means should be undertaken to weaken the economic life of Cuba to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow the government,” says the report. The intention expressed in the report coincides, in fact, with the UN's definition of genocide. Based on the text of the 1948 Genocide Convention (Article 2, paragraph b), genocide is defined as “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a [human] group”. And because the stated purpose of the blockade is to “weaken the economic life of Cuba to bring about hunger and desperation”, its consequences imply the infliction of “serious bodily or mental harm” on the Cuban people. The costs of the blockade are mind-boggling. In 2014 alone Cuba's loss in foreign trade, as a consequence of the blockade, is estimated at $3.9 billion; and in inflation-adjusted costs the Cuban government reports a total loss of some $1.1 trillion since 1960 — the year the US started what was to become the longest blockade in history. For the Cuban people, 77 per cent of whom were born under the ripple effects of its economic strangulation, the blockade has become a fact of life: as inevitable as “death and taxes”, notes Matt Peppe in Counterpunch. The prohibitive costs of the blockade are a consequence of its extraterritorial reach that prohibits all foreign companies from trading with Cuba, if they have US affiliates. In case of noncompliance, they are slapped with severe sanctions. One important provision of the blockade, which entails increased costs with consequent loss of revenue, is caused by Cuba's lack of access to US dollars and US banks. What's more, Cuba is prohibited from trading with US dollars in any banks worldwide. And the Helms-Burton Act prevents international financial institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund from granting loans to Cuba. Cuba's report to the UNGA notes that the French bank BNP Paribas was made to feel the brunt of US sanctions; it was fined $8.97 billion for transgressing the terms of the blockade by extending credits to Cuba and other non-kosher countries. A travel company based in Argentina had to pay $2.8 million for servicing travellers to Cuba, and a large Dutch travel company was fined $5.9 million on the same charges. Energy drink manufacturer Red Bull provides an even more surreal example of the US sanctions regime. The company paid the relatively paltry sum of $90,000 for sending a crew of seven people to film a documentary on the island. Surreal US sanctions aside, it is noteworthy that 90 per cent of the blockade-inflated trade costs consist of food and medicine. And because nearly 80 per cent of patents in the medical sector are held by US corporations and their subsidiaries, Cuba is denied access to life-saving medication and equipment, says the report. To quote a few examples among many: a number of antiviral medicines are unavailable because the US holds a monopoly over their patents. The Cuban Institute of Haematology and Immunology, that diagnoses cases of child leukemia — 75 per cent of which are defined as “acute lymphoids” — is unable to provide the optimum treatment for the children, whose condition requires the US-manufactured L-asparaginase enzyme. Meanwhile, the National Centre for Medical Genetics faces obstacles in buying equipment and reagents, a fact that impacts on the diagnosis, control and prevention of genetic diseases and congenital disorders. Notwithstanding the debilitating and oftentimes life-threatening consequences of the blockade, the Cuban medical system ranks among the best worldwide. Unlike in the US, healthcare is defined as a human right in Cuba. It is “free and universal, and of the highest quality by world standards,” writes Mateo Pimentel in Counterpunch. And the Cuban universal educational system that produces highly competent scientists and physicians by far surpasses educational achievement levels in the US, notes Pimentel. On UNESCO's Education for All development index, Cuba ranked 16th — attaining the highest score in Latin America and the Caribbean — whereas the US ranked 25th. It is not only the Cuban people who have benefited from the island's achievements in education; the Cuban Revolution has exported its literacy programme across Latin American countries. The Yo, sí puedo (Yes, I can) programme, first launched in Venezuela in 2003, has succeeded in eradicating illiteracy within one year, teaching more than one million Venezuelans to read. Since then, the initial literacy teaching method has been expanded to include the continuing studies programme Yo, sí puedo seguir (Yes, I can continue), which offers classes in continuing education to more than one million students in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Colombia. In addition, more than 50,000 students from 27 countries have graduated from Cuba's tuition-free higher education programmes. It is a little known fact that seven US citizens, graduates of Havana's medical school, have returned home to provide free medical care to the impoverished residents of US slums and ghettos. Most recently, Cuban health workers have become the world's foremost contributors to the struggle against the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. Not known to be a friend of Cuba, The New York Times recently editorialised that Cuba's contribution “should be lauded and emulated” because “Cuba stands to play the most robust role among the nations seeking to contain the virus.” This is no idle talk. Cuba is in fact the largest single provider of healthcare to the outbreak, more than northern and richer nations, or even the Red Cross, says the World Health Organisation. From a pool of 15,000 volunteers, Cuban health authorities selected 461 doctors and nurses for a three-week training course in preparation for their mission. Currently a total of 256 health workers have been sent to Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. From Liberia, Cuban physician Renaldo Torres wrote on his Facebook account: “I am here carrying out my duty as a revolutionary doctor... paying off the debt that all humanity has with Africa,” reports Counterpunch. In West Africa, as elsewhere, Cuba has once again taught the world a lesson in solidarity and internationalism. As for the Obama administration, it is paying off its huge debt to the continent by sending in troops to join the struggle against Ebola.
