At the UN's 18th annual meeting on the blockade against Cuba, the island nation was feted for its historic resistance against the United States, writes Faiza Rady "From a total of 192 UN member states, who are the two lone countries that voted with the US in favour of its economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba at the UN's 64th General Assembly (UNGA) Meeting on 28 October?" A journalist asked US State Department Spokesperson Ian Kelly this rather simple question at a press conference following the UNGA's record vote where, for the 18th year in a row, 187 countries condemned the US blockade. While Kelly fumbled for an answer, the journalist suggested it was possibly Micronesia and Israel. Though not quite correct, the journalist's guess was as good as any. As always, it was Israel -- the US's closest ally in the Middle East -- that favoured the blockade. The other loyal US ally wasn't Micronesia, which abstained from voting this year, but the tiny island of Palau. A little-known territory of some 281 square miles in the Pacific Ocean, and a US colony for nearly 50 years, Palau voted with the US and Israel against the majority of the world's nations. The resolution against the US-imposed blockade was passed amidst much applause. South Africa's representative praised Cuba's role in his country's liberation from apartheid, a victory celebrated in Johannesburg last year. He also lauded the support Cuba extended to other poor nations around the world, notably in the areas of health, education and biotechnology. As for the blockade, the South African delegate said it had created untold suffering and that the time to end it was long overdue. Speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the representative of St Kitts and Nevis denounced the blockade, saying the unilateral imposition of extra- territorial laws on third countries was illegal and contravened UN enshrined rights to freedoms of international trade and navigation. CARICOM also condemned the US for imposing a blockade that sabotaged the entire region's development. After the applause and expressions of solidarity with Cuba subsided, another journalist grilled Kelly: "You have no opinion on the fact that the rest of the world thinks that this is a bad way to go?" The US State Department spokesperson responded with the clichéd and worn-out anti-Cuban rhetoric of the past 47 years. "The US has the sovereign right to conduct its economic relations with Cuba as determined by US national interests," he countered. "These so-called interests have remained unchanged since 1962," Vladimir Queseda, attaché at the Cuban embassy in Cairo, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "When they use resounding words like 'national interests', the Obama administration's parlance translates as 'regime change' in our country. We had high hopes that Barack Obama, the first African- American president in US history, would take a different stand. Unfortunately this hasn't been the case." And there is no reason to believe that the Obama administration has the political will to effect change in the future. On a recent tour of the region, US Vice-President Joe Biden explained that his country would maintain the blockade as a "tool to apply pressure on Cuba". Yet, despite Obama's oft-lofty rhetoric on establishing new relations with the global south, based on mutual respect for national sovereignty and political and cultural difference, he unambiguously stated his position on Cuba early. In May of last year, while still on the campaign trail, Obama promised a group of some 800 Cuban-Americans that as president he would continue to maintain the blockade. Obama was careful to keep his word, for the Cuban- American lobby is powerful in the US. Like the Israeli lobby, it can make and unmake politicians. The Obama administration did make some cosmetic changes, though. Obama lifted remittance restrictions to Cuban relatives of Cuban-Americans, and allowed them to travel to the island. The blockade, however, lives on. Trade between Cuba and the US remains prohibited. The 1992 Torricelli Act and the 1996 Helms-Burton Bill, also known as the Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act, remain in place. The Cuban Liberty and Solidarity Act requires that imports into the US include less than 10 per cent of Cuban ingredients, while Torricelli prohibits foreign subsidiaries of US multinationals to trade with Cuba and threatens severe sanctions for non-compliance. This ingenious piece of legislation also imposes a six-month long ban from US ports on ships that anchor in Cuban waters. Based on these bills, sanctions are slapped on US and European companies that dare break the blockade and trade with Cuba. In many instances, Cuban patients cannot benefit from new diagnostic techniques and drugs since the blockade prohibits Cuba from buying a single component of US manufacture. Since its inception in 1962, the Cuban government estimates that the blockade has cost the Cuban people $96 billion in damages and lost revenues -- a staggering figure. What does it mean in the real world? Bruno Rodriguez Parrila, Cuban minister of foreign affairs, explains. In his address to the UNGA, Parrila called the blockade an "uncultured act of arrogance" that has caused human suffering and led to shortages of basic necessities. "The embargo is a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights," said Parrila. In his speech, Parrila told the story of Alexis Garc�a Iribar, a six-year-old from the province of Guantanamo. Alexis suffers from a congenital heart disease known as "persistent arterial duct". On 9 March, he had to undergo open-heart surgery because the US government prohibits US companies NUMED, AGA and Boston Scientific from selling to Cuba the "amplatzer" and "embolisation coils" required for catheterisation. This would have been an alternative and safer treatment for the six-year-old, who instead was subjected to the trauma of invasive open-heart surgery. Cuban children suffering from lymphoblastic leukaemia -- an aggressive form of cancer that destroys normal cells in the bone marrow -- and whose bodies reject medicines cannot be treated with the US-patented drug "Elspar" (Erwinia L-asparaginase) used to treat drug intolerance, says Parrila. The US forbids Elspar manufacturers, Merck & Co, from selling the medicine to Cuba. Another example, among many: Cuba has not been able to buy gene analyser equipment, an indispensable tool in the research of breast, colon, and prostate cancers. The equipment is produced by Applied Bio Systems, a US manufacturer. The US government's aim remains unchanged since the inception of the blockade, says the Cuban foreign minister. As expressed in a declassified State Department report dated 1958-60 (Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume VI, Cuba), the US aim then -- as now -- was to damage 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. Based on the 1948 Geneva Convention (Article 2, Paragraphs b) the US government's aim explicitly falls under the classification of genocide, explains Parrila. The text of the paragraph reads: "genocide is causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a [human] group". And since the aim of the blockade is to "weaken the economic life of Cuba to bring about hunger and desperation", its consequences are the infliction of "serious bodily or mental harm" on the Cuban people. Though not unscathed, the Cuban people have survived half a century of confronting the "ruthless and genocidal empire", says former Cuban president Fidel Castro. In his column "Reflections", published in the Cuban daily Granma, Fidel explains the reason for his country's success story at the UNGA. "A great number of countries feel that Cuban resistance is a struggle for their own right to sovereignty."
