Though the UN condemned for the 17th consecutive year the US blockade of Cuba, the new American president may not change track, writes Faiza Rady "It is time for the United States to change their policy towards Cuba," said Barack Obama. "The time has come to end the embargo," the Illinois senator added. This was back in 2004. Yet as the Democratic Party's frontrunner for the US presidency, Obama finessed a 180- degree turnabout earlier this year. Addressing a group of 800 Cuban Americans in Miami 23 May, Obama promised "change" but vowed to maintain the Cuban blockade. As a presidential hopeful, Obama has become notorious for his dramatic flip-flops when addressing different audiences. Nevertheless, his voting record appears to be solid. "Well, first there's his adamant condemnation of the war in Iraq. Why, he was against it from the very start. Of course, that hasn't prevented him from voting continuously to fund the occupation," says Joe Mowrey in the US weekly Counterpunch. It remains to be seen which way the tide will turn once candidate Obama accedes to the presidency. Going by his positions on Central America, however, it appears that Cuba, and the rest of the Americas, is in for more of the same. Besides saying he would continue the blockade on Cuba, Obama expressed hostility towards Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other Latin American reformers. A free marketeer, like predecessor George W Bush, Obama promotes protectionism at home in the form of maintaining subsidies and tariffs, while demanding "free trade" access to Latin American markets. "His key policy advisers on Latin America propose cosmetic changes in style and diplomacy but unrelenting support for re- asserting US hegemony," comments Latin American analyst James Petras. In reference to upholding the Cuban blockade, the majority of the world's nations beg to differ with Obama. On 29 October, for the 17th year in a row, the 192-member UN General Assembly voted on "the necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial 'embargo' imposed by the United States of America against Cuba". The UNGA resolution passed with a vote of 185 in favour to three against (the US, Israel and Palau) and two abstentions (Micronesia and the Marshall Islands). This was a record vote for ending the embargo, support for which has grown from 59 votes in 1992 to this year's 185. "The word 'embargo' which is used in the resolution is misleading. Instead we use the term 'blockade'," Cuban Ambassador to Egypt Angel Delmau Fernandez told Al-Ahram Weekly. "On the surface this may seem like a minor distinction, but it's not: an embargo is bilateral; it only concerns two countries, whereas a 'blockade' is extra- territorial and constitutes economic warfare." In recent decades, the blockade has taken on a life of its own as it was fine-tuned and upgraded to choke the Cuban economy and bring about "regime change". To this effect, the US Congress passed two laws aimed at globalising the blockade: the 1992 Torricelli Act and the 1996 Helms-Burton Bill, also known as the Cuban Liberty and Democracy Act. This act requires that imports into the US can not include more than 10 per cent of Cuban ingredients while Torricelli prohibits the foreign subsidiaries of US multinationals from trading with Cuba and threatens severe sanctions for non-compliance. This inventive legislation also imposes a six- month ban from US ports on ships that anchor in Cuban waters. Cuban government sources estimate that since its inception the blockade has cost the island's economy more than $200 billion in damage and lost revenue. "There is no way to pay for the harm to thousands of lives and the suffering that the blockade and Yankee aggressions have cost the Cuban people," says former Cuban President Fidel Castro. At the UN, applause greeted the passage of the resolution calling for the end of the blockade. Speaking for the Non-Aligned Movement, Maged Abdel-Aziz of Egypt said his delegation rejected the illegal extraterritorial character of the blockade that includes unilateral economic sanctions, arbitrary travel restrictions and other "intimidating" measures that threaten the sovereignty and freedom to trade of non-aligned countries. He urged other countries not to comply with Torricelli and Helms-Burton as they contravene international law and the UN Charter. In his opening speech to the UNGA, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque remarked on the critical context of the resolution that includes a global financial crisis, two successive hurricanes that have devastated the island, and the 4 November US elections. Addressing outgoing President Bush, Roque said amidst cheers from other delegates: "You are alone, isolated. A new president will have to decide whether the blockade that is trying to break the Cuban people through hunger and sickness is a failed policy." The problem with UNGA resolutions, of course, is that while they express the consensus of the international community, and hence inform customary international law, they are non-binding. Though the overwhelming vote for Cuba represents a moral victory, it hasn't changed facts on the ground, ongoing now for nearly 50 years. Are votes of support useless? "On a number of occasions, I have wondered what the Assembly is good for when votes passed by an overwhelming majority, which reflect the wishes of 95 per cent of UN members, are utterly ignored," said UNGA President Miguel d'Escoto, a veteran Nicaraguan diplomat and priest. Cubans remain upbeat. "Though the UNGA vote is non-binding, we continue to sponsor the resolution to keep the issue alive," explains Vladimir Quesada, counsellor at the Cuban Embassy in Cairo. "It's not about gaining a few more votes every year, it's about having the moral high ground, and expressing it to the world." Nonetheless, in Cuba the situation is critical. According to the Cuban National Institute of Housing, hurricanes Gustav and Ike together destroyed and/or damaged some 450,000 homes and thousands of schools. The majority of crops were affected and an estimated 700,000 tonnes of food were destroyed, representing one third of the country's crops. Several hundred thousand animals died. On the Isla de la Juventud, the electric infrastructure was totally destroyed and was seriously damaged elsewhere. Reserves of potable water have been lost. Total losses are assessed at more than $5 billion. Though international support and solidarity has been forthcoming, Cuba doesn't have sufficient reserves to face the crisis. Production and distribution of food tops the priority list of the Cuban government. It is against this dramatic backdrop that the US has refused a request from Cuba to buy food and materials from US companies with private credit for a six-month period, in an effort to replenish food reserves and rebuild. The blockade also prohibits US multinationals from selling food on credit to Cuba. What's more, the blockade has prevented Cuba from borrowing funds from the World Bank or the Inter-American Development Bank, seriously affecting the country's development. Even The New York Times, a paper that cannot be accused of being pro-Cuba, editorially condemned the US position. "The embargo against Cuba is about as wrongheaded a policy as one can devise. Washington won't allow Cuba to buy American food on credit and it has, so far, refused to lift restrictions on the money that Cuban Americans may send back to their relatives," the paper wrote. For the Cubans, as always, the struggle goes on. "Neither blockades nor hurricanes can dishearten us," says Roque. "They can never defeat the Cuban people."
