Georgetown: Following the adoption of a new resolution calling for the end of the US blockade against the Cuba, 189 members of the UN General Assembly supported the document lifting the ban but only the US and Israel voted against lifting of the siege.
The United Nations voted on Thursday Nov. 1 on a resolution regarding the ongoing U.S. trade embargo against Cuba.
This is according to President of the Guyana-Cuba Solidarity Movement (GCSM) Halim Khan who said under the document ‘Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba,’ the overwhelming victory of Cuba in the United Nations was highlighted.
“Once again, the international community demanded the end of the blockade that for almost six decades the US Government has maintained against the Antillean nation,” Khan said.
The GCSM President said that the new sanctions planned by the United States were a futile attempt to change its policies and would only further isolate Washington internationally.
He explained that the U.S. President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, announced recently that more than two dozen Cuban companies associated with the island’s military or intelligence would be added to the more than 100 that Americans are already banned from doing business with or patronizing.
Khan noted that the U.N. vote can carry political weight, but only the U.S. Congress can lift the more than 50-year-old embargo, which Cuba calls a blockade. The United States and Israel voted against the resolution.
Trump has taken a harder line on Cuba after former President Barack Obama sought to set aside decades of hostility between Washington and Havana. He has rolled back parts of Obama’s 2014 detente by tightening rules on Americans traveling to the island and restricting U.S. companies from doing business there.
In 2017, the 193-member General Assembly adopted the Cuban-sponsored resolution by a vote of 191-2, with Israel joining the U.S. in voting “no.” That was the same vote as in 2015.
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