Is the U.S. trade embargo risking lives in Cuba?
A man carries a gas cylinder on the back of his bicycle as he passes a billboard that reads in Spanish "Blockade: The longest genocide in history" in Havana on Jan. 26, 2016. Desmond Boylan AP
“WASHINGTON - Despite the improved ties between the United States and Cuba, the United Nations is expected to again condemn the American trade embargo against the communist island.
For the 25th year in a row, Cuba has called for the United Nations to issue a resolution against the U.S. “blockade,” as the Cubans refer to the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
We hope again – we cannot anticipate the vote, we will see on Oct. 26 – that the international community will be on Cuba’s side and call for an end to the blockade,” Josefina Vidal, who heads the U.S. Department at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, told students last week during a conference at Havana University.
In what is expected to be a telling display of the international perspective on the United States’ continued application of the embargo, the U.N. General Assembly is expected to overwhelmingly pass a resolution Wednesday calling for end to the U.S. policy that restricts trade between the countries.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/nation-world/world/article110245497.html#storylink=cpy
...
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls the embargo the “most unjust, severe and long-lived system” of sanctions ever applied against a country.
The U.S. government has sought to end the embarrassing ritual against the United States, but the Cuban government has declined to stop or even tone down its scathing account of how the island has been affected.
The Cuban government estimates the U.S. embargo has cost the island more than $125 billion over the half-century that it’s been in place. Cuban leaders document the impacts in great detail, from the somewhat trivial to life-threatening, in a blistering 42-page report.
They raise questions as to whether the U.S. government has put Cuban lives at risk because of sanctions that restrict access to diagnostic equipment for leukemia patients and devices crucial for pediatric heart surgery."
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/nation-world/world/article110245497.html
Cuba: Rejecting Sanctions, Sending a Message
"Sanctions continue to impede imports of critical goods and equipment from the US just as Cuba is prevented from exporting products and services to the US. Cuba has no direct banking relations with the US. US corporations cannot invest in the Cuban economy, except in the telecommunications industry.
...
It has been estimated that the sanctions have cost Cuba billions of dollars just in the course of the first six months of 2016. The impact upon the public health sector — the comprehensiveness and affordability of public health care being one of the greatest achievements of the Cuban Revolution — has been dire. Between April 2015 and April 2016, the accumulated monetary repercussions of the sanctions policy amounted to some 82.7 million dollars. Cuba is compelled to purchase medicines, “spare parts for diagnostic and treatment equipment, medical instruments and other supplies necessary for (the health) sector to function” from distant markets when it would have been so much cheaper to obtain them from the US itself.
It is not just the health sector that has suffered from sanctions. The food sector, education, sports and culture have all had to pay the price. Even biotechnology, a field in which Cuba has registered excellent progress, has had to bear the adverse consequences of the unjust and vicious US policy.
...
It is widely known that it is the US Congress more than the White House that is determined to perpetuate sanctions against Cuba. While some members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives feel that the sanctions should be lifted, the lobbies and special interests that want to continue to punish Cuba remain formidable. It is significant that Congress has received 51 legislative initiatives that seek to reinforce the sanctions. Obama cannot afford to ignore this. Nonetheless, he has executive powers that can circumvent some of the hurdles erected by the pro-sanctions groups.
This is why pro-justice citizens’ groups in the US and from around the world should intensify their efforts to persuade the powers-that-be in the US to eliminate the sanctions totally. Voices from within the US are critical; more human rights advocates, academics and representatives of the different religious communities should speak up. They should also counter the untruths, the half-truths and the outright lies about Cuba, the sanctions and the “security of the American people”.
People outside the US should also play their role. They should remind their governments to stick to their anti-sanctions position when the issue comes up again before the UN General Assembly on 26 October 2016. For the last 24 years, the vast majority of UN member states have voted to end the US sanctions regime. The last UN General Assembly vote on 27 October 2015 was the most convincing ever. 191 out of the 193 member states of the UN demanded that the sanctions be lifted. The only two states that voted against the resolution were the US and Israel."
Read more here http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/cuba-rejecting-sanctions-sending-a-message/
For the 25th year in a row, Cuba has called for the United Nations to issue a resolution against the U.S. “blockade,” as the Cubans refer to the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
We hope again – we cannot anticipate the vote, we will see on Oct. 26 – that the international community will be on Cuba’s side and call for an end to the blockade,” Josefina Vidal, who heads the U.S. Department at Cuba’s Foreign Ministry, told students last week during a conference at Havana University.
In what is expected to be a telling display of the international perspective on the United States’ continued application of the embargo, the U.N. General Assembly is expected to overwhelmingly pass a resolution Wednesday calling for end to the U.S. policy that restricts trade between the countries.
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/nation-world/world/article110245497.html#storylink=cpy
...
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls the embargo the “most unjust, severe and long-lived system” of sanctions ever applied against a country.
The U.S. government has sought to end the embarrassing ritual against the United States, but the Cuban government has declined to stop or even tone down its scathing account of how the island has been affected.
The Cuban government estimates the U.S. embargo has cost the island more than $125 billion over the half-century that it’s been in place. Cuban leaders document the impacts in great detail, from the somewhat trivial to life-threatening, in a blistering 42-page report.
They raise questions as to whether the U.S. government has put Cuban lives at risk because of sanctions that restrict access to diagnostic equipment for leukemia patients and devices crucial for pediatric heart surgery."
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/news/nation-world/world/article110245497.html
Cuba: Rejecting Sanctions, Sending a Message
"Sanctions continue to impede imports of critical goods and equipment from the US just as Cuba is prevented from exporting products and services to the US. Cuba has no direct banking relations with the US. US corporations cannot invest in the Cuban economy, except in the telecommunications industry.
...
It has been estimated that the sanctions have cost Cuba billions of dollars just in the course of the first six months of 2016. The impact upon the public health sector — the comprehensiveness and affordability of public health care being one of the greatest achievements of the Cuban Revolution — has been dire. Between April 2015 and April 2016, the accumulated monetary repercussions of the sanctions policy amounted to some 82.7 million dollars. Cuba is compelled to purchase medicines, “spare parts for diagnostic and treatment equipment, medical instruments and other supplies necessary for (the health) sector to function” from distant markets when it would have been so much cheaper to obtain them from the US itself.
It is not just the health sector that has suffered from sanctions. The food sector, education, sports and culture have all had to pay the price. Even biotechnology, a field in which Cuba has registered excellent progress, has had to bear the adverse consequences of the unjust and vicious US policy.
...
It is widely known that it is the US Congress more than the White House that is determined to perpetuate sanctions against Cuba. While some members of both the Senate and the House of Representatives feel that the sanctions should be lifted, the lobbies and special interests that want to continue to punish Cuba remain formidable. It is significant that Congress has received 51 legislative initiatives that seek to reinforce the sanctions. Obama cannot afford to ignore this. Nonetheless, he has executive powers that can circumvent some of the hurdles erected by the pro-sanctions groups.
This is why pro-justice citizens’ groups in the US and from around the world should intensify their efforts to persuade the powers-that-be in the US to eliminate the sanctions totally. Voices from within the US are critical; more human rights advocates, academics and representatives of the different religious communities should speak up. They should also counter the untruths, the half-truths and the outright lies about Cuba, the sanctions and the “security of the American people”.
People outside the US should also play their role. They should remind their governments to stick to their anti-sanctions position when the issue comes up again before the UN General Assembly on 26 October 2016. For the last 24 years, the vast majority of UN member states have voted to end the US sanctions regime. The last UN General Assembly vote on 27 October 2015 was the most convincing ever. 191 out of the 193 member states of the UN demanded that the sanctions be lifted. The only two states that voted against the resolution were the US and Israel."
Read more here http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/21/cuba-rejecting-sanctions-sending-a-message/
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