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UNITED NATIONS. – In an overwhelming UN vote, 188 countries have called on the US to lift its 53-year trade embargo on Cuba. Havana has slammed the financial sanctions as a flagrant violation of human rights and said they are tantamount to genocide.
The record-breaking opposition to the embargo saw Israel isolated as the only country to vote in support of the US.
Palau, the island nation that got behind the US last year, abstained in the 22nd UN annual vote, along with Micronesia and Marshall Islands.
Cuba’s Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla conveyed Havana’s disappointment at the Obama administration, stressing that the human cost of the embargo is “incalculable.”
Upon assuming the presidency Barack Obama pledged to take steps to improve US-Cuban relations, but Rodriguez said the sanctions had actually tightened under Obama. Rodriguez also stated that the sanctions had been classified as “genocide” under the Geneva Convention of 1948. Several other nations spoke out against the US embargo at the UN vote. China’s Deputy UN Ambassador Wang Min urged the US “change its policy toward Cuba” as the “call of the international community is getting louder and louder.” The US mounted its defence in the face of overwhelming opposition and a barrage of criticism, claiming the sanctions were in place “urge respect for the civil and human rights.” Last year Washington took action to ease travel to and from Cuba, granting 16,767 visas to Cubans in the first half of 2013 – 80 percent more than were issued in the same period in 2012. – RT.
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