World outcry against U.S. blockade of Cuba

On Nov. 8 the U.N. General Assembly will cast the 15th consecutive annual vote calling on the United States to end its blockade of Cuba. In 2005, out of 191 countries represented in the General Assembly, only four voted against the resolution: the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall Islands. One country, Micronesia, abstained from the vote, which was 186 to 4. As world support grew for Cuba, the United States not only ignored this growing call, but intensified its threats.

What is the blockade of Cuba? A secret but recently declassified U.S. document dated April 6, 1960, bluntly stated its objective: “to withhold funds and supplies to Cuba ... thereby causing starvation, desperation and the overthrow of the government.” The blockade, along with paramilitary invasions and terror bombings, did not achieve that goal.

In 2004, 44 years later, the U.S. flaunted its violation of the right of nations to self-determination, as well as world opinion, by openly publishing a detailed plan to annex Cuba. It was updated this year with a secret chapter that can only contain plans for military aggression.

Despite the blockade, Cuba’s accomplishments are well known and indisputable. In just over four decades since its socialist revolution, this former island colony—whose people had been enslaved, super exploited and underdeveloped—has blossomed and flourished. It is the only country in the hemisphere with universal health care and free education through the university level. It provides free schooling for people from every corner of the globe and sends abroad doctors and teachers, not bombs and destruction.

Even when Cuba’s production dropped by 70 percent after the collapse of the Soviet Union, not a school or hospital was closed. Socialist planning moved scarce resources to where they were needed the most. Unemployed workers became students earning subsistence wages and all social benefits were guaranteed. When belts were literally tightened to ensure basic nutrition for each Cuban, particularly children, government leaders were dramatically thinner, too.

Cuba has survived that “special period” and become a bright beacon of real equality and opportunity for the world’s oppressed. Nevertheless, the blockade is brutal and genocidal, harming not only Cubans but people in the United States, as well.

The travel ban prevents Cubans from visiting the U.S. and U.S. residents, including Cuban-Americans, from traveling to Cuba, thus violating a basic constitutional right of freedom of association. More than tourism is curtailed. Cuban Public Health Minister Dr. José Ramón Balaguer had planned to attend the 47th meeting of the Pan American Health Organization Directing Council in Washington on Sept. 25 to 29, but the U.S. denied his visa for a second time.

Cutting-edge Cuban medicines are denied to people in the U.S. by the blockade. Examples are TheraCIM hR3, an experimental medicine that has proven effective in treating head and neck cancer in children, and Citoprot-P, which speeds the healing of diabetic foot ulcers, reducing amputations. Cuba’s literacy programs are used successfully around the world but are not available to educators in the U.S.

The blockade hurts in many ways. Raysel Sosa González, a Cuban youth, won a U.N.-sponsored 15th International Children’s Painting Competition on the Environment but could not receive his Nikon camera as part of his prize because the U.S. blockade prohibits sending equipment with U.S. parts to Cuba.

You can help break the U.S. blockade of Cuba. Go to Cuba on the summer travel challenges with the Venceremos Brigade, Pastors for Peace or the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange. Help build the movement to Free the Cuban Five—the five Cuban men imprisoned in the U.S. for monitoring anti-Cuban paramilitaries in Miami. Extensive and detailed information on the blockade can be read at www.cubavsbloqueo.cu.