World condemns blockade of Cuba

Faced with the 15th consecutive repudiation of its 45-year blockade of Cuba at the United Nations, the United States pulled out another dirty trick on Nov. 8— and was defeated on that as well. The double international victory for Cuba highlights the grave importance of demanding that Washington reveal the contents of the “separate classified annex” included in the 2006 “Report to the President from the Commission for Assistance to A Free Cuba.”

A U.S.-inspired UN amendment introduced by Australia attempted to manipulate the issue of human rights, and forestall the growing global condemnation of Washington’s concerted effort to strangle the Cuban economy through the unprecedented blockade. Two-thirds of the General Assembly voted to “not consider” the spurious amendment.

On the vote that called on the United States to end the blockade, the Associated Press reported, “Delegates in the General Assembly chamber burst into applause when the vote flashed on the screen—183 in favor to four opposed, with one abstention. Joining the United States in voting ‘no’ were Israel and the South Pacific nations of the Marshall Islands and Palau. Micronesia, also in the South Pacific, abstained.”

At the National Network on Cuba meeting in New York City the weekend before the vote, a representative of ICAP—Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples—explained, “One of the reasons the vote will come out for Cuba on Wednesday is that the United States sends its military, but Cuba sends doctors around the world.”

U.S. imperialism’s global aims are thwarted in many quarters. The determined Iraqi resistance to U.S. occupation reached into the U.S. midterm election results. Throughout Latin America a renewed struggle for self-determination is raging from the ballot boxes to the barricades in Oaxaca.

Unable to tarnish Cuba’s solidarity and internationalism and its willingness to share what it has with other countries, will U.S. imperialism turn its guns outright on Cuba? What “reasons of national security and effective implementation” make some recommendations of the 2006 report secret? Is it more assassination attempts? More terror campaigns? An overt bombing of infrastructure as in Iraq, Lebanon, Yugoslavia? With an $80 million budget increase for this aggression against Cuba, it is the right of U.S. taxpayers to know this information, and their responsibility to demand it.

With the post of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations up for confirmation in January, the Bush administration is determined to keep John Bolton in the post. Bolton proved his usefulness in spreading lies to cover for U.S. aggression. His promotion of lies about Iraq seeking yellowcake uranium from Niger contributed to the U.S. murderous bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq. In 2002 Bolton was pulled back from falsely accusing Cuba of transferring biological weapons.