Reply #72: Cuba Report To UN On Why USA's Blockade Must End

[Judi Lynn]

Cuba Report To UN On Why USA's Blockade Must End
Tuesday, 11 October 2005, 10:15 am
Press Release: Cuba Government

Report by Cuba on Resolution 59/11 of the United Nations General Assembly

INTRODUCTION

The economic, commercial and financial blockade impose by the United States against Cuba is the longest-lasting and cruelest of its kind know to human history and is an essential element in the United States’ hostile and aggressive policies regarding the Cuban people. Its aim, made explicit on 6 April 1960 is the destruction of the Cuban Revolution: (…) through frustration and discouragement based on dissatisfaction and economic difficulties (…) to withhold funds and supplies to Cuba in order to cut real income thereby causing starvation, desperation and the overthrow of the government (...)”

It is equally an essential component of the policy of state terrorism against Cuba which silently, systematically, cumulatively, inhumanly, ruthlessly affects the population with no regard for age, sex, race, religious belief or social position.

This policy, implemented and added to by ten US administrations also amounts to an act of genocide under the provisions of paragraph (c) of article II of the Geneva Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948 and therefore constitutes a violation of International Law. This Convention defines this as ‘(…) acts perpetrated with the intention to totally or partially destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group’, and in these cases provides for ‘the intentional subjugation of the group to conditions that result in their total or partial physical destruction’.

The blockade on Cuba is an act of economic war. There is no regulation of International Law which justifies a blockade in times of peace. Since 1909, in the London Naval Conference, as a principle of International Law it was defined that ‘blockade is an act of war’, and based on this, its use is only possible between countries at war.
(snip/...)

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0510/S00197.htm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cuba embargo 'unfounded, unfair and deeply illegal'

Vanessa Arrington | Havana, Cuba

28 September 2005 09:18

~snip~

Democrats and free-trade Republicans in the US Congress for years have pushed for easing the sanctions but have yet to make headway against an administration determined to keep up the pressure. Anti-Castro Cuban-Americans, concentrated in Florida, have been strong supporters of Bush and the Republican Party.

If more Americans knew how much hardship the embargo caused Cubans in their daily life, they would surely demand its end, Rodriguez said.

"Americans can be continually deceived, and manipulated, but eventually they arrive at the truth and they act," he said.

The United Nations General Assembly condemned the embargo, urging the US to end the policy for the 13th straight year in a vote last fall. Last year's UN resolution calling for the embargo to be repealed was approved by a vote of 179-4, with only the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau opposed.
(snip/...)

http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/&articleid=252104