Cuban diplomats say that their government will call again, at the UN, for an end to the US trade embargo (which the Cubans, erroneously, often call a blockade).
The Cubans have been trying for 20 years to get the UN to end the US embargo. In 2010, 187 countries voted in favour of the resolution and only two voted against: the US and Israel. In 2011, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon received a total of 142 statements from member states and 26 from UN agencies, funds and programmes criticising the continued blockade against Cuba, which they claim has cost the Cuban economy US$975bn, since the US first imposed it in 1961.
The Cubans say that they expect to table the draft resolution entitled: Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba to the UN General Assembly for the 20th consecutive time.
The Cubans argue that the embargo violates international law, the UN Charter and the norms of international commerce. More controversially, they also claim that it is an act of genocide, according to section C of Article II of the Geneva Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, and is a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of the human rights of an entire people.
Unprecedentedly, at least one Cuban ambassador, Armando Vergara Bueno, the representative in Qatar, has admitted that many of Cuba’s economic woes are self-inflicted. The main advantage of the ending of the embargo would be that US citizens would be free to take vacations in the island.
Iran: On 8 September Iran increased its credit line to Cuba from €200m to €500m (US$149m to US$373m). Iran had earmarked €200m credit line to Havana for buying goods and technical services from Iranian companies in the past. This nominal figure has been used by Cuba to buy transportation wagons, machinery, foods and textile productions and other goods, Iran says.
Iran expects Cuba to increase its exports of sugar and nickel to Iran, in return. Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Rahimi started a tour of Latin America in Havana at the beginning of September. He went on to Ecuador.
Cuba is a natural ally of Iran. Both are deeply anti-US.
Also on the Latin American trip were: Iran’s minister of industry, mines and trade Mehdi Ghazanfari; the energy minister, Majid Namjou and the minister of economy, Shamseddin Hosseini.
- The members of Petrocaribe are: Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Granada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Nicaragua, St Kitts & Nevis, St Vincent & The Grenadines, St Lucia, Suriname and Venezuela.
