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"The economic blockade against Cuba, that the United States has imposed for three decades, is a crime against humanity. One cannot prohibit food and medecine for ideological, racial or religious reasons" |
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on the necessity of ending the US embargo against Cuba
The meetings of the General Assembly of the United Nations look alike, one after the other : for the sixth consecutive year, the blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States for more than 35 years has been condemned. Only 3 Member States voted against : the United States, of course, Israel and the Ouzbeki-thing. And, as usual, the representative of the United States to the United Nations declared that his country would not yield to the injunctions of the U.N... Certain questions should be risen when the self-proclaimed "Gendarme of the World" finds itself in so meeger company. And one is entitled to react when it gets caught red-handed in an "attempted humanitarian crime". Already reinforced in 1992 by the Toriccelli bill, the blockade reaches a new climax by the vote of the Helms-Burton bill in March 1996, a few months only after 3rd vote of the United Nations. This law threatens of reprisals any person or company who would maintain financial or commercial relations with Cuba. Various companies in the world have already received notice from the American administration announcing retaliatory measures. The reasons given by the United States to impose the blockade on Cuba have varied according to times' and have been adapted to a given situation as to its opposite. It would thus be hazardous, and above all useless, to give any, knowing the risk of beeing contradicted little afterwards by another... What is certain is that beyond the numerous clichés about Cuba, there is at least one disturbing point : a country of the Third World rises, in only one single generation, to a level of health and education that can only be compared to the wealthiest nations. This does not fit in with the usual vision of the world. And the whole thing becomes totally inconceivable, coming from a country proclaiming Socialism. Referring to Cuba, like it did with Nicaragua or Chile, the American administration never concealed that, as far as it was concerned, «the example of a marxist government in Latin America is unacceptable». Then, of course, the blockade becomes an obvious necessity. Then, of course, those who defend «the laws of a free market» prohibit the sale of medecine to Cuba. On one hand, they flood with "technical" and "economical" support regimes that cannot hide any longer the catastrophic situation in which they have plunged their own countries. On the other hand, they impose a blockade on a country which has given one of the lowest illiteracy and infant mortality rates and one of the highest life expectancies upon the continent. In a time when even humanitarian action can be recuperated by politicians, is it conceivable to let a country, having already overcome the plagues of disease, hunger, and illiteracy be methodically ruined ? The whole justified by arguments which are never advanced when it comes to "friendly countries". The blockade was imposed by the United States in the name of «Democracy and the Free World». But what makes the world more democratic when tearing a schoolbook off the hands of a cuban child ? And is the world any freer since the cuban doctors operate without anaesthesia ? And which example of freedom and democracy can one offer under these conditions when one hears from a cuban doctor «even to our worst enemies, we would never have done such a thing». And, finally, who will convince us that the cuban people deserves to be sacrified upon the aulter of the North-American interests, while the rest of the world stands watching ? FRANCE-AMERIQUE LATINE Comité Départemental du Rhône |
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