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UNITED NATIONS (November 10, 1999 6:40 a.m. EST) - Cuba said Tuesday it will file a lawsuit against the U.S. government seeking more than $100 billion to compensate Cubans for damages allegedly inflicted by Washington's 38-year-old economic embargo.
Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, made the announcement shortly before the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for the eighth straight year to condemn the embargo and demand that it be lifted.
He said that the lawsuit was just one part of a new Cuban campaign to use all legal avenues to fight the embargo.
However, Alarcon refused to say where or when the suit would be filed and what other legal actions were planned, saying he didn't want to give the United States advance notice.
U.S. deputy ambassador Peter Burleigh had no immediate comment on the lawsuit. U.S. officials said privately they would wait to see where the suit was filed before saying whether they will take it seriously or not.
The Clinton administration, like its predecessors, has castigated Cuban President Fidel Castro as a dictator, accused his government of supporting terrorism and maintained the embargo to weaken his hold on power.
Last week, a Cuban court found the U.S. government liable for deaths and damage as a result of it policies and ordered the United States to pay $181 billion in reparations. However, there was virtually no chance any money would be paid since there are no American funds in Cuba that can be frozen and seized.
Alarcon said the embargo has made it impossible for Cuba to acquire products, equipment, services and technology, and severely damaged its foreign trade and ability to get funding and credits.
Alarcon, a former Cuban U.N. ambassador, said he was "very satisfied" with the support in the General Assembly for ending the embargo, despite intense lobbying of U.N. members by the U.S. State Department.
A total of 155 of the assembly's 188 members voted in favor of a non-binding resolution calling for the United States to repeal the embargo it imposed after Communists seized power in the island nation in 1959.
Only two countries - the United States and Israel - voted against it and there were 8 abstentions.
Supporters of the resolution included some of Washington's closest allies - the European Union, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Japan, which urged the United States and Cuba to embark on a "bilateral dialogue" to resolve their differences.
Before the vote, Burleigh encouraged delegations to oppose it, calling the issue a matter of bilateral trade policy.
While maintaining the embargo as part of U.S. policy of promoting democracy in Cuba, Burleigh stressed that the American people have been "extremely generous" in providing humanitarian assistance to Cuba.
Alarcon took issue with the claim, telling the General Assembly that Cuba has become the only country to which the United State still bans the sale of food and medicine - after similar bans were lifted in July against Iran, Libya and Sudan and in September against North Korea.