Source: CCTV news client
On 3 November, the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly again adopted a resolution by an overwhelming majority of 185 votes in favour, 2 against and 2 abstentions, demanding that the United States end the economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba. This is the 30th consecutive time that the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a similar resolution by an overwhelming majority.
As the gavel fell, the United Nations General Assembly adopted, for the 30th consecutive time, by an overwhelming majority, a resolution on "Ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba". In his statement in the general debate before the vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Rodríguez once again condemned the enormous economic losses and serious humanitarian catastrophe caused by the 60-year United States blockade against Cuba.
Foreign Minister Rodriguez of Cuba: This (the US blockade) is a deliberate act of economic warfare aimed at curbing Cuban state revenues and undermining the government's ability to meet the needs of the population, with the intention of collapsing the Cuban economy and creating a situation in which the government cannot govern. Since 2019, the US government has escalated its blockade of the mainland and taken it to an extreme level, more cruel and inhumane.
The United States again voted against in the previous vote, and again used the guise of "democracy" and "human rights" in its explanation of speech after the vote. The United States has abstained only once in 2016 since the General Assembly voted on the issue every year since 1992.
Although the vote of the United Nations General Assembly has political influence in international diplomacy, the United States Government has not ended its longstanding unilateral sanctions against Cuba.
After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the United States Government adopted a hostile policy towards Cuba. In 1961, the United States and Cuba severed diplomatic relations. The following year, the United States imposed an economic, financial blockade and trade embargo on Cuba. In March 1996, the United States enacted the Helms-Burton Act, which provides for severe sanctions against all foreign companies that engage in economic and trade with Cuba. In July 2015, the United States and Cuba officially resumed diplomatic relations, but the United States did not fully lift the blockade against Cuba. After Trump took office as US president, the US government tightened its policy toward Cuba.
60 years of blockade of Cuba The specter of the American "Monroe Doctrine" is still lingering
The economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba over the past 60 years can be said to be the reality of the "Monroe Doctrine" in the twenty-first century.
The "Monroe Doctrine" was first proposed by then US President Monroe in 1823, nominally declaring that "America is the America of the Americans", but in fact it paved the way for the United States to monopolize the Americas, promote power politics, regard Latin America as its own "backyard", and force Latin American countries to act according to the will of the United States. Today, nearly 200 years later, the specter of the Monroe Doctrine still haunts Latin America.
In 2013, then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the era of the Monroe Doctrine was over and that the United States would establish an "equal partnership" with Latin American countries. However, in fact, the United States has never abandoned the "Monroe Doctrine". During the Trump administration, then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson again advocated the Monroe Doctrine on the eve of his visit to Latin America in early 2018, inciting a coup d'état by the Venezuelan army. In addition, the US government has repeatedly increased sanctions against Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua and other countries, showing that the "Monroe Doctrine" has risen again.
In June, the United States refused to invite the leaders of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the Ninth Summit of the Americas in the United States. Cuban President Díaz-Canel pointed out that under the manipulation of the United States, the Summit of the Americas revived the "Monroe Doctrine" and was a "performance with neo-colonial colors".
As early as the Monroe administration in the United States, then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams regarded Cuba, which was still a Spanish colony at that time, as a "natural appendage" of the United States, and proposed the so-called "ripe fruit policy", that is, when the time was ripe, it would swallow this "fruit like a fruit blown down by the wind". Today, Latin American countries have more clearly realized that the self-interest of the US "Monroe Doctrine" and its interference in Latin America have not changed, and that the United States cannot truly treat Latin American countries from the angle of equality and mutual benefit, as evidenced by what the United States has done in the 60 years of the blockade against Cuba.
Carlos Alzugay, former Cuban diplomat and expert on Cuba-American issues: The purpose of the increased sanctions imposed by the United States is to prevent all kinds of resources from entering Cuba, including financial resources. That is to say, cutting off all sources of funding for Cuba's economic development, even for individual citizens, prevents Cuba from benefiting from any commercial activity. There is also a very important sanctions measure that obstructs the flow of oil into Cuba and prevents Cuba from importing energy, with the aim of stifling the Cuban economy and subjecting the Cuban people to economic hardship.