New York, October 28.—With 130 votes in favor, the United Nations General Assembly once again endorsed the Cuban resolution calling for an end to the economic, commercial, and financial embargo imposed by the United States against Cuba. The result marks another diplomatic victory for our country and confirms the international community’s broad and overwhelming rejection of a policy that, for decades, has sought to subdue the sovereign will of the Cuban people.
Speaking before the General Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla denounced the grave human consequences of the blockade, which limits the exercise of fundamental rights, affects third countries, and turns the population’s essential needs into instruments of political coercion.
The Cuban Foreign Minister highlighted the effects of this policy and its consequences on the daily lives of Cuban families—at a patient’s bedside, in an operating room, in a child’s meals, and in the classroom. He warned of the international scope of the pressure and threats exerted by Washington and posed a question that challenges all States: “Today, the pressure is directed against Cuba; against which State might it be used tomorrow?”
The minister also denounced the lack of substance, cynicism, and hypocrisy involved in characterizing Cuba as an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security of the world’s greatest nuclear power. He emphasized that, far from posing a threat, Cuba has helped address U.S. national security priorities.
After 67 years in effect, the blockade has still failed to achieve its goal of breaking Cuba’s will. The intense pressure and maneuvers deployed by the U.S. government to weaken support for the resolution failed to alter the sovereign position of the overwhelming majority of the international community. Washington resorts to disinformation campaigns and slander to conceal its true intentions and justify economic coercion, which only demonstrate its political impotence.
Cuba has been free and independent since January 1, 1959, and its people are determined to defend their sovereignty at whatever cost.
Today’s vote represents a victory for truth and international solidarity, but above all, for the heroic Cuban people, who are resisting economic suffocation, threats, and collective punishment without renouncing their independence.
No amount of pressure will be able to break the will of a nation that chose to be free, nor will any form of blackmail be able to shake its determination to defend the homeland.
Cuba will remain standing, sovereign and dignified, determined to build its future in peace and to defend, with firmness and patriotism, the independence it has won.
