UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- For the fourteenth year in a row, the U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution Tuesday to end the United States' economic embargo on Cuba.
Representatives from 20 countries implored Washington to end its four decade economic, financial, and commercial embargo on Cuba. They say the action, one of the longest in history, has led to the suffering of Cubans and the loss of billions of dollars.
The embargo prohibits trade between the United States and Cuba. The only goods allowed into Cuba are medicine, medical supplies and food, which the United States grants licenses to ship to Cuba from the United States.
"If the people of Cuba are jobless, hungry, or lack medical care, as Castro admits, it is because of his economic mismanagement, not the embargo," said Ambassador Ronald Godard, a senior adviser at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, addressing the General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York Tuesday.
Many member states argue the embargo violates the U.N. Charter for free trade and international law. The U.N. Charter includes basic principles of sovereign equality of states, non-intervention and non-interference of a state's internal affairs, and freedom of international trade and navigation.
"The blockade is an economic war enforced with incomparable zeal at a global scale," said Felipe Perez Roque, Cuba's minister of foreign affairs.
Fidel Castro assumed control of Cuba in 1959. Castro allied himself with the Communist Party and fostered a strong ally with the Soviet Union, a Cold War enemy of the United States. As a result, U.S. relations with Cuba were cut off both diplomatically and economically.
The United States has since reinforced the embargo under the Cuba Democracy Act in 1992, which reestablished the embargo on trade by foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies with Cuba, and the Helms-Burton Act in 1996, which allows naturalized Americans to sue in U.S. courts foreign companies or individuals who may have profited from property confiscated in Cuba since Castro's communist revolution.
Several of the country's representatives who addressed the General Assembly said the embargo stretches beyond Cuba's borders because the United States imposes large monetary penalties on some foreign companies which do business with Cuba.
The United States insists this is a bilateral conflict between Cuba and the United States.
"Castro claims that the embargo is a blockade. He knows this is a lie," said Godard. "Cuba is free to trade with any other country in the world without interference from the United States."
Cuba, during Roque's speech to the General Assembly, once again blamed the United States for its economic woes. Cuba claims to have lost $82 billion.
Roque detailed a litany of recent incidents by the United States which he characterized as "hysterical." Among the actions cited, Roque claims that in May 2004 the United States signed a plan to annex Cuba and imposed a $100 million fine on Swiss bank UBS for allegedly breaching sanctions against Cuba.
"At the height of delusion and absurdity, the so-called Control Regulations for Cuban Assets were tightened," continued Roque. "It will be the only time in history when an American will be prevented from smoking a Cuban cigar or buying a bottle of unrivaled Cuban rum Havana Club, even if they do so while traveling to another country."
Many nations expressed frustration that the embargo issued has remained unresolved.
For over a decade, the General Assembly has annually passed the resolution only to have it be ignored by the United States. Anticipating Washington will not end the embargo, the resolution to end the blockade is already scheduled for next year's provisional agenda of the annual general debate in the U.N. General Assembly.
"We continue to maintain that the economic, commercial, and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba serves no other purpose than aggravating tension between the two countries," said Le Luong Minh, Vietnam's representative, addressing the general assembly.
Many member states called for the United States and Cuba to resolve their conflict through dialogue.
"The United States and Cuba are two countries whose destinies are linked by history and geography which should require that the embargo and coercive measures should be replaced by dialogue and cooperation," said Stafford Neil, Jamaica's representative and chairman of the Group of 77, a third world coalition representing 132 developing countries.
As it has in past years, the United States maintained its pro-embargo position. Only three of the 186 countries involved in the vote sided with the United States and rejected the resolution -- Israel, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. Micronesia abstained.
"Fidel Castro knows what it will take to end the embargo; reforms that will benefit the Cuban people," said Godard, stressing the impediment in United States-Cuba relations is Cuba's dictatorship.
"The U.S. government is delusional with the idea it can overthrow the Cuban Revolution," said Roque. "Now Cuba has two obstacles to overcome: the helpless imperial haughtiness of President Bush, which has taken him further than anyone else in this madness, and the ever-increasing globalization of the world economy."
