UN General Assembly President condemns US blockade
Campaign News | Tuesday, 28 October 2008
The president of the UN General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto, said on Monday that the US economic blockade of Cuba is an ‘unhealthy obsession.’
Speaking to Prensa Latina news agency, d’Escoto added that “the US Government simply can’t tolerate that there is a place like Cuba that defends solidarity and the values that the world needs for the survival of the human species.”
The veteran Nicaraguan diplomat, politician and priest made these statements only two days before the UN General Assembly votes on a Cuban resolution condemning Washington’s almost fifty year-old blockade of the Caribbean nation.
The resolution, which is entitled ‘Necessity to End the Economic, Trade and Financial Blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba’ and has been circulating at the General Assembly since last week, is scheduled to be voted on during a plenary session of the international body.
Last year, 184 nations supported the resolution, four opposed and one abstained.
However, in spite of this overwhelming international rejection of the blockade, Washington continues to implement this coercive measure as UN resolutions are non-binding.
“In any international event, like in the case of the US blockade against Cuba, UN resolutions are taken as mere recommendations,” d’Escoto said.
