UN rejects US bid to criticize Cuba and calls for end to embargo

Yahoo – AFP, Laura BONILLA CAL, Carole LANDRY, November 1, 2018

United States ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, pictured at a Security Council
meeting in New York on August 28, 2018, dismissed the vote calling for an end
 to the US embargo on Cuba as a "waste of everyone's time" (AFP Photo/
DOMINICK REUTER)

United Nations (United States) (AFP) - The UN General Assembly on Thursday called for an end to the decades-old US embargo on Cuba, adopting a resolution by an overwhelming majority and rejecting US moves to criticize Havana's human rights record.

It was the 27th time that the 193-nation assembly has issued the call to lift the embargo imposed in 1962.

The resolution presented by Cuba was adopted by a vote of 189 to 2 with no abstentions. The US and its ally Israel voted against while Ukraine and Moldova did not vote.

The United States failed to win support for eight amendments criticizing Cuba's human rights record. Only the US, Israel and Ukraine voted in favor of those amendments. The Marshall Islands joined them in one vote.

At least 65 countries including many European nations abstained and at least 113 voted against the proposed US call to Cuba to fully uphold its citizens' rights.

President Donald Trump's administration points to Cuba's repression of political opponents and curbs on freedom of expression as a reason for maintaining the economic embargo.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley dismissed the vote on the US embargo, which has been an annual exercise since 1992, as a "waste of everyone's time" because it did not address Cuba's human rights situation.

"It's one more time that countries feel they can poke the United States in the eye," Haley told the assembly.

Cruel policies

Applause broke out in the chamber after the adoption that highlighted Washington's isolation on its Cuba policy. The resolution is non-binding but carries political weight.

Haley declared that the United Nations had "rejected the opportunity to speak on behalf of human rights" and described the outcome of the vote as a reminder of "why so many people believe that faith in the United Nations is often misplaced."

In a 35-minute address ahead of the vote, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez slammed the Trump administration as a "government of millionaires that imposes cruel policies," citing US treatment of migrant children separated at the border with Mexico and "locked in cages."

"The US government does not have the least moral authority for criticizing Cuba or anyone else with regards to human rights," said the foreign minister, urging countries to back his measure.

Rodriguez argued that the embargo was a "flagrant, massive and systematic violation" of human rights in Cuba, notably by denying access to US-produced medicines and medical technology.

Last year, the resolution was adopted by a vote of 191 to 2. The United States and Israel were the only two countries that voted "no."

That vote took place after Washington for the first time abstained in the vote in 2016 as former president Barack Obama pursued a thaw in relations with Havana.

Ties between Cuba and the US have been in decline under Trump, who has rejected the previous administration's moves to improve ties with Havana.