I write this on the eve of the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly (Tuesday, October 27, 2015) in New York, where the resolution to the end the economic, commercial and financial blockade of our sister nation will be tabled by its foreign minister, Bruno Rodriquez. Let us raise our voices in joining the rest of progressive humanity to end this 54-year-old genocidal action and stain on the conscience of all well-thinking US citizens once and for all.

In the vote at last year’s (2014) session, 188 of its members voted for its ending with only the US and Israel opposing. There were three abstentions in Micronesia, Palau Islands, and Marshall Islands. The occasion also marked the 23rd consecutive year that the overwhelming majority of citizens on planet Earth, through their respective governments, voted against this anachronism in State-to-State relations.

According to the Cuban Government, in sheer numbers the economic damage wrought on their country by this criminal blockade amounts to a staggering US$833,755 billion when taken against the current price of gold. If that was not enough, the extra-territorial applications of the Helms Burton and Torricelli Act between January 2009 and June 2015 have fined 42 US and foreign companies a total in excess of US$13 billion for doing business with Cuba and other named countries.

The action that really broke my heart, though, as a parent and a human being, was when a 13-year-old Cuban boy Raysel Sosa Rojas, who suffers from an incurable hereditary haemophilia, in 2006 was the regional winner in the 15th United Nation Environmental Programme(UNEP) International Children’s Painting Competition. At the awards ceremony, held on June 5, 2006 at Palace of Nations in Algiers, which incidentally was also World Environment Day, he could not collect his prize which was a Nikon camera. Why? Because, due to US pressure, this predominantly Japanese-manufactured product could not be handed to him, a Cuban, as it contained component parts that were US in origin.

In spite of the rapprochement between the two countries in December of 2015, which is a positive, the facts show that the blockade has been further tightened, and especially its extra-territorial implementation has been intensified.

Let’s join with our local parliamentarians who, despite their political differences, are united in their support for our sister country that this obstacle to their development be confined to the dustbin of history.

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