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by Jayatilleke de Silva

On November 8, 2005 the United Nations General Assembly will once again discuss and vote on a resolution calling for the ending of the US blockade of Cuba.

This is a blockade that has been enforced for more than four decades. More than 70 percent of the Cubans living today have been born under the blockade. There has never been any such blockade of a single nation in the entire history of mankind.

A blockade does not mean just imposition of economic sanctions. In the case of Cuba it has been much more.

Though the original commercial blockade was formally imposed on February 3, 1962 conditions of economic strangulation of Cuba dates far back as 1959 when few weeks after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution the US put in place several measures that later became features of the blockade. Its real intention was formulated in a secret report by I.D. Mallory, Sub-Secretary of State for Interamerican Affairs of the State Department of the US government in April 1960.

Genocide

This report was declassified in 1991. It said "The only way to affect internal support is to discourage and generate disillusion based on lack of satisfaction and generation of economic problems... Any mean able to do so must be soon implemented to provoke hunger, desperation and as a consequence the fall of the government". (Emphasis ours)

This was actually an open invitation for genocide. In international law the crime of genocide is defined as an act committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide cites five examples of such acts. Among them is "Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part."

The genocidal nature of the blockade became apparent as the US strengthened it in the face of its failure to bring the Cuban people to their knees. Two pieces of US legislation, viz., the Torricelli Act (implemented from 1992) and the Helms-Burton Act (implemented from 1996) strengthened the blockade by adding extra-territorial measures to it.

Blacklist

The Torricelli Act forbids commerce between Cuba and American subsidiaries in third countries. For example the Swedish firm Pharmacia used to provide technology and supplies to medical research institutions in Cuba.

Once this firm was bought by the US firm General Electric they closed down its office in Cuba within a week and suspended all transactions. This Act is also used to "blacklist" ships calling over at Cuban ports and prevent them for entering US ports for six months since their last call in Cuba.

The Helms-Burton Law debars foreign investment in Cuba and also has provisions to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. This is a challenge to the sovereignty of nations and is against international law.

The blockade was further strengthened on June 30, 2004 following a report approved by President Bush, which was titled "Aid commission for a free Cuba." It was an open invitation for subversion. Its objective was to cripple the Cuban economy, re-impose capitalism and annex Cuba through direct US intervention.

The direct economic damage to Cuba due to the blockade exceeds 82, 000 million dollars, according to conservative estimates. This is an average of 1782 million dollars a year. This does not include damage caused by direct acts of sabotage, which amounts to 54,000 million dollars.

There is no doubt the UN General Assembly will overwhelmingly vote to end the blockade. Last year 179 member states of the UN voted to end the blockade. In 1992 when the resolution to end the blockade was introduced in the UN General Assembly it received only 5 votes in favour.

The votes in favour increased annually. According to present trends the number is bound to increase this year. Recently the 15th Ibero - American Summit held recently in Spain unanimously passed a resolution calling for an end to the US blockade of Cuba.

Though General Assembly decisions do not have the force of law it will be a great moral support to Cuba and a blow to the interventionist policies of the Bush administration in the United States. People of the world demand "End US blockade of Cuba".

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