Don't blame embargo for Cuba's problems

Posted on Sat, Nov. 11, 2006

VERBATIM
Don't blame embargo for Cuba's problems
By XXXXXX

Below are excerpts from remarks by Ambassador Ronald Godard of the U.S.
Mission to the U.N. General Assembly on a resolution urging an end to
the U.S. embargo on Cuba. He spoke Wednesday before the resolution was
passed.

The U.S. trade embargo is a bilateral issue and as such should not come
before the General Assembly. We maintain this embargo to demonstrate our
continuing call for economic and political freedom for all Cubans.

Cuba has introduced this resolution claiming that the embargo adversely
affects the Cuban people, cynically asking everyone to ignore the truth:
that the Cuban government's policy of systematically denying the human,
economic, labor and political rights of its people during 47 years is
the real source of the ''adverse affects.'' Yet the Cuban government
asks that you vote to blame the United States for its failures.

The resolution inaccurately blames the U.S. trade embargo for the
hardships of the Cuban people, while exonerating the Cuban government's
own policies, which deny the right of the Cuban people to a fair wage,
own and operate a business, buy and sell property, freely associate and
freely express their opinions.

In fact, the U.S. embargo does not prevent the rest of the world from
trading with Cuba or providing Cuba access to food or medicine. Since
1992, the United States has licensed more than $1.5 billion dollars in
the sale and donation of medicine and medical equipment for the Cuban
people, and more than $8 billion of agricultural commodities in the past
five years. In November 2005, the head of Cuba's food-importing agency
confirmed that the U.S. was Cuba's biggest food supplier.

If the Cuban government wants the United States to end this embargo, it
knows what is needed: reforms such as free and fair elections, an open
economy, independent trade unions and a free press, to name a few.

In 2002, President Bush made clear that his response to such concrete
reforms would be an effort with the U.S. Congress to ease restrictions
on trade and travel between the United States and Cuba. Four years have
passed and the Cuban government answered the challenge only with
imprisonment for human rights leaders and trade unionists.

This resolution does not refer to the Cuban government's own embargo
against its people, which even prevents U.N. and international
human-rights investigators from traveling to Cuba and meeting freely
with the Cuban people. This resolution does not condemn that embargo.

The United States supports the right of the Cuban people to determine
their own futures freely through a genuine transition to political and
economic liberty. We recall the words of Jose Marti, the Apostle as he
is known, who said that, ``Only oppression should fear the full exercise
of freedom.''

We will vote against this resolution and encourage all delegations that
support the a transition to freedom for the Cuban people to do the same.
We should send a clear message to the Cuban government that its own
denial of the basic human rights of its people is the cause of their
suffering.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/15985612.htm