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LATIN AMERICA |
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Venezuela,
Argentina Hail UN Condemnation Of Embargo
against Cuba
UN - Venezuela
and Argentina on Wednesday hailed
condemnation by the United Nations General
Assembly of the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez thanked
"the world for this moral support with whom
we advance step by step in an attempt to
destroy the embargo."
Reports reaching here quoted Argentine
Foreign Minister Jorge Taiana as saying that
his government "expects the United States to
respect the strong opinion of the
international community" on lifting its
embargo against Cuba.
"We have voted against the embargo years
ago. We consider the embargo to be
completely out of place and time," Taiana
added.
Cuba's petition against the U.S. embargo was
approved earlier on Wednesday at the UN
General Assembly with a 187-3 vote. There
were two abstentions.
It was the 18th consecutive year that the
United Nations General Assembly has rejected
the hostile U.S. policy against Cuba.
The United States imposed a partial embargo
on Cuba in October 1960 and strengthened it
to a near-total embargo in February 1962.The
embargo is therefore the most enduring trade
embargo in modern history, allegedly having
inflicted an economic loss to Cuba to the
tune of 96 billion U.S. dollars so far.
On Wednesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno
Rodriguez Parrilla described at the UN
General Assembly the U.S. embargo as a
"massive, flagrant and systemic" violation
of human rights.
"It continues to be an absurd policy which
causes suffering (to the Cuban people), and
in the Geneva Convention of 1948 it was
described as a genocide act and it is
ethically unacceptable," he said.
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