Annual UN vote on the blockade postponed to May 2021

News from Cuba | Thursday, 30 July 2020

Cuba has announced that it will postpone the annual resolution it presents to the United Nations General Assembly condemning the US blockade of the island until May 2021.

Anayansi Rodriguez, the island's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs told a press conference on 29 July that the decision to postpone the resolution and vote had been taken "solely due to the ... COVID-19 pandemic and its direct impact on the work at UN headquarters" in New York.

According to Rodriguez, "the complex epidemiological situation derived from the COVID-19 pandemic at a global level and particularly in the United States, including New York City, will lead to changes in the normal development of the work of the United Nations General Assembly in its 75th session," which for the first time will be held "virtually" starting in September.

"That will have repercussions on the debate and vote on the resolution," she said, leading the government to opt to postpone the measure.

For the last 28 years the UN has voted overwhelmingly to condemn the US policy In 2019 the vote was 187-3, with only the US, Israel and Brazil voting against.

Read the full press statement by Anayansi Rodríguez below: The complex epidemiological situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic at the global level and particularly in the United States, including New York City, will entail changes to the ordinary course of the work of the United Nations General Assembly in its 75th session, which is due to begin in September. This will have an impact on the debate and the voting on the resolution our country submits to the UNGA plenary meeting, which year after year has been supported by the international community that almost unanimously calls for the lifting of the US economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba. This resolution is traditionally presented and adopted by the UN General Assembly in autumn. However, the situation of the pandemic in the United States and particularly New York City cannot be predicted by that time. Instead, predictions indicate that there will be an upsurge in the disease, therefore sanitary and epidemiological measures will continue to be applied at the UN headquarters, which, inter alia, limit to the minimum the presence of delegations in its facilities. Taking into account these issues and in order to guarantee the proper development of the debate and the voting, whose positive results are closely followed by the Cuban people and the international community, it has been decided transfer the consideration of the draft resolution “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba” from the traditional date of late October and early November to the month of May 2021, during the resumed 75th session of the UNGA. We hope that by this date there will be an improvement of the epidemiological situation in New York City, the Organization´s headquarters. This decision responds only to the epidemiological consequences caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and its direct and practical impact on the work at the UN Headquarters. We reaffirm that as long as the US economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba persists, which far from being lifted as demanded by the international community, has been tightened even in these times of pandemic, Cuba will not stop denouncing this policy in all possible platform. On the twenty-ninth consecutive time, Cuba will submit to the United Nations General Assembly its draft resolution against the blockade, for which we trust in the sustained and overwhelming support of the international community. Havana, 29 July 2020

UN’s Yemen Report ‘Strongly Suggests’ Coalition May Be Guilty of War Crimes

UN’s Yemen Report ‘Strongly Suggests’ Coalition May Be Guilty of War Crimes

The United Nations Human Rights Council said on Tuesday that parties to the conflict in Yemen, namely participants in the Saudi-led coalition, may be guilty of war crimes.

A 41-page report by the Group of Regional and International Eminent Experts on Yemen, which was commissioned by the UN, "strongly suggests" suggests that the Saudi-backed Yemeni government-in-exile, and the Saudi-led coalition, including the United Arab Emirates, "have committed acts that may, subject to determination by an independent and competent court, amount to international crimes."

Coalition airstrikes have killed civilians in "residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings, detention facilities, civilian boats and even medical facilities," the UN statement asserts. It notes that the Group of Experts believe such attacks are "in violation of the principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution that may amount to war crimes." 

The United Nations Human Rights Office says that between March 2015 and August 23, 2018, 6,660 civilians were killed and more than 10,500 injured. However, the Human Rights Council cautions that "the real figures are likely to be significantly higher."

International pressure against the campaign has mounted since August 9, when a US-made bomb was used to blow up a school bus, killing 40 children and 11 others. But it apparently wasn't enough: on August 23, a coalition airstrike killed another 29 children and four women who were fleeing in a bus.

"I urge all parties to take the necessary measures to remove disproportionate restrictions on the safe and expeditious entry into Yemen of humanitarian supplies and other goods indispensable to the civilian population, and the movement of persons including through Sana'a International Airport in compliance with international humanitarian law," said the group's chairperson, Kamel Jendoubi. 

The report also alleges that Houthi forces have used weapons with wide areas of effect in urban settings, and, like other parties in the conflict, have conscripted children into armed service. Most civilian casualties, however, have come from coalition airstrikes, the report states.

On Tuesday, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon that US support for Saudi Arabia in the conflict is conditional on the Saudis doing "everything humanly possible to avoid any innocent loss of life." 

So far, the Pentagon has not acted to curb its support for the coalition, even as lawmakers try to force its hand. Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) has been working to block US precision-guided munitions sales to Gulf monarchies involved in the conflict. "The Department of Defense can't give you a good answer about how it is our assistance is actually making it [the war in Yemen] better in terms of civilian casualties," he told the media. 

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) on Tuesday said he would introduce legislation to reject the sale of more than 120,000 precision guided munitions to Saudi Arabia and the UAE should the administration press forward with it. A similar resolution to pull out US support completely failed in March, but Murphy is more confident he'll get the necessary votes after the August 9 bus bombing.

https://sptnkne.ws/jy5w