Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez. Photo: RT

By Roberto Morejón

In pressing circumstances for the world given the tensions due to present and potential wars, Cuba's message in favor of peace and demanding respect for its self-determination was heard at the UN General Assembly.

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla intervened in the high-level segment of the seventy-seventh session of the General Assembly, where he claimed that "nothing justifies that Humanity is threatened by 13,000 nuclear weapons".

And at this juncture of high military expenditures, Rodríguez Parrilla categorically affirmed: "Never before has the world been so unequal".

The head of Cuban diplomacy made an aside to denounce the U.S. blockade, described by him as an act of economic warfare, today intensified and causing notable material deprivations.

In the same vein, the minister had recently pointed out that the siege has an impact on emigration, a phenomenon now deplored by the Democratic administration.

In his speech at the UN, the foreign minister stressed that the largest of the Antilles suffers the longest and most pernicious blockade of the modern era, and that because of this the level of consumption and welfare of Cubans has deteriorated.  

Other personalities highlighted in the UN General Assembly the harmful role of the blockade. 

The Bolivian president, Luis Arce, judged it to be criminal and his Honduran counterpart, Xiomara Castro, evaluated it as infamous and brutal.

Similar positions were taken by the first Argentine president, Alberto Fernandez, who considered the hostile measure against Cuba unacceptable, and that of Dominica, Charles Savarin, who said that the blockade is archaic.

The statements made in New York by these and other dignitaries and those of the Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs are in tune with the rough juncture of the relations between Washington and Havana.

The United States demanded an entry visa to that country for anyone who has visited Cuba, a decision that places Europeans doing business or tourism in the largest of the Antilles in an uncomfortable situation.

Residents of the Old Continent do not need a visa to enter the United States, only a digital form.

The administration's move is aimed at discouraging tourism to Cuba, its cardinal source of foreign exchange earnings.

President Joseph Biden ignored in the Assembly his country's non-compliance with UN resolutions to put an end to the blockade, but the Cuban foreign minister was in charge of recalling its scope.