184 Countries call for end of Cuban Embargo

184 Countries call for end of Cuban Embargo

For 15 years, every year, the United Nations General Assembly has voted on the issue of the Cuban Embargo imposed unilaterally by the United States. This year's vote was no different with 184 countries calling the embargo an illegal act that must come to an end.

Voting for the measure has become a tradition at the United Nations where Cuban and American dignitaries trade barbs like in a game of ping pong. This year was no different with the US calling for democracy in Cuba and Cuba calling out the hypocrisy of American policies around the world. The vote carried only one abstention and four votes against. Micronesia abstained, while the United States, Palau, the Marshall Islands, and Israel voted against lifting the embargo.

The vote also reminds us of the innate inequalities present in the United nations as a democratic body. When 184 countries, which include Russia, China, and EU members, are unable change such an obvious act of imperialism as is the embargo, there is no more proof needed to say that the United nations must be changed. However that change must come from the bottom not from the top.

Calls for reform are now being fielded by the Secretary General, but only that one proposed by the United States is being given any attention or hopes for ratification.

The Non-Aligned Movement must step forward and reclaim its sovereignty, by first withdrawing from the UN as a form of protest until the General Assembly is given the right to veto the Security Council, as any congress or parliament gets to veto its executive. Only then will a palpable change come to the affairs of the world. And if the United States is truly interested in democracy it must allow this change to occur.