Fidel Comments on UN Vote

And Meets Portugal's Leader!
{Updated: Sunday, October 30th, 2016}

         Wednesday -- August 26th, 2016 -- Fidel Castro met with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, the President of Portugal, in the living room of his Havana home. The photo was taken by Fidel's son Alex Castro. The visit from President De Sousa occurred after this week's 191-to-0 vote at the United Nations denouncing the U. S. embargo against Cuba, with even the United States abstaining and refusing to support it even as the U. S. Congress maintains it. Both Fidel and President De Sousa issued official statements about the vote. 

        President De Sousa: "The UN vote rightfully, unanimously and universally rejected the embargo as an illegal extraterritorial practice." 

            Fidel Castro: "It is important not to forget the considerable human and economic damage caused by the blockade. The world unanimous vote of 191-to-zero shows the United States not to be the great democracy it purports to be. And by abstaining, even the U. S. government seems to admit that basic fact that its Cuban programs have revealed to the world. The undemocratic and self-adorned American Congress can keep the blockade in place but it cannot hide the criminal aspects of it from the world. That point is made 191-to-0."

       After the private meeting with Fidel Castro, Portugal's President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa had a formal meeting with Cuban President Raul Castro at the Palace of the Revolution in Havana. President de Sousa congratulated President Castro on "the unanimity of the UN vote" and quipped, "See, I told you that Obama was a brave man." President de Sousa, more seriously, then added, "I like being able to celebrate that UN vote with the people of Cuba. But I want the leaders of Cuba and the people of Cuba to know that Portugal plans on increasing trade and investments in this beautiful island filled with deserving, wonderful people." 

    The Cuban media's graphic on the  191-to-0 UN vote.

        At the United Nations this week, Samantha Power had the unenviable task of becoming the first United States Representative to the United Nations to admit before the world that the United States government could not support the United States embargo against Cuba. The photo is courtesy of Voice of America/AP. Ms. Power said, "Instead of isolating Cuba, the embargo isolates the United States from the rest of the world, including right here at the United Nations." It was and is a truly historic and amazing statement, but most of all it is an indictment of the weakest link in the United States government, the 535-member United States Congress, and of this generation of Americans who have shocked the world by not defending their great democracy against a handful of right-wing rogues and political opportunists who use the power of the United States to punish innocent people, decade after decade, in a nearby weaker nation. "Instead of isolating Cuba, the embargo isolates the United States from the rest of the world, including right here at the United Nations." In other words, the rogues and political opportunists in the United States Congress could care less about the harm their Cuban policy does to America, to democracy, and to innocent Cubans.

      The BBC used the above AFP photo of this white-haired Cuban to illustrate an article that explained how the U. S. embargo has punished innocent Cubans since 1962. Americans, meanwhile, have been propagandized or intimidated to accept the premise that the embargo only harms the Castro brothers. As the U. S. UN Representative Samantha Power said this week, it has produced "the exact opposite" effect, meaning that it has only succeeded in harming everyday Cubans as well as the United States itself.

       Cuba's talented and out-spoken 28-year-old television anchor, Cristina Escobar, said, "The Cuban people didn't deserve the United Nations 191-to-TWO vote in the past against the blockade. They deserved only a 191-to-zero vote. And that's exactly what they got this week. AND THAT'S WHAT THEY GOT THIS WEEK."

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