(The following is reprinted with courtesy of the Barbados ‘Daily Nation’ in which it appeared as yesterday’s editorial)
“FOR the  nineteenth consecutive occasion today, Cuba will once again formally present a resolution to the United Nations General Assembly calling for an end to the very punitive economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America and maintained for the past half a century.

When Cuba introduced a similar resolution to the UNGA in 2009, the vote count was as overwhelming as ever with 187 of the 192 member nations in favour of ending the unprecedented embargo. Merely two countries stood with the US, namely Israel and Palau.

Since then there have been some quite significant developments, among them the encouraging signal from President Barack  Obama in the partial lifting of travel restrictions for Americans to visit Cuba and the facilitating of remittances to Cubans.

Then followed his encouraging political signal at  last April’s Fifth Summit of the Americas in Port-of-Spain. He had told the assembled delegates: “I am prepared to have my administration engage with the Cuban government on a wide range of issues…”.  He stressed that “we can move US-Cuban relations in a new direction…”

While representatives of the US Congress maintain their hostility to lifting of the embargo and Washington continues to avoid promoting any high-level direct dialogue with Havana to “move US-Cuba relations in a new direction”, as Obama had promised, the administration of President Raoul Castro has been engaged with some dramatic initiatives:

Designed to demonstrate Cuba’s responsiveness to sensitive issues, such as Cuban political prisoners, the Castro government identified an initial 52 for release. More importantly, Cuba has begun the very challenging process of easing the burden of a totally state-controlled economy.

Currently being discussed as the Cuban “adjustment model”, it represents the most far-reaching political initiative since  the Fidel Castro-led revolution of January 1959.
But the unique permanence of the punishing US economic and financial embargo, extremely costly in trillion of dollars over the past 50 years, continue to be maintained by successive US administrations.

What no administration has yet openly admitted, though their close advisers and diplomatic personnel have often verbalised, is that the US embargo has stunningly failed in  its primary objective to force the downfall of the Castro-led revolution with an internal coup.

We have no doubts about another overwhelming endorsement of Cuba’s call at the UN for termination of the US embargo.

What we are looking forward to is how, in practical terms, does President Obama intends to achieve his signalled interest in “moving US-Cuba relations in a new direction”.

Let’s see that “new direction”,  Mr President!