US Sanctions: The Humanitarian Crisis America Funded
A UN rapporteur has, once again, highlighted how US sanctions are 'reshaping life' in Cuba, effectively 'suffocating the social fabric'. What Al Jazeera's piece misses in its focus on the obvious suffering is the sheer longevity of this weaponized policy. The US embargo on Cuba isn't a new policy; it dates back to 1960. That's over six decades of economic strangulation, sustained by a bipartisan
consensus in Washington often swayed by a vocal, well-funded Cuban-American lobby. While the UN consistently condemns these sanctions, with 187 countries voting against them at the General Assembly in 2023 (Source: UN General Assembly, Nov 2, 2023), the US, Israel, and Ukraine alone vote in favor. This persistent isolation on the global stage for a policy that starves an island nation raises a
rather inconvenient question: For all the talk of human rights, when does weaponizing poverty against 11 million people become a crime against humanity, rather than 'foreign policy'?