02 Nov 2022
Mr President,
1 I have the honor to address the General Assembly on behalf of the ten Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN, to express our support for draft resolution contained in document A/77/L.5 on the necessity of ending the economic, commercial, and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against the Republic of Cuba. ASEAN would also align itself with the statement to be delivered later by Azerbaijan on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement, and also with the statement to be delivered later by Pakistan on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.
Mr President,
2 The General Assembly began to vote annually on this issue starting in 1992. And for the last 30 years, the resolution has consistently been adopted by an overwhelming majority of Member States standing on the side of the fundamental principles underlying the UN system and the multilateral rules-based order – namely, the principles of sovereign equality, non-interference, and non-intervention as enshrined in the UN Charter.
3 This is the seventh year that ASEAN has made a statement at the General Assembly urging the United States to lift its economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba as soon as possible. It is our firm belief that dialogue and engagement in good faith are indispensable to any meaningful effort to peacefully resolve differences between states. The alternatives of confrontation and isolation seldom yield the intended results. They also ultimately weaken the multilateral, rules-based system in which all countries, large and small, have both an interest and a duty to uphold.
4 As the Secretary-General’s reports once again remind us, the United States’ embargo against Cuba continues to cast a long shadow on the well-being, health, and development prospects of the Cuban people, including their timely access to humanitarian aid. This is especially so considering the severe and lingering impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increasing frequency of natural disasters and extreme weather events such as Hurricane Ian. ASEAN notes from the Secretary-General’s report A/76/405 that the embargo had “negatively affected the implementation [of UN initiatives targeting] health, food security, social protection, economic recovery, livelihood reactivation and developing financing” during the pandemic. We also note from the Secretary-General’s report covering the period August 2021 to February 2022 that the embargo had “violate(d) the right to life and health of all Cubans” and “not a single measure to ease the blockade was applied” during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021. This hindered the arrival of donations and purchased materials indispensable for the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of COVID-19.
Mr President,
5 Furthermore, the continued existence of the embargo does not augur well for better regional relations. It also detracts from this Assembly’s efforts to ‘leave no country behind’ in our pursuit of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its laudable goals. ASEAN believes that ending the US’ embargo on Cuba will contribute significantly to improving the quality of life and living standards of the Cuban people, and to enabling the United States and Cuba to take a major step toward the normalisation of relations.
Mr President,
6 The world is at an inflection point and a ‘business-as-usual’ approach will not do. ASEAN joins other members of this Assembly to reiterate our strong support for the United States lifting of its unilateral economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba as soon as possible. We also encourage the United States and Cuba to remain committed to an open and constructive dialogue, underpinned by mutual respect.
I thank you very much for your attention.
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