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Your letters: It's time the US corrects its wrongs
Restored US-Cuba ties: A woman wears a shirt decorated with the US flag as a tricycle taxi also sporting a US flag passes her in Havana, Cuba, on Saturday after the surprise announcement on Wednesday of the restoration of diplomatic ties between Cuba and the US
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span class="inline inline-center">Restored US-Cuba ties: A woman wears a shirt decorated with the US flag as a tricycle taxi also sporting a US flag passes her in Havana, Cuba, on Saturday after the surprise announcement on Wednesday of the restoration of diplomatic ties between Cuba and the US. AP/Desmond Boylan
I refer to an article titled 'After 53 years, time is right for US and Cuba,' (The Jakarta Post Online/AP, Dec. 18).
Let the facts show that in 1960, the US began a trade embargo against Cuba. Since then, not a single cigar has made the 145-kilometer trip to US soil legally.
The United Nations has voted to condemn the embargo 20 times as a violation of the Charter of the United Nations ' which the US helped draft ' and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (to which the US is a signatory).
The most recent vote was nearly unanimous. But the embargo still stands even in the face of evidence that it has a devastating effect on Cuba's access to medicine and basic supplies. There are no US embargoes against other countries for reasons other than human rights abuse and threats of terrorism.
For example, the US does nearly US$20 billion in annual trade with the communist country of Vietnam. The US also continues to maintain an illegal military base on the Cuban mainland, which it justifies with the 1903 Cuban-American Treaty and $4,000-a-year 'rent' checks, which the Cuban government refuses to cash.
The Guantanamo Bay naval base also contains the infamous extrajudicial detention camp where terrorists and other 'extraordinarily dangerous prisoners' are held.
It's about time the US corrects one of its wrongs.
Will Ore
Jakarta
