UN to call for end of US embargo on Cuba

UN, The UN General Assembly is expected to vote overwhelmingly Tuesday in favor of ending the 45-year-old US trade embargo against Cuba even though President George W. Bush vowed to keep it in place.

It will mark the 16th year in a row that the 192-member assembly urges the lifting of the crippling embargo imposed in 1962 following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion by US-backed Cuban exiles under the late president John Kennedy's administration. Only last week, Bush vowed anew that the US economic sanctions against the communist-ruled island would remain in place.

"As long as the regime maintains its monopoly over the political and economic life of the Cuban people, the United States will keep the embargo in place," he said. Last year, 183 UN member states voted in favor of a lifting of the US embargo which Havana describes as a "genocide" that has cost the island 89 billion dollars.

Four other countries - the United States, Israel, Palau and the Marshall islands - voted against while Micronesia abstained. The margin of support has grown steadily since 1992 when 59 countries had voted in favor. The figure was 179 in 2004 and 182 in 2005.

"This year we expect an overwhelming majority against the embargo," a Cuban diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

The Cuban official daily Granma on Monday predicted a new "severe international condemnation of Washington." Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque then immediately accused Bush of promoting violence to bring about political change in Cuba.

New York, Tuesday, AFP.