Only Trinidad and Tobago voted no, four abstained and three did not vote. One diplomat said some states wanted to avoid upsetting the US.
Caribbean countries were more divided than ever on a UN resolution calling for an end to the US embargo on Cuba, Prime Time Caribbean reported, as the General Assembly adopted the text on Wednesday by 130 votes to 17, with 25 abstentions.
Trinidad and Tobago voted against, alongside the United States and Israel. Jamaica, Haiti, Guyana and the Dominican Republic abstained. Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Lucia did not vote, nor did Venezuela. The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Suriname voted in favor, according to the UN voting board.
A diplomat told Caribbean media that some Caribbean states that have historically stood in solidarity with Cuba stayed away this time so as not to upset the United States, Prime Time Caribbean reported. The diplomat was not named, and Aurax News has not independently verified the account.
Diplomats have noted that St. Vincent and the Grenadines, under the government of Prime Minister Godwin Friday, which took office a year ago, has consistently taken what they described as bold and principled positions on international issues.
The vote was the weakest backing for the resolution in two decades, UN News reported. Last year, 165 countries voted in favor. Several Western countries, including Germany and Italy, abstained, the report said, in what it described as a first in many years. The United States has voted against the resolution since 1992, apart from an abstention in 2016 under then-President Barack Obama, as Washington and Havana moved closer.
The 193-member General Assembly has adopted the resolution every year for more than three decades. The vote carries political weight, but it is not binding, and only the US Congress can lift the embargo. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said on X that the US government was once again isolated in its attempt to continue what he called “collective punishment” and genocide of the Cuban people.
This report draws on information from UN News