Overwhelming International Rejection of US Blockade of Cuba at UN

CUBA, October 29, 2008. The United Nations General Assembly today adopted, for the seventeenth consecutive occasion, a Cuban resolution against the US economic, financial and commercial blockade of Cuba with 185 votes in favor, 3 against and two abstentions.

Only the United States, its faithful ally Israel and Palau voted against the Cuban resolution, while Micronesia and the Marshall Islands abstained from voting. Absent from the vote were Iraq, a country occupied by US troops and the pro-Washington government of El Salvador. 

Speakers who supported the Cuban resolution during the debate included the representatives of Antigua and Barbuda, in the name of the Group of 77; China; Egypt, on behalf of the Non-Aligned Movement; Guyana in the name of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM); as well as Venezuela, Mexico, Viet Nam and South Africa.

Other countries that backed the Cuban resolution were Sudan, Algeria, Iran, India, Russia, Angola, Zambia, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Tanzania.

In his statement at the General Assembly, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said that seven in every 10 Cubans have been born under the US economic war, which has inflicted damage on the Caribbean nation calculated at 93 billion dollars.

He said that the government of George W. Bush has been the tenth US administration that has not been able to topple the Cuban Revolution despite their nearly-50-year hostile Cuba policy. 

UN General Assembly Adoption of Cuban Resolutions between 1992 and 2007

Year	In Favor	Against	Abstentions
2012	188	3	2
2011	186	2	3
2010	187	2	3
2009	187	3	2
2008	185	3	2
2007	184	4	1
2006	183	4	1
2005	182	4	1
2004	179	4	7
2003	179	3	2
2002	173	3	4
2001	167	3	3
2000	167	3	4
1999	155	2	8
1998	157	2	12
1997	143	3	17
1996	137	3	25
1995	117	3	38
1994	101	2	48
1993	88	4	57
1992	59	3	71