Appeasing. Back-stabbing. Callous. Capitulating. Cowardly. Deceitful. Immoral. Selling-out. Shameful. Spineless. Slavish. Treacherous.
These are just some of the scores of adjectives unfairly levelled by critics against the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member-states that voted differently on the October 28, 2026 United Nations (UN) resolution calling on the USA to lift the punishing decades-old unilateral restrictions imposed on Havana by successive Washington administrations since 1960, that today affect electricity generation, transportation, food production, health and education, with blackouts that have halted operation of essential services.
The UN resolution demanding the lifting of sanctions was first introduced in 1992 and for 33 years CARICOM member-states successively voted together in full support – and for just-as-long, Washington has refused to budge even an inch.
Thanks to an unprecedented level of US pressure on sovereign nations to reduce the support for the resolution in 2026, this year turned out different: 172 of the UN’s 193 member-states participated in the vote, of which 130 (75.6%) supported, 17 (9.9%) opposed, 25 (14.5%) abstained – and three CARICOM states were among the 21 absent.
Nonetheless, as per usual, the resolution was unanimously supported by the vast majority of nations, representing the vast majority of humankind.
Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz Canel duly thanked the countries that voted against the US measures and condemned Washington’s heavy pressure on nations to reduce support for the resolution.
However, rather than condemning the failure of the US administration to achieve its ultimate goal of defeating the resolution, many friends of Cuba across the Caribbean opted to harshly condemn those CARICOM nations that chose not to challenge loaded guns held to their heads.
Those that abstained and absented were treated in like manner as that which opposed the resolution, all painted with the same brush – as having betrayed Cuba and forgotten or neglected Havana’s consistent support for all Caribbean nations in times of distress and areas of need.
None seemed to care that eleven (11) former CARICOM leaders had earlier expressed full support for Cuba and urged those is office to continue supporting the resolution, or that just five months earlier – on May 27, 2026 – the vast majority of CARICOM nations expressed full support for Cuba against those same unilateral US measures.
CARICOM’s Council of Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) had issued a statement expressing “profound concern” regarding “the ongoing and intensifying economic, commercial and financial measures imposed on the Republic of Cuba.”
The region said, through its foreign affairs ministers: “The mounting hardships facing the Cuban people also seriously impact CARICOM nationals studying and living in Cuba, whose well-being remains a priority for the community.”
It added: “COFCOR unequivocally affirms Cuba’s sovereign right to import and receive fuel, and condemns the obstruction of energy supplies to Cuba, which has precipitated a grave humanitarian crisis.”
The statement noted “the possibility of military aggression” against Cuba and said “any such action would inflict unnecessary human suffering, impose grave material costs, and fundamentally destabilise the security architecture of the entire Caribbean region.”
COFCOR reaffirmed that “Cuba poses no threat to any nation” and held that “the continued application of these unilateral coercive measures constitutes an unjustifiable violation of human rights, the principles of free trade, and the fundamental norms governing relations among sovereign states.”
The statement concluded with an indication that two nations (Guyana and Trinidad & Tobago) had “reserved their positions” — a clear indication that last week’s UN vote was not the first time this year that CARICOM’s united position on Cuba was fractured.
Indeed, immediately after President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio launched a robust campaign to force CARICOM nations to end their long-standing medical assistance agreements with Cuba.
Secretary Rubio repeatedly made it absolutely clear that the second Trump Administration was out to take unprecedented regime change measures against Cuba and Venezuela, with imposition of the naval blockade against Havana and launching a consistent series of aggressions against Caracas that resulted in the January 3, 2026 military invasion and abduction of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores.
In like manner, the US joined the European Union (EU) to pile maximum pressure on CARICOM member-states with Citizenship by Investment Programs (CIPs) to end them and inveigled most to enter into one-sided agreements to deport unwanted migrants to Caribbean nations.
Against such a background, it doesn’t leave much to the imagination to try to figure out what threats might have been made to the leaders and governments of those CARICOM member-states that didn’t support, abstained or absented from the 2026 vote on the annual UN resolution.
President Maduro and his wife were flown to the US base at Guantanamo province in Cuba and then to a notorious detention facility in New York, where they have remained since, facing various criminal charges in US courts.
Thirty-plus Cuban soldiers securing President Maduro were killed in that lightning US attack on the Venezuelan President and it was later revealed that a loaded gun was also placed in the mouth of Vice President Delcy Rodriguez that night.
But none of that seemed to matter to the harsh Caribbean critics who’ve condemned those CARICOM leaders who abstained or didn’t vote on the UN resolution to the dustbin of history.
None even asked “Why?”
Noticeably, Cuba thanked the 130 nations — representing 75% of Humankind — that rejected the open US efforts to kill the resolution this year, but didn’t join in the condemnation of any of the nations that voted differently, or didn’t attend.
Fortunately — as only one set of concerned Friends of Cuba has noted — CARICOM nationals, in every member-state today, remain eternally-grateful to Cuba for its over-five-decades of consistent support for the region since 1972, when Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago broke the then 10-year-old US embargo against Cuba, even before CARICOM was established.
Others may forget, but Cuba always remembers!