Antigua and Barbuda records no vote on Cuba embargo despite past solidarity

By Algernon Watts Antigua and Barbuda did not vote on a resolution calling for an end to the United States’ embargo against Cuba at the United Nations on Wednesday, despite decades of Cuban educational and medical assistance and just one month after telling the same world body that Cubans should not suffer collective punishment for political disagreements. The General Assembly adopted the resolution by 130 votes to 17, with 25 abstentions. Antigua and Barbuda registered no vote. Caribbean Media Corporation reported that the country, along with Dominica and Saint Lucia, was marked absent when the vote was taken. The omission contrasts with Antigua and Barbuda’s support last year. The UN Digital Library’s voting record lists the country as voting in favour of the anti-embargo resolution on October 29, 2025.

On September 28, Ambassador Walton Webson, delivering the government’s address to the General Assembly, called for the United States and Cuba to return to diplomacy. He said the Cuban people should not bear collective punishment for political disagreements and that their welfare should remain central to a peaceful resolution. Wednesday’s non-participation does not, by itself, establish that the government has abandoned that position. It does leave unanswered whether a decision was taken not to vote, who authorised any such instruction, or whether another circumstance prevented the country from recording its position. Observer is seeking an explanation from Foreign Affairs Minister E. P. Chet Greene and Antigua and Barbuda’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Walton Webson, about why the country did not vote and whether any instruction was issued for it not to participate. The history of Cuban assistance is documented in the government’s own…