T&T TURNS BACK ON CUBA

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­toric de­ci­sion to vote against a Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) res­o­lu­tion call­ing for an end to the Unit­ed States’ eco­nom­ic em­bar­go against Cu­ba has drawn strong con­dem­na­tion from for­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and raised con­cerns about the coun­try’s for­eign pol­i­cy di­rec­tion.

The vote marks the first time in over three decades that T&T has op­posed the res­o­lu­tion, break­ing its long­stand­ing diplo­mat­ic po­si­tion.

In a sig­nif­i­cant de­par­ture from pol­i­cy yes­ter­day, T&T joined the US and 15 oth­er coun­tries in op­pos­ing the res­o­lu­tion, which was even­tu­al­ly over­whelm­ing­ly adopt­ed by the Gen­er­al As­sem­bly.

A to­tal of 130 coun­tries vot­ed in favour, 17 vot­ed against and 25 ab­stained. How­ev­er, the re­sults re­flect­ed a sig­nif­i­cant shift from last year, when 165 coun­tries sup­port­ed the res­o­lu­tion, sev­en op­posed it and 12 ab­stained.

T&T was the on­ly Cari­com mem­ber state to vote against the res­o­lu­tion.

Ja­maica, Guyana and Haiti ab­stained, while An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Do­mini­ca and St Lu­cia did not vote. Sev­en oth­er Cari­com mem­ber states sup­port­ed the res­o­lu­tion.

T&T’s vote drew sharp crit­i­cism from for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of sac­ri­fic­ing the coun­try’s dig­ni­ty and sov­er­eign­ty in an at­tempt to “cur­ry favour.”

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp yes­ter­day, Row­ley said, “This is a gov­ern­ment that Pres­i­dent Robin­son pro­nounced up­on in 2001, a group of peo­ple who wield pow­er with­out moral or spir­i­tu­al val­ues. That be­ing their record, we should nev­er be sur­prised when they dis­re­gard these virtues and prin­ci­ples as they sell our dig­ni­ty in the hope to cur­ry favour in­stead of pre­serv­ing our long-es­tab­lished gov­er­nance through de­cen­cy and sov­er­eign­ty.”

Row­ley added, “This is so shame­ful! This is a gov­ern­ment that is de­ci­sive­ly dis­con­nect­ed from the peo­ple they are sup­posed to rep­re­sent and pre­fer in­stead to ex­press their vile be­hav­iour in lock­step with what is be­ing round­ly re­ject­ed by the wider world.”

For­mer for­eign and Cari­com af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne al­so con­demned the vote.

“I cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly and com­plete­ly con­demn the vote cast to­day by Trinidad and To­ba­go against the an­nu­al UN­GA Res­o­lu­tion which calls for an end to the em­bar­go that has been im­posed on Cu­ba. This dis­grace­ful vote by the cur­rent UNC regime does not rep­re­sent the views and ideals of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Browne said.

“This is yet an­oth­er po­si­tion by this gov­ern­ment which ab­solute­ly con­tra­dicts the UN Char­ter and in­ter­na­tion­al law. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion as a vas­sal fringe state has thus been con­firmed, and this fur­ther iso­lates us with­in the re­gion. Ob­servers have al­ready not­ed that no oth­er Cari­com Mem­ber State vot­ed “No” to to­day’s res­o­lu­tion.”

Browne al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of sur­ren­der­ing its for­eign pol­i­cy in­de­pen­dence and warned that the de­ci­sion fur­ther iso­lat­ed T&T from its Cari­com neigh­bours.

Send­ing a mes­sage to the Cuban peo­ple, he said, “I wish to tell the Cuban peo­ple and the re­gion­al and glob­al fam­i­ly of na­tions that to­day’s dis­grace­ful vote by the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go should nev­er be in­ter­pret­ed as the po­si­tion of our so­ci­ety. We, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to­tal­ly re­ject the ap­proach tak­en by the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment to farm out the for­eign pol­i­cy and sell out the sov­er­eign­ty of our na­tion.”

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an al­so ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment, de­scrib­ing the de­ci­sion as “a sad day for T&T.”

At­tempts to con­tact For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

Mean­while, Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah con­demned the vote as a be­tray­al of the prin­ci­ples that have his­tor­i­cal­ly guid­ed T&T’s re­la­tions with oth­er na­tions.

Ab­du­lah said, “The Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment has shamed the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go by vot­ing against the res­o­lu­tion brought by Cu­ba, call­ing the Unit­ed States to end the block­ade… It’s an ab­solute­ly shame­ful po­si­tion by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gov­ern­ment.”

But Ab­du­lah’s con­cerns ex­tend be­yond T&T, as he be­lieves the vote ex­pos­es sig­nif­i­cant di­vi­sions with­in Cari­com and ac­cused the US of pur­su­ing a di­vide-and-rule strat­e­gy in the re­gion.

“What it shows is that (Don­ald) Trump and (Mar­co) Ru­bio have man­aged to di­vide Cari­com very sig­nif­i­cant­ly be­cause a cou­ple of Cari­com coun­tries ab­stained from the vote, and some coun­tries have ab­sent­ed them­selves from the room.”

Cari­com Vote

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da – not present

Ba­hamas – in favour

Bar­ba­dos – in favour

Be­lize – in favour

Do­mini­ca – not present

Grena­da – in favour

Guyana – ab­stain

Haiti – ab­stain

Ja­maica – ab­stain

Saint Kitts and Nevis – in favour

Saint Lu­cia – not present

Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines – in favour

Suri­name – in favour

Trinidad and To­ba­go – against

T&T’s vot­ing his­to­ry:

1992: Ab­stained - First UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly vote on the res­o­lu­tion

1993–2025: Vot­ed in favour - Con­sis­tent­ly sup­port­ed calls for an end to the US em­bar­go

2026: Vot­ed against - First record­ed vote against the res­o­lu­tion