Former Prime Minister Mr. P. J. Patterson Blasts the Betrayal Against Cuba

One Caribbean Nation.

Former Jamaica Prime Minister Mr. P.J. Patterson

Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson has slammed the Holness administration’s decision to abstain from voting on the United Nations resolution calling for an end to the embargo against Cuba as “an abominable betrayal which history will never forget”.

The vote marked a shift in policy by Jamaica as historically the island has voted “yes” in favour of ending the United States economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba for over 30 years since the annual UN resolution began.

In a scathing rebuke of the decision by Jamaica, Patterson said “It was a day of shame for the land of Marcus Garvey, and a stain on the record of a nation which, before we had even raised our own flag, closed its ports to trade with apartheid South Africa.”

Patterson recalled that in December 1972, he accompanied then Prime Minister Michael Manley to the meeting at which four newly independent Caribbean states resolved to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, “defying the isolation others sought to impose.”

He said, “We took that decision not because it was easy, but because it was right, and because we understood that the sovereignty we had so recently won would mean little if we allowed others to choose our friends, least of all a friend that is our closest neighbour.”

Noting that he is the last surviving participant in that decision, Patterson said: “I write with a sense of agony and seething outrage that Jamaica could so suddenly abandon the fundamental tenets on which it rested: the sovereign equality of states, non-interference in their domestic jurisdiction, and the right of every people to self-determination free from external threat or coercion.”

Patterson was among 11 former Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community who, four days before the UN vote, issued statements urging global support for an end to the US embargo against Cuba.

“We said then, and I repeat now, that the embargo is contrary to international law, that it violates Cuba’s sovereignty and the most elemental rights of its people, and that the pressures being deployed to defeat the resolution must be resisted,” Patterson said. “Former Prime Minister Bruce Golding signed that letter alongside me. On this crucial matter, Jamaica’s former leaders spoke with one voice. The present Government has chosen silence.”

Patterson challenged Foreign Affairs Minister Senator Kamina Johnson Smith’s explanation that the “Government had been reflecting on the matter for some time, that tabstentionrepresents a shift in policy, and that the resolution left no scope to reflect the broader context the Government wished to see.”

According to the former prime minister, “That explanation does not withstand scrutiny.

“If there was no external pressure, as the Government insists, then it must explain how a fundamental reversal of a policy pursued by every Administration since 1992 serves Jamaica’s best interest. It must also explain why it was never brought to parliament if this reflection had been under way for some time,” he said.

Patterson also accused the government of flouting Parliament’s constitutional authority, noting that the vote came less than 24 hours after the House of Representatives passed, without dissent, a resolution on the economic and humanitarian situation in Cuba.

“It was the Government’s own resolution, brought to the House by the minister of state in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,” Patterson said. “In moving it, he declared that Jamaica could not support a unilaterally imposed blockade against Cuba. The resolution called for efforts to reduce the economic restrictions on Cuba and to facilitate its progressive integration into the international economic system, rather than its isolation under a blockade.”

Patterson argued, “Our abstention violated the unanimous decision of the Legislature. It was a deplorable flouting of Parliament’s constitutional authority, the highest expression of the will of the people in our democracy.

“Members on both sides of the House were led to believe one thing on Tuesday and confronted with its opposite on Wednesday. This is no mere discourtesy. It was an act of deception and a grave parliamentary offence,” the former prime minister continued in his rebuke. “In any Parliament modelled on Westminster, what took place between Tuesday and Wednesday would have resulted in censure and ministerial resignations. The Parliament of Jamaica is entitled to no less. It was an abominable betrayal which history will never forget.” 

Jamaica Observer Wednesday 4th. 2026

Mahogany Coconut Blog Comment :

We are in full agreement with the stand taken by Former Prime Minister of Jamaica , Mr. P. J. Patterson.

Those Caribbean  countries which opted to either oppose the resolution or abstain , have brought shame to the region and their own countries. Cuba remains a genuine friend of the Caribbean and this friendship will never be damaged or sabotaged by those who cannot properly managed their own affairs but seek to direct the affairs of others.