THE United Nations voted almost as one to end the illegal US blockade of Cuba today.

In all 187 countries voted for a resolution calling on Washington to end its crippling 63-year blockade of the socialist island. Just two — the United States itself and Israel — voted against, with one, Ukraine, abstaining.

It is the 31st year in a row that the UN has voted for the blockade to be lifted and also for the Caribbean nation to be dropped from Washington’s State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla slammed the US’s “economic warfare” against Cuba and pointed out that under US pressure many banks in third countries were also bullied out of doing business with his country.

In a speech on behalf of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States the representative for Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Inga Rhonda King, said Celac nations are firmly opposed to the continued persecution of Cuba by both the sanctions and its designation as a terror sponsor.

She said the inclusion of Cuba on the US list increased “the consequences of the siege and has worsened the country's possibilities of establishing financial and commercial relations with its partners.”

Venezuela’s alternate ambassador to the UN, Joaquin Perez, described the blockade against Cuba as “a policy that has not achieved and will not achieve its objective” of ending the Cuban revolution.

St Lucia ambassador Menissa Rambally, speaking on behalf of the Caribbean Community and Common Market, slammed the blockade as “a clear violation of the letter and the spirit of the UN Charter.”

The London-based Cuba Solidarity Campaign is urging supporters to write to the US ambassador in the UK to call for a lifting of the blockade and the removal of the Caribbean island from the state sponsors of terrorism list.