For the first time the government of Mexico voted in favor of the measure, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, urged "Cuba to better its human rights efforts." The motion passed 23–21. The charade at the UN body is part of U.S. imperialism’s war on the Cuban Revolution, and Washington uses its economic and diplomatic muscle each year to squeeze governments to cast their vote in line with its wishes. In 2001 the U.S. government received its comeuppance when it failed for the first time since the 1947 founding of the United Nations to be elected to the UN Human Rights Commission. In addition to Cuba, Washington had regularly used the body to target China with its arrogant pronouncements.

The government of Uruguay had not announced any specific steps to implement the diplomatic break as of the Militant’s press time, but Cuban president Fidel Castro said the move would not affect Havana’s commitment to provide 800,000 meningitis vaccines to Uruguay, stating that his government would not allow children to die. "We are not helping governments but peoples," Castro said, "and we will never feel disdain for the people of Uruguay."

Following the passage of the U.S.-organized resolution, Castro described the vote of Latin American governments in its favor as a "despicable betrayal." On April 22 he held a widely reported press conference in Havana to respond to the decision by the Mexican government of Vicente Fox to back the anti-Cuba measure.

Castro released the transcript of a telephone conversation--and played the tape for reporters--in which the Mexican president urged him to quickly leave a UN-sponsored conference on financing development held in Monterrey, Mexico, so "that you won’t complicate my Friday," which Fox had reserved to meet with U.S. president Bush. Fox had earlier said he never pressured Castro to cut short his participation in the gathering.

At the Monterrey conference the Cuban president said, "The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plunder and exploitation like no other in history. Thus, the peoples believe less and less in statements and promises." He called on the "rich world [to] cancel [poor countries’] foreign debt and grant them fresh soft loans to finance development."

Following Castro’s release of the phone conversation with Fox, Mexican foreign minister Jorge Castañeda deepened the attack, calling the Cuban government an "antidemocratic regime" and adding that his government "no longer endorses the absence of democracy and of respect for human rights in Cuba." He continued with a timeworn slander that the Cuban leadership is "creating an external threat when he is facing an internal difficulty."  
 
 
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