Johnson Smith rejects Patterson's criticisms: 'No parliamentary instructions defied'

Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamina Johnson Smith has rejected an assertion by former Prime Minister P J Patterson that the government flouted the authority of Parliament when Jamaica abstained from voting at the United Nations (UN) to lift the United States (US) embargo against Cuba.

Johnson Smith also insisted, in a statement on Sunday, that the Cuban people deserve more than “an annual repeated expression of solidarity that has not achieved its central objective”.

Full coverageJamaica Breaks With Decades of Support by Abstaining on Cuba Embargo Vote7 reports

“For more than three decades, the [UN] General Assembly has called for an end to the embargo, yet it remains in place and the circumstances facing the Cuban people have deteriorated,” she said.