The Chinese people and government have always maintained the best relations with Cuba, and just as we have done for all these years, we are once again condemning the U.S. blockade at the UN, because it’s an unjust and inhumane policy imposed against this small country.
Its time for the United States to show its true intentions behind the reestablishment of relations with Cuba, by eliminating such an immoral measure once and for all, and following the example set by nations such as ours which despite its distance; sincerely wants to contribute to Cuba’s development.
 
Huang Jin Long, head engineer of the Cuba-China Cooperation Project, responsible for building the Yarayó port terminal in Santiago de Cuba.  
 
It’s a huge victory for the Cuban people, for all those of us who have borne the brutal attitude of successive U.S. administrations against us for almost 55 years.
The blockade can’t last, its days are numbered because the whole world, over 11 million Cubans, and a large part of the U.S. population, oppose it, as polls have shown.
Once again Cuba came out of the vote triumphant.
The world supports Cuba, we have never been alone, and now less than ever. Myself, just like the rest of the world, and all my compatriots, vote against the blockade.
 
Jaime Diosmedes Martínez, manager of the Cienfuegos Municipal Trade Enterprise’s business department.  
 
What Cuba has achieved in the UN vote against the blockade is global recognition - for the umpteenth time - of the obtuse and irrational policy imposed by U.S. administrations.
 
Although it may seem like a contradiction in this period of normalization of relations between the governments of both nations, in reality what the continuation of this outdated monstrosity imposed by Washington shows is that in the long run, the U.S. is continuing with its efforts (which have never been successful) to suffocate us. The globe has rejected such Machiavellian ambitions by the greatest global power in history, which despite its great influence over the rest of the world, has once again found itself isolated with this outdated policy.
 
Fabián Sotolongo, visual artist from Cienfuegos.
 
The blockade is the double-edged tool used by the U.S. financial dynasties to suffocate an experience of sovereignty. One side causes scarcities, hunger, illnesses and therefore, discontent in Cuba. The other side uses the media, controlled by four or five media conglomerates (also belonging to these same financial dynasties, which have even controlled the U.S. economy since 1913) to make the world, and above all Cubans themselves, believe that these effects are the result of administrative incompetence or perfidy by Cuba’s revolutionary government.
If that were the case, then why not lift the blockade? For U.S. financial dynasties, Cuba is more important as a political example that must be crushed, in order to prevent at all costs, other countries in the United States’ messy back yard, that is to say, Latin America, from raising their heads and realizing that the path toward socialism is not only the most humane, but also that given the current globalized imperialist world we live in, represents the only option to achieving, after decades of struggle, autonomous development.
 
Karel Cantelar, marine biologist from Havana.
 
Every time I leave, my daughter who is almost six years old, asks me the same question: “Dad, where are you going?” And I give her what has become an almost automatic response…. “Dad has got to go help other children who lack what you have in abundance!”
She smiles, and gives me a hug and a kiss, gazes at me intently (with that look which makes me melt and cries out for me not to leave her), and says: “Daddy, take care of them like you do me!” And I try harder to do so.
 
Many stories get left behind, my family, professional development, the neighbors…many things get left, and I always go, faithful to my duty, which is the reason I get up every day and put in to practice the teachings of Asclepius.
 
I don’t want my daughter, who is my sunshine, to suffer the things I see, and I don’t tell her about them (…) I want her to live in a better world, where no one suffers discrimination based on the color of their skin, religious beliefs, or sexual preference; I want her to have access to what I didn’t, I want her to be part of this world and not live with her back to it.
 
I want all Cuban children to be happy, and we happy along with them. I also #VotoVsBloqueo
 
Enmanuel Vigil Fonseca, Family Medicine specialist at the Pedro Kourí Institute of Tropical Medicine, and collaborator with Cuba’s Henry Reeve medical brigade working in Haiti following the devastating Hurricane Matthew.  
 
It’s impossible to imagine a university like the one we are constructing today, based on a humanist, scientific and technological approach, without access to a group of technologies which could be used in our natural, computer, and technical science laboratories, as well as other degree specialties. However, the blockade makes purchasing these technologies very expensive, given the greater distance of markets from which we are forced to buy them.
 
It also affects the professional development of special education teachers, who are unable to access equipment which will later be used by the children, adolescents and young people. However, despite the cruel and inhumane blockade to which the Cuban Revolution has been subjected for over 50 years, Cuba has shown excellent results in the braches of special and general education.
 
Dr. Deisy Fraga Cedré, rector of the Enrique José Varona University of Pedagogical Sciences.
 
I really hope that things change and U.S. citizens can come to Cuba for events like this.
 
Linda Maison, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (delegate to the event, Teaching 2016, held in the Havana Convention Center).