Reuters

UNITED NATIONS - For the 12th straight year, the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to end Washington’s four-decade old economic embargo against Cuba, which Havana has called tantamount to genocide.

The annual roasting of the United States by friends and adversaries alike was approved by a record vote of 179 to 3 with two abstentions. Opposing the resolution were the United States, Israel and the Marshall Islands.

Cuba has been under a U.S. trade and travel embargo since Fidel Castro defeated the CIA-backed assault at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. But this year, the Bush administration’s criticisms were more strident and answered in kind by Cuba’s Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque.

“Cuba’s best day is when the Cuban people have terminated Castro’s evil Communist dictatorial regime and said to him, ‘Hasta la vista, baby,’‘’ U.S. representative Sichan Siv said. California’s Governor-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger uttered the oft-quoted line in the film “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.’‘

Angry at the insult to President Fidel Castro, Perez shot back: “It is the people of Cuba who say ‘Hasta la vista to the blockade, Hasta la vista to genocide.’‘’