Eduardo Vasco
The UN strips Venezuela of voting rights over unpaid dues - but ignores that U.S. sanctions froze its finances. Iran, Sudan, and Afghanistan face the same trap.
Anyone who follows voting sessions in the United Nations General Assembly has probably been curious to see which countries voted for or against a particular resolution. More attentive observers may have noticed that, on the voting board, each country's name is preceded by a colored square. Green for those voting in favor, red for those voting against, and yellow for abstentions. But those who look even more closely will notice a fourth color: black. Countries whose names are preceded by a black square are rare, because these are the countries that did not register a vote.
There are several reasons why a country may fail to register a vote. Generally, it is because the country was absent from the voting session. A recent example occurred on February 24, when Resolution A/RES/ES-11/10 - "Support for Lasting Peace in Ukraine" - was put to a vote during the 11th Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly. The result was 107 votes in favor, 12 against, 51 abstentions, and 23 countries that did not register a vote. Most of these countries abstained from voting by their own choice.
Venezuela, however, did not vote because it lost its voting rights for failing to meet its annual financial contribution obligations to the UN.
Article 19 of the UN Charter stipulates that a member state loses its voting rights when its debt to the UN equals or exceeds the amount of contributions due for the preceding two full years. The General Assembly may grant exceptions when it determines that the failure to pay is due to circumstances beyond the state's control.
Venezuela could have been among these exceptions, since it has been unable to pay its share of contributions to maintain the UN because it has been subjected for more than ten years to a criminal regime of economic sanctions imposed by the United States and the European Union, sanctions that have plunged the country into a crisis of astronomical proportions.
These sanctions affect, in particular, the country's ability to conduct international financial transfers. The United States, which controls the international payments system, cut Venezuela's access to SWIFT. In addition, numerous foreign banks refuse to process transactions involving the Venezuelan government because they are subject to U.S. sanctions.
The first time Venezuela lost its voting rights was in January 2020. On January 10 of that year, the UN announced that Venezuela's debt had reached the threshold established under Article 19 of the UN Charter, suspending its voting rights in the General Assembly. In October, Venezuela made a partial payment and reduced its debt below the threshold. As a result, the country regained its voting rights in the General Assembly.
However, in January 2022, Venezuela once again lost its voting rights after accumulating sufficient arrears to exceed the limit established under Article 19. Venezuela later partially regularized its situation and regained its voting rights.
But in February 2026, the President of the General Assembly once again confirmed that Venezuela had lost its voting rights due to non-payment. According to the UN, the minimum amount required to restore those rights exceeded US$115 million, a figure far higher than that required in 2022.
The official UN list for the 80th Session of the General Assembly (2025-2026) continues to include Venezuela among the states subject to Article 19.
In other words, the UN ignored the reasons behind Venezuela's failure to pay, reasons that lie outside the country's control and even outside its economic and financial policy decisions.
Curiously, Bolivia and São Tomé and Príncipe received special authorization from the General Assembly to continue voting despite being in arrears, on the grounds that their financial difficulties resulted from circumstances beyond their control. Yet neither of these countries is subject to international sanctions, let alone sanctions that prevent access to the international payments system.
At present, there are two other exceptional cases. Afghanistan has also lost its voting rights for the same reason as Venezuela: it failed to fulfill its annual financial obligations to the UN.
When the Taliban took Kabul in August 2021, in that spectacular expulsion of imperialist troops from Afghanistan, the United States immediately froze access to the international reserves of the Afghan central bank. Approximately US$9.5 billion in international reserves were held abroad. Of this amount, around US$7 billion was held at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Another US$2 billion was deposited in international institutions and central banks in other countries.
Furthermore, because Washington does not recognize the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, severe restrictions have been imposed on the relationship between the international financial system and Afghan state institutions.
Normal access to international reserves was interrupted, and many international banks began avoiding transactions involving Afghan institutions out of fear of secondary sanctions and legal risks.
Yet Afghanistan's case is not entirely identical to Venezuela's. Despite its inability to pay its share of contributions, the UN General Assembly granted Kabul the exception provided for under Article 19 during certain previous periods, allowing it to retain certain institutional rights, including the right to vote.
But why?
Because the UN, acting as a puppet of the United States, also refuses to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, despite the fact that it led a popular revolution that overthrew the puppet government installed by the Pentagon and turned Afghanistan into a sovereign and independent country. Afghanistan's seat at the UN continues to be formally occupied by the representative appointed by the former puppet government.
What is even more bizarre is that the government that, according to the UN itself, should be paying Afghanistan's contribution is precisely the Taliban government, which the UN refuses to recognize. This is because there is no other Afghan government. Indeed, if the Taliban does not pay, there is no one else who can pay Afghanistan's contribution, and the Afghan mission in New York itself has been drastically reduced since 2021 due to financial and political difficulties.
The other exceptional case is Myanmar. A military junta controls the country, yet the UN has continued to recognize the ambassador appointed by the government that was overthrown in February 2021. The UN has maintained his credentials while refusing to accept representatives appointed by the new government. No one should be surprised to learn that the deposed government maintained good relations with the United States, while the current authorities have moved closer to China.
But this is not the first time the UN has acted on behalf of imperialism. During the 1990s, North Korea experienced an unprecedented crisis due to the isolation imposed following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the intensification of the imperialist economic blockade. In the country, this period is remembered with sorrow under the name of the "Arduous March." In addition to the blockade, which prevented North Korea from maintaining economic relations with virtually any country in the world - even China distanced itself for a time - the country suffered severe natural disasters, with droughts followed by floods that devastated agriculture. Unable to produce enough food supplies for its people and prevented from purchasing them abroad, North Korea was subjected to a humanitarian crisis that imperialist propaganda continues to exploit to this day - the claim that North Koreans are starving.
Under these conditions, the country was unable to meet its financial obligations to the UN and lost its voting rights for a brief period in 2000, having accumulated more than US$1 million in arrears related to special budgets and peacekeeping operations.
Sudan also lost its voting rights on several occasions, including in 2013 and 2017. During much of that period, the country was subject to extensive U.S. economic sanctions imposed during the government of Omar al-Bashir.
Iran lost its voting rights in January and June 2021 and again in January 2022 after failing to fully regularize its situation. The Iranian government explicitly argued that U.S. financial sanctions prevented the transfer of the funds needed to pay the UN, since billions of dollars of Iranian assets had been frozen abroad. In 2022, Iran regained its voting rights after using Iranian funds frozen in South Korea to settle part of its arrears, but Tehran remains under severe international sanctions.
Libya also appeared on lists of countries deprived of voting rights in 2021. Libya was subject to U.S. and international sanctions inherited from the post-2011 period.
None of these countries - most of them historically underdeveloped and poor - were in a position to pay their share to the UN. Indeed, this should never be a priority. If centuries of imperialist plunder have left a country's population hungry and impoverished, whatever financial resources the government possesses should be used for the well-being of its people, not to finance an organization that is complicit in that very plunder.
Yet, by demonstrating its true character, the UN shows no concern whatsoever for the miserable conditions faced by these countries. If they cannot pay, they lose their right to vote. Especially, of course, if they are governments that the United States and its imperialist partners seek to suffocate, destabilize, and overthrow.
To conclude, it is necessary to recall a historical case that nevertheless receives far too little attention.
For more than twenty years (from 1949 to 1971), China was not recognized by the UN. Or rather, the UN recognized the Kuomintang regime, which fled to the island of Taiwan after the revolution led by Mao Zedong. The Communist Party took power in Beijing and throughout mainland China, governing nearly one billion Chinese people, yet for the UN the legitimate representative of China was the former puppet regime of the United States and Japan, which had taken refuge from popular wrath and governed less than 2 percent of the Chinese population.
During that period, Taiwan not only occupied China's seat at the UN, but - even more absurdly - was one of the five permanent members of the Security Council, possessing veto power and influence comparable only to that of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union.
It was only when Beijing moved closer to the United States, in a maneuver by Washington aimed at isolating the USSR, that the UN finally recognized its government as the sole legitimate representative of the Chinese people.
Thus, it becomes clear how imperialism employs various maneuvers, controlling the decisions of the UN - decisions that are ultimately always political - in order to sabotage governments it does not favor. Whether through sanctions that prevent a country from contributing to the UN and thereby cause it to lose its voting rights, or by refusing to recognize a new government, the objective remains the same.