HAVANA (CNN) -- Cuban officials are claiming a moral victory in the
                  U.N.'s nearly unanimous vote Tuesday calling for an end to the 40-year
                  economic embargo against Cuba.

                  "For the next 1,000 years, the U.S. government, and those who promote the
                  policy of the blockade against Cuba, will be pursued by this resolution of the
                  international community," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said.

                  The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed a resolution, by a 155-2
                  tally with eight abstentions, seeking an end to the blockade. The United States
                  and Israel voted against the resolution.

                  The vote marked the eighth consecutive year the United Nations has passed such a
                  resolution. The Assembly voted 152-2 with 12 abstentions last year.

                  The resolution referred particularly to the 1996 Helms-Burton Act which allows
                  U.S. citizens who were Cuban citizens before Cuban President Fidel Castro's 1959
                  communist revolution to file lawsuits in U.S. courts against international companies
                  or individuals who "traffic" in confiscated property.

                  Cuba announced prior to Tuesday's vote that it will file at least a $100 billion
                  lawsuit against the U.S. government to compensate the Cuban people for
                  "the enormous damages" caused by the embargo.

                  The lawsuit will be one part of a new Cuban campaign to use all legal
                  avenues to "fight the blockade and defend the rights of its people," Cuban
                  National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon said.

                  'No place should be excluded'

                  "No venue, no place should be excluded. All are available to us, and very
                  soon we will learn what will be the very next step," he said.

                  Alarcon did not say where or in which court the suit would be filed. Last
                  week a Havana court upheld a $181.1 billion compensation claim by Cuba
                  against the U.S. government for deaths and injuries it said were caused by
                  four decades of hostilities, such as the abortive 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion.

                  Alarcon did not outline specifics of Cuba's next action. He said he did not
                  want to tip off U.S. officials. U.S. Deputy Ambassador Peter Burleigh did
                  not comment on the lawsuit.

                  The embargo has made it impossible for Cuba to acquire products,
                  equipment, services and technology, and it has severely damaged its foreign
                  trade and ability to get funding and credits, Alarcon said.

                  Speakers echo Alarcon's dismay

                  During the General Assembly debate, speaker after speaker echoed
                  Alarcon's dismay that the United States has not only ignored the General
                  Assembly's repeated calls to end the embargo -- but has extended and
                  strengthened its provisions.

                  The United States maintains the embargo "as one element in a policy of
                  promoting democracy in Cuba," Burleigh said. The Clinton administration, he
                  said, has moved to "expand dramatically people-to-people contacts with the
                  Cuban population, to increase remittances, and to allow the sale of food and
                  agricultural inputs to private entities."

                  The goal of the U.S. policy is to foster "a transition to a democratic form of
                  government, to protect human rights, to permit a civil society to thrive, and
                  to provide for the economic prosperity that the Cuban government's
                  disastrous economic policies are denying the Cuban people," Burleigh said.

                  But many Cubans say the embargo has united them and made them stronger.

                  "With or without an embargo, we are here. And that is good. I think that's
                  another victory we have in our favor," Perez Roque said.

                    Reporter Frida Ghitis, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.