Is there still hope for relief for Cuba- Beyond Words?
THE CARIBBEAN WAITED with bated breath this week for the outcome of the 50th Regular Meeting of the Caribbean Community-CARICOM which ends on Friday, February 27.
However, this gathering was always going to be anything but regular. It was rightly billed as one of the most significant gatherings in Caribbean history seeking to deliver on its theme “Beyond Words”.
It was anticipated that the elephant in the conference room was always going to be Cuba, a sister nation which does not belong to CARICOM but which has had a long and impactful relationship with the countries of this region. However, when on January 29, the US president by Executive Order, declared Cuba a threat to its national security and threatened tariffs on any nation which supplies oil to alleviate that country’s humanitarian crisis, the pressure on friendly states became more crucial to step up and offer some humanitarian assistance to the Spanish-speaking nation that, from its meagre resources, has provided abundantly to this region.
The leaders of Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines and host St. Kitts and Nevis all in some measure, acknowledged the plight of the Cuban people in their addresses at the formal opening ceremony of the Conference.
But it was an increasingly mercurial prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago who struck a very discordant tone in her address, indicating that the elephant in the room was the US military involvement in the Caribbean including its killing of fishers at sea, deemed by the US to be narco-traffickers.
In scathing terms she chided the functioning of CARICOM, its silence when Member States- Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago were threatened by Venezuela, doubled down on the region not being a Zone of Peace, and again declared her country’s strong support for President Trump and the US’s military involvement in this region.
Then, she zoomed in on Cuba. She chose not to speak to the humanitarian crisis in Cuba and what possibly could be done within the existing limitations to assist them, nor about the insistence of the US administration to starve the Cuban people into having its government surrender.
Prime Minister Persad Bissesar, instead choose to take an undiplomatic path calling for multiparty elections in Cuba. It was the prime minister sticking to script. Her stance was similar when responding earlier to a joint letter from 11 former Heads of Government of CARICOM States to the US opposing its expanded embargo on Cuba.
Since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, only Mexico and Canada maintained diplomatic relations with that nation. At the behest of the USA, Cuba was suspended from the Organisation of American States, and the most powerful nation on the globe then imposed an economic and financial blockade on the development of the Cuban nation.
The courage of four Caribbean leaders in Forbes Burnham, Dr. Eric Williams, Errol Barrow and Michael Manley saw the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1972, bringing that northern Caribbean nation out of diplomatic isolation, and paved the way for other governments over the years to follow.
Cuba’s humanitarian crisis has grown more acute since the US’s added oil to its blockade. There is no nation which can survive without fuel, and the reports of increased blackouts, infants and other patients being put at increased risk at hospitals, a halt on public transportation, and pile up of garbage, should elicit more than simply an acknowledgement. In fact, it was just this week, that former prime minister Dr. Ralph Gonsavles, called on our own government to provide assistance of rice and flour noting a possible window of opportunity within Trump’s most recent 15% tariff application.
Against the backdrop then, of the dire Cuban situation, much interest was focused on the attendance at this 50th CARICOM Summit on Wednesday by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio.
Following his appearance at the summit, Secretary Rubio told the media that the status quo in Cuba was unsustainable and needed to change dramatically. What he, however, did not address was the call for his country to lift the sanctions off Cuba and allow the flow of petroleum and other vital supplies to reach the people there.
Instead, he called for Cuba to “implement dramatic reforms that open the space for both economic and eventually political freedom” for the people of Cuba “which the United States would love to see”.
We still have a sliver of hope that behind all the grandstanding and double talk we can see a sensible resolution to the 67 year divide between Cubans on both sides of the pond and an end to the hatred this has engendered. While politicians talk, ordinary Cubans continue to suffer.
NOTE: As we prepared to go to press, we received information that the US has decided to ease the oil strangle hold against Cuba by providing oil from Venezuela- with certain conditions!
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