Gail Alexan­der

The Cari­com com­mu­ni­ty and Cu­ba lead­er­ship have both re­in­forced calls for the US to lift its long­stand­ing trade em­bar­go against Cu­ba.The calls came at yes­ter­day's fourth Cari­com-Cu­ba sum­mit held at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port-of-Spain where Cuban Pres­i­dent Raul Cas­tro was the guest of ho­n­our.Both Cas­tro and Cari­com chair­man St Kitts Prime Min­is­ter Den­zil Dou­glas made the calls to the US.

The T&T Gov­ern­ment was forced to shift the venue for the func­tion from the Hilton (Trinidad) since the US-man­aged ho­tel was un­able to get the re­quired li­cences from the US Gov­ern­ment to host the Cuban del­e­ga­tion.The US has had a long-stand­ing trade em­bar­go against Cu­ba, re­in­forced in 1996 by the Helms-Bur­ton law which pro­hibits any recog­ni­tion of a Cuban tran­si­tion­al Gov­ern­ment where Fi­del-for­mer Pres­i­dent-or his broth­er Raul Cas­tro are in­volved.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's func­tion, Cari­com sec­re­tary gen­er­al Ir­win LaRocque not­ed that lead­ers of the re­gion­al group­ing have re­turned to Port-of-Spain to mark the 39th an­niver­sary of the de­c­la­ra­tion of re­la­tions be­tween Cari­com and Cu­ba.LaRocque said this was launched by the late lead­ers of T&T, Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos and Guyana in 1972. Lead­ers have gath­ered tri­an­nu­al­ly since then to mark Cari­com-Cu­ba day on De­cem­ber 8, ob­serv­ing ties be­tween both.

Cari­com chair­man St Kitts Prime Min­is­ter Den­zil Dou­glas said the Cari­com-Cu­ba re­la­tion­ship has re­mained ro­bust. He not­ed the many ar­eas of col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in the Cari­com-Cu­ba re­la­tion­ship.Dou­glas said it was im­per­a­tive to pool re­sources and stand be­hind com­mon prin­ci­ples to ad­vance ob­jec­tives. He said those prin­ci­ples in­clude ad­her­ence to the Unit­ed Na­tions' Char­ter:

"For us, in par­tic­u­lar, ad­her­ence to the prin­ci­ples of self-de­ter­mi­na­tion of peo­ples, of non-in­ter­fer­ence in the in­ter­nal af­fairs of states and of up­hold­ing the rule of in­ter­na­tion­al law.""It is in keep­ing with these prin­ci­ples that Cari­com has re­mained res­olute in its firm stance of call­ing for an end to the eco­nom­ic, com­mer­cial and fi­nan­cial em­bar­go of the Re­pub­lic of Cu­ba," Dou­glas said."Cari­com there­fore takes the op­por­tu­ni­ty of this sum­mit to again urge the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States to lift with im­me­di­ate ef­fect, the un­just eco­nom­ic, com­mer­cial and fi­nan­cial em­bar­go im­posed against Cu­ba."

Cuban Pres­i­dent Raul Cas­tro, speak­ing af­ter Dou­glas, said Cu­ba will nev­er for­get the Caribbean na­tions' sup­port to put an end to the US trade em­bar­go start­ed more than five decades ago.Cas­tro said the em­bar­go re­mained ba­si­cal­ly un­changed. He said the mea­sures pub­li­cised by the US from the Bush ad­min­is­tra­tion had not gone be­yond a par­tial re­lax­ation of the re­stric­tions lim­it­ing re­mit­tances and trav­el to the is­land, of Cuban cit­i­zens liv­ing in the US.

"The ex­pec­ta­tions of the so-called 2009 Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as held in this city (Port-of-Spain) have failed to rise above the rhetoric," he said.US Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma had at­tend­ed the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in Port-of-Spain in 2009.Cas­tro al­so said Latin Amer­i­can was mov­ing to a new form of in­te­gra­tion. He said the move­ment was on the right track and Cu­ba be­lieved that Cari­com's in­ter­ests must be es­poused in the move­ment. He al­so called for con­tin­ued ef­forts to as­sist Haiti's re­con­struc­tion.Cas­tro de­vot­ed a sig­nif­i­cant por­tion of his lengthy ad­dress to speak­ing about the prob­lems his coun­try is suf­fer­ing from cli­mate change. He said that by 2050, parts of south-west­ern Cu­ba would be gone be­cause of coastal ero­sion.

T&T Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her ad­dress, al­so not­ed that all Cari­com mem­bers vot­ed con­sis­tent­ly on var­i­ous oc­ca­sions over the years in favour of the an­nu­al UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly Res­o­lu­tion which called for an end to the trade em­bar­go and block­ade of Cu­ba. She said this was no dif­fer­ent in Oc­to­ber when 186 states vot­ed in sup­port of the res­o­lu­tion.Per­sad- Bisses­sar said Cari­com had demon­strat­ed its com­mit­ment in this re­gard."I ad­mire the gen­eros­i­ty and sense of kin­ship of the Gov­ern­ment and peo­ple of Cu­ba, who de­spite their own eco­nom­ic and fi­nan­cial chal­lenges are still im­bued with a sense of kind­ness un­matched even among those coun­tries which are bet­ter cir­cum­stanced," she said.

The PM said the re­gion must breathe new life in­to the Cari­com-Cu­ba Joint Com­mis­sion to ful­fill the man­date of its mis­sion. This was to be ex­am­ined to see if any of the agree­ments in the frame­work need to be stream­lined.Per­sad-Bisses­sar reaf­firmed the re­gion­al move to­wards South-South co-op­er­a­tion. She said while the re­gion should main­tain its north­ern ties, it should al­so start look­ing away from the north since the South-South di­rec­tion is the fu­ture.On the US/Hilton is­sue, Per­sad- Bisses­sar, speak­ing to re­porters af­ter the sum­mit, de­nied that the ap­pli­ca­tion to use the Hilton for the sum­mit was sent late.For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan said the con­tract was signed with the Hilton on Oc­to­ber 24.Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "There was no way it was too late...How can Oc­to­ber be too late."

(GA)