Foreign Affairs Minister Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett has said the Caribbean Community “will continue to support efforts for the full integration of Cuba in the hemisphere.”
In a statement to mark Caricom–Cuba Day last week Tuesday, Rodrigues-Birkett noted also that the member states of the Community have remained steadfast in their support for the lifting of the long-standing US economic and trade embargo against Cuba.
Rodrigues-Birkett, delivering the statement on behalf of Caricom Chairman, President Bharrat Jagdeo, said further that Caricom has viewed the relationship with Cuba over succeeding years as one of its most important. “Today, we in the Caribbean Community can proudly proclaim that this relationship has proven most beneficial to the people of the Region and to Cuba,” Rodrigues-Birkett said.
To that end, she observed, a Caricom-Cuba Joint Com-mission was established as the mechanism to promote social and cultural development, the strengthening of trade and economic ties and co-operation in the international arena.
Under this mechanism, the Region has received significant support from Cuba in some of the most critical areas, particularly in human resource development and in the fields of health, sports and disaster management.
Rodrigues-Birkett pointed out that perhaps no area has given greater insight into the people-centred nature of these relations and more deeply appreciated by the people of the Community, than the Operation Milagro Pro-gramme “through which thousands of our citizens have been provided with first class eye care and follow up treatment.” The spirit of Caricom-Cuba cooperation, she added, is fully reflected in the undertakings in the Havana Declaration of 2002 arising from which, among other interactions, is the triennial Summit of Heads of Government of CARICOM and of Cuba, the most recent of which took place in Cuba in 2008. “We look forward to the hosting of the 2011 Summit in Caricom,” she added.
She also recalled that 37 years ago Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago “took what was then a courageous and historic stand to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba – a position subsequently adopted by all the sovereign states of Caricom – thereby affirming the Community’s embrace of that country as an integral member of the Caribbean family.”
