CARICOM Chairman Bruce Golding has reiterated the call for the removal of the economic embargo on Cuba, as the Caribbean Community observes the 38th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Havana.
Jamaican Prime Minister Golding, Chairman of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government, in a statement to mark CARICOM-Cuba Day today, said CARICOM will continue to support the call for lifting the “unjust economic embargo imposed on Cuba.”
A release from the CARICOM Secretariat at Turkeyen quoted Golding as saying that for too long the embargo had represented “a major hindrance to the attainment of the full development that [Cuba’s] people so rightly deserve.”
He was speaking against the backdrop of the Community’s consideration of Cuba as “an important regional and hemispheric partner, and an important element” of the region’s diversity.
Golding said CARICOM remained committed to strengthening and enhancing the “close bonds of friendship, cooperation, and solidarity” which had united the two parties. Diplomatic relations between CARICOM and Cuba began on December 8, 1972, with the then four independent states of CARICOM, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Co-operation was bolstered by the political commitment formalised in the Havana Declaration adopted at the first CARICOM-Cuba Summit held in Cuba on December 8, 2002.
This Declaration gave rise to the celebration of CARICOM-Cuba Day and regular encounters at the Heads of Government and Ministerial levels, the release added.
