Dear Editor,
As members of the Global Afrikan Congress or GAC, we were immensely proud of the initial stance of CARICOM governments, that they would have boycotted the Summit of the Americas if Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua- three sister countries – were not invited to attend the Summit.
Unfortunately, that initial principled stance of CARICOM in defence of the sovereignty and self-determination of our three sister countries is now waning – no doubt because of tremendous political and economic pressures from the US empire to get the CARICOM member countries to capitulate and attend the Summit in Los Angeles, USA.
We in the GAC would like our CARICOM governments and leaders to know that we fully understand the enormous pressures and possible threats that the US government is bringing to bear against their initial principled stance – a stance that made all of us asCaribbean people proud to see our leaders standing up to the US empire in defence of our collective sovereignty and self-determination, for the following three reasons.
First, CARICOM’s stance in defence of the sovereignty and self-determination of our three sister countries is simultaneously a stance in defence of CARICOM’s own sovereignty and self-determination since the US empire does not respect our sovereignty any more than it respects the sovereignty of our three sister countries that it has excluded from the Summit.
Second, the US empire rudely sees CARICOM and our three sister countries as being in its “backyard”.
Third, we also believe that the US empire is frantic about saving this Summit as a foreign policy success in pursuance of its own geopolitical interests, particularly given its intense geopolitical rivalry with China within our region.
Consequently, we in the GAC are strongly urging our CARICOM governments to stand firmly with our three sister countries, as well as Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and other Latin American countries, and to boycott the imminent Summit of the Americas, since it is really a Summit of the US empire that is designed to dictate their terms of engagement with our governments and peoples, and to divide us and rule over us through their fabricated differences about “democracy” and “freedom.”
Further, we in the GAC believe it is pertinent for CARICOM governments to ask themselves whether it is Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua that have staged countless coups against “democracy” and “freedom” in our region, or whether it isn’t the US empire?. The same US empire that claims that our sister countries are hostile to “freedom” and “democracy”? Is it our three sister countries who invaded and occupied Haiti in 1915, the Dominican Republic in 1965, Cuba in 1961, Grenada in 1983 and several other nations, or is it the US empire?
In this regard, we strongly urge our CARICOM governments to seriously ask themselves who are their primary constituents?
Is their prime concern the political fate of the political party that currently occupies the White House of the US empire? Or, rather, is it the Caribbean people who elected them into government?
Shouldn’t the people of the Caribbean be their primary constituents – to protect and defend? And if this is the case, have our CARICOM governments consulted with their constituents to know their desires as it relates to whether they should attend the Summit of the Americas or keep faith with their wrongfully excluded sister countries, in defiance of the US empire?
Ultimately, isn’t it the latter approach that defines democracy and demonstrates the freedom of a people to exercise their own will over their governments?
Thus, as we close our intervention here, we once again strongly encourage our CARICOM governments to adhere to their sacred duty to their peoples by determining to take the following actions:
First, to boycott the Summit of the Americas if our three sister countries remain uninvited by the US empire and its hirelings.
Second, we urge our CARICOM governments to consult with the Caribbean people who are their primary constituents, in order to get to know their desires about the upcoming Summit of the Americas and more broadly their strategic development interests.
Third, in the event that some CARICOM governments still decide to attend the Summit in spite of all the compelling reasons why they should boycott it, we would urge these governments to send the lowest level representatives to the Summit, as a form of protest against the US empire’s illicit divide and rule policy towards our countries, its disrespect of our political and economic diversity as nations, and its utter disdain for our sovereignty.
We also urge our Governments to properly analyze and interpret the recent unilateral overture made by the US empire towards Cuba, and to recognize that this constituted mere metaphorical bones that the US empire threw at our region in a desperate bid to save the Summit, since they knew full well that some governments would conveniently interpret that insincere window-dressing tactic as a sign of US goodwill!
Regards
Cikiah Thomas
Chairperson
Global Afrikan Congress
