At an extraordinary summit in Cuba this week, leaders of all countries in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) called on President-elect Barack Obama to lift America’s nearly 50-year embargo against their host country.
As we gather today in Cuba, the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America is still in place… The Caribbean community hopes that the transformational change which is underway in the United States will finally relegate that measure to history. (Antiguan Prime Minister Baldwin Spencer, CARICOM president)
I have written a number of commentaries calling on American presidents, including Bill Clinton, to relegate this embargo to history. For example, here’s what I wrote on January 24, 2006 in one entitled President Bush, seal your legacy: Lift the embargo against Cuba:
Advocates for America’s puerile, inhumane and hypocritical policy towards Cuba invariably cite Fidel Castro’s dictatorship as justification for sustained hostilities. But all one has to do is cite China – with whose dictators the U.S. courts a very beneficial relationship – to dismiss this justification as demonstrably specious….
Nevertheless, I find it ironic, if not misguided, that CARICOM leaders traveled to Cuba – in an unprecedented show of unity – for this elusive purpose.
After all, MY call was always tempered by my hope that a fully integrated CARICOM would be firmly established to compete economically (and politically) in the region with a Cuba unbound by the perennial restrictions the US has placed on its growth.
Yet here we had all of the leaders of a congenitally fractious CARICOM advocating for a cause that is sure to hasten the economic demise of their respective countries. Indeed, its member states are notorious for the zero-sum fighting over tourism and off-shore financial services that has prevented their integration.
CARICOM leaders pose with host Raul Castro for the “family photo” in front of Jose Marti monument in Santa Efigenia cemetery in Santiago de Cuba: (L to R front) Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo; Dominica’s PM Roosevelt Skerrit; Barbados PM David Thompson; Antigua and Barbuda’s PM Baldwin Spencer; Cuba’s President Raul Castro; Bahmas’ PM Hubert Ingraham; Belize’s PM Dean Barrow; Grenada’s PM Tillman Thomas and Haiti’s President Rene Preval. (L to R back) Association of Caribbean States representative Fernando Andrade; Trinidad & Tobago’s PM Patrick Manning; Saint Lucia’s PM Stephenson King; Saint Kitts & Nevis PM Denzil Douglas; jamaica’s PM Bruce Golding; St Vincent & the Granedines PM Ralph Gonsalves; Suriname’s President Ronald Venetiaan; Caricom’s President Edwin Carrington and Oriental Caribbean States organization representative Len Ismael.
Meanwhile, the irony seemed completely lost on them that they were attending a summit to discuss economic ties with a country that not only poses a far greater threat to their economies than the global financial crisis but also looms as yet another cause for more zero-sum fighting.
Specifically, CARICOM countries are already reeling from the loss of remittances (from Caribbean nationals working in America) and tourism revenues as a result of the economic recession in the US. And the large sucking sound that will be heard throughout our region if this embargo is lifted will be American tourists abandoning the Caribbean for more exotic, and cheaper, vacations in Cuba.
More to the point, President-elect Barack Obama has already declared that, like every other president over the past 50 years, he has no intention of lifting the embargo against Cuba – unless Cuba becomes a bona fide democracy, which nobody expects any time soon. In fact, he has promised only to lift restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba.
Of course this suits Fidel (of nine lives) and his brother Raul just fine. Indeed, the wily Castros must thank their lucky stars for the double standard that has governed political and moral outrage against this embargo. Because those who condemn American leaders have invariably granted the Castros absolution despite the fact that Fidel and Raul have imposed a 50-year embargo on their own people – in terms of travel, freedom of expression and other basic human rights – that has been even more oppressive than the US embargo.
But it must have seemed an insult to his visiting Caribbean comrades when Raul greeted them at the opening of this summit by declaring that Cuba is “prepared to battle the embargo for another 50 years”. Frankly, one wonders why CARICOM leaders coordinated this highly publicized trip to make such a patently quixotic, adversarial and futile call. After all, this is hardly the way to begin a constructive relationship with the US president-elect.
Instead, their time would have been far better spent holding a summit in a member state for the sole purpose of discussing ways of lobbying Obama to amend his pending legislation Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act. Because this Act contains provisions that could prove even more devastating to our regional economies than the fallout from this global financial crisis or the loss of tourism market share to Cuba.
Never mind the perennial dithering among these leaders (since 1973) over the categorical imperative of integrating our regional economies to better withstand the other looming effects of globalization….
Related Articles:
President Bush, seal your legacy: Lift the embargo…
Raul pledges to continue Fidel’s 50-year revolution
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