Sir Shridath recalls CARICOM Cuba history

[struggle4progress]

CARICOM Secretariat 07.DEC.08

Describing himself “as one of the few players still around with memory of the great occasion of the joint recognition of Cuba by the quartet of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago in 1972,” Sir Shridath Ramphal recalled that moment in history on the eve of the Third CARICOM-Cuba Summit scheduled for Santiago de Cuba on Monday 8 December ...

"Nothing better illumines this vintage period of Caribbean regionalism than the joint recognition of Cuba by the four major countries of the region simultaneously in 1972. It was an act rooted not in ideology but in practical regional considerations and a refusal of Caribbean countries to be pawns in a super power game ...

"Within months, Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago joined Guyana in formally concluding in Ottawa that historic agreement. Latin American participation in the embargo against Cuba was over. And because all this was done in the context not of alignment with East or West but in a framework of nonalignment, it too won for the Region only respect."

The former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth and first head of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery and the West Indian Commission added his salutations to former Cuban President Fidel Castro who will be honoured by CARICOM Heads of Government during Monday’s Summit. Sir Shridath credited the former Cuban President “for inspiring CARICOM to take that honourable step in unison, and by his friendship and integrity to ensure that it is an act of regionalism of which we shall be forever proud.”

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