The Meaning of "Solidarity" with Cuba
Rickey Singh (*)
Last week"s disclosure out of Havana that more than 60 Cuban academics have been
denied visas by the United States Government to attend this week"s conference of the
Latin American Studies Association (LASA) in Las Vegas, must serve to remind our
region why solidarity should be maintained with the Cuban people.
We have become accustomed to the excitement often generated by mainstream and other
media in the USA when Cubans opposed to the Fidel Castro Government show up as
political refugees in the "land of the free and home of the brave".
Or, more so when they defect during a visit and seek asylum.
In contrast, when those same American media do not completely ignore cases such as the
current situation involving the batch of Cuban academics denied visas for the LASA
conference, they provide the very minimum of coverage, even as indifference remains a
feature when ordinary Americans themselves are denied the freedom to travel to Cuba.
A year ago, President George W Bush had requested the US State Department to come up
with proposals to tighten the squeeze on freedom to travel to Cuba by Americans,
including Cuban-Americans with families in that Caribbean nation.
Since then, various measures have been put in place to make it much more difficult for
Cuban-Americans to either visit families or to make remittances to their loved ones in
Cuba.
It is all part of the Bush Administration"s ongoing efforts to consolidate support among
the hostile and well-connected anti-Castro lobby in the USA, especially in Florida in this
2004 tight presidential race.
Of course, it is also quite consistent with the 42-year-old US financial, trade and
economic embargo against Cuba. It is an inhumane sanctions policy against a small
Caribbean nation for which there is no precedent.
In our Caribbean Community there are governments, political parties and civil society
organisations that often remind us of their "friendship" and "solidarity" with Cuba. Yet, it
has been apparent that militancy once shown in public expressions of this "friendship"
and "solidarity" with the Cuban people have been quite lacking within recent years.
It should, therefore, not be surprising if the academics of the University of the West
Indies, or of national universities, for instance in Guyana and Suriname, or
representatives of civil society organisations within Caricom, fail to raise a voice in
protest of the Cuban academics, having been quiet for so long on America"s bullyism and
outright aggression against Cuba.
In another two months, our Community heads of government are scheduled to be in
Havana for the second "Caricom-Cuba Day" celebration, in keeping with a decision made
by them and President Castro in 2002 at an encounter to mark 30 years of sustained
"friendship" since diplomatic relations were first jointly established by some Community
states with Cuba on December 8, 1972.
The question is: What practical initiatives will be taken this year to involve representative
public participation in relevant observance of CARICOM-Cuba Day this coming
December 8 to avoid the virtual absence of any official activity of significance, as was
the situation in 2003?
This December meeting seems a good time to review how CARICOM-Cuba relations
could be made more meaningful. Not just in terms of Cuba"s continuous practical forms
of assistance to Community partner states.
Rather, how and why they should signal a new willingness on their part to improve on the
comparatively minuscule imports from Cuba and to boost air transport co-operation with
that Caribbean nation that continues to bear a heavy financial burden to maintain its own
aviation connections with CARICOM states.
Over the 45 years of revolutionary transformation of their homeland, the Cuban people
have given a special meaning to "international solidarity" that helps us and other poor and
developing nations to better appreciate what it means to give even when it hurts.
Starved of foreign exchange by the US economic embargo, which has failed to achieve
the objective of toppling the Castro Government, Cubans give of what best they have -
expertise, in wide-ranging fields, to countries far and near across the globe.
Quantified in monetary terms, Cuban assistance - from military and construction brigades
to health, education, culture and sports personnel, engineers, electricians and more -
would amount to billions of US dollars since the dawn of the 1959 revolution.
Even at times of devastating natural disasters, the latest being those generated by
Hurricane Charley and, to a lesser extent, Hurricane Ivan, resulting in more than US$1
billion in losses, Cuba, under the indefatigable internationalist, Fidel Castro, remains
unchecked in giving practical "solidarity" to countries in need.
Caribbean Community states, from Jamaica in the northern sub-region to Guyana on the
South American mainland, and islands of the Eastern Caribbean, would have varying
experiences to share of Cuba"s expressions of practical forms of solidarity, whenever it
matters.
Right now, as the Castro Administration continues to assess the extent of the losses
resulting from hurricanes Charley and Ivan, approximately 600 Cuban doctors and nurses
are tirelessly labouring in Haiti to help ease the suffering of the poorest of the poor in this
hemisphere.
They were not rushed into that poverty-stricken Caribbean land in the wake of the
horrendous tragedies from Hurricane Ivan, which had earlier wrecked little Grenada.
They have been there for almost two years, working through successive episodes of
political unrest and violence, caring for the Haitian people in various parts of the country.
Declared as a "model" in risk-prevention for hurricanes by the United Nations Institute
for Disaster Reduction, after Hurricane Charley"s unwelcomed visit, which preceded that
of Ivan, Cuba was last week preparing to send some 30 Cuban technicians, primarily
electricians, this weekend to devastated Grenada to help restore power supply.
There, in that Spice Isle, now a very distressing picture of its former beautiful self, and
from which Cuban workers were forced to leave in 1983 when the US military invaded
and killed 24 of them among other victims, they will join some 18 Cubans, among them
doctors and engineers, working on contracts as part of the Castro Government"s technical
assistance programmes in that CARICOM state.
In all of this, it is encouraging to know that Prime Minister Patrick Manning has
identified an estimated US$500,000 in grant aid as part of Trinidad and Tobago"s US$5
million package of assistance to Caribbean nations affected by hurricanes this season.
Though comparatively insignificant, it is, nevertheless, the kind of practical gesture of
solidarity that the Cuban people would undoubtedly appreciate from Caricom brothers
and sisters.
Especially so, given their own serious social and economic problems in the face of the
very punitive US embargo that the United Nations General Assembly is once again
preparing to overwhelmingly condemn later this month at its current 59th session.
(*) Published by the Jamaica Observer, October 3, 2004. The author is one of the most
reknowned Caribbean journalists, with extensive knowledge about the region and its
peoples.
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