The Trinidad and Tobago government Wednesday defended its decision to vote against a United Nations resolution condemning the United States decades’ old trade and economic embargo against Cuba, as regional countries remained divided on the issue.
‘People we do not support a military dictatorship. The Cuban people deserve democracy,’ Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said in a post on X.
‘Trinidad and Tobago’s decision to vote against the United Nations resolution on Cuba reflects the Government’s firm and unwavering commitment to democracy, freedom and the fundamental rights of all people,’ she added.
Trinidad and Tobago became the first Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country in decades to ever have voted against the resolution, but while the Cuban government may have been pleased with the outcome of the vote, Havana lost significant support from countries in the Western Hemisphere and Europe.
The resolution passed 130-17, with 25 abstentions, a sharp drop from last year, when it won 165 votes, with seven against and 12 abstentions.
Of the CARICOM countries that were present at Wednesday’s debate, Jamaica, Haiti and Guyana abstained, while Trinidad and Tobago voted against. The Bahamas, Belize, Barbados, Grenada, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St.Kitts and Nevis and Suriname, all voted in favour of the resolution, while Antigua and Barbuda, and Dominica and St. Lucia were marked as being absent when the vote was taken.
Jamaica’s Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade Minister, Kamina Johnson-Smith, told a news conference that Kingston had been reflecting on the UN vote for some time, ‘as this is a shift in policy’
Johnson-Smith said that in the Jamaica parliament on Tuesday, the government moved a motion entitled motion on the Economic and Humanitarian Situation in Cuba, ‘again consistent with the perspective that a broader view of the complex situation in Cuba is needed.
‘Rather than simply calling for an end to the embargo, as has been done in previous years, the motion called on the Parliament to do the following. It asks that Parliament one expresses its deep concern regarding the economic and humanitarian challenges confronting the Cuban people and affirms that their welfare and aspirations must remain central to efforts to address these challenges, two, recognises the importance of intensified economic and institutional reforms, as well as respect for fundamental human rights and freedoms, as well as other essential elements of sustainable development.’
She said that the position taken is also consistent with Jamaica’s broader perspective on multilateralism.
In her statement, Persad-Bissessar said that she has ‘made it clear publicly that Trinidad and Tobago will not support military dictatorship in Cuba,’ adding that the United States government has been spearheading a campaign for democracy in Cuba.
She said US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, ‘of Cuban heritage is right, for Cuba to prosper, there must be political reforms and the democratic rights and freedoms of the Cuban people must be restored.
‘We cannot demand democracy, free and fair elections, freedom of expression and political rights for ourselves while remaining silent when those same freedoms are denied to the Cuban people.
‘Why should citizens of CARICOM nations enjoy the right to freely elect and change their governments while the Cuban people are denied that same democratic choice?’ she asked.
Persad-Bissessar said that Trinidad and Tobago’s position ‘is against military dictatorship and supportive of the Cuban peoples rights to democratically elect a government of their choice.
‘The Government of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago empathise with their suffering and hardship. However for years the argument of compassion for the Cuban people has been manipulated to support a military totalitarian political system that denies them fundamental democratic freedoms.
‘While the Cuban people suffer, the leaders of the Cuban regime and their families live in luxury. The exploitation of ordinary Cubans to support the lavish lives of those associated with the ruling regime has to end.’
She said Trinidad and Tobago respects the ‘sovereign right of other nations to determine their foreign policy, and we expect that same respect in return.
‘Those persons in Trinidad and Tobago who support dictatorship in Cuba would never support it in our own country. There is nothing romantic or idealistic about dictatorship masked as a revolutionary struggle for freedom.
‘The Government of Trinidad and Tobago stands for democracy, freedom, human dignity and the right of every citizen, including the people of Cuba, to freely determine their political future,’ she said, adding ‘the United National Congress commends all nations who stand in solidarity with the wonderful people of Cuba’.
Meantime, former prime minister Dr. Keith Rowley has criticised the position adopted by the Persad-Bissessar government, describing it as ‘shameful’.
In a statement posted on his Facebook page, Rowley reminded the country that ‘this is a government that President ANR Robinson pronounced upon in 2001, a group of people who wield power without moral or spiritual values.
‘That being their record we should never be surprised when they disregard these virtues and principles as they sell our dignity in the hope to curry favor instead of preserving our long established governance through decency and sovereignty.
‘This is so shameful! This is a government that is decisively disconnected from the people they are supposed to represent and prefer instead to express their vile behavior in lockstep with what is being roundly rejected by the wider world,’ Rowley said.
Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica officially established diplomatic relations with Cuba on December 8, 1972. Led by the founding fathers of the regional integration movement, in Dr. Eric Williams of Trinidad and Tobago, Erool Barrow of Barbbados, Forbes Burnham of Guyana and Michael Manley of Jamaica, the four newly independent English-speaking Caribbean nations broke the Western Hemisphere’s diplomatic isolation of Cuba.
The United States imposed its initial partial trade embargo on Cuba in October 1960, and expanded it into a full economic embargo on February 3, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy signed the executive order in a bid to destroy the Fidel Castro led a revolution that overthrew U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in January 1959.