• Submitted by: manso
• Politics and Government
• 12 / 09 / 2010

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Press release 495/2010.07 December 2010. CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana As the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) observes the 38th Anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, Chairman of CARICOM, the Honourable Bruce Golding, has reiterated the call for the removal of the economic embargo on the Spanish speaking Caribbean country.

In a statement to mark CARICOM-Cuba Day on December 8, Mr Golding, Chairman of the Conference of CARICOM Heads of Government and Prime Minister of Jamaica, said the Community will continue to support the call for lifting the “unjust economic embargo imposed on Cuba.”

For too long, he said, the economic embargo had represented “a major hindrance to the attainment of the full development that its people so rightly deserve.”

He was speaking against the backdrop of the Community’s consideration of Cuba as “an important regional and hemispheric partner, and an important element” of the Region’s diversity.

The Chairman said CARICOM remained committed to strengthening and enhancing the “close bonds of friendship, cooperation, and solidarity” which had united the two parties.

Diplomatic relations between the Community and this Spanish speaking territory began on December 8, 1972 with the then four independent states of CARICOM: Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

Co-operation was bolstered by the political commitment formalised in the Havana Declaration adopted at the First CARICOM-Cuba Summit held in Havana, Cuba on 8 December 2002. This Declaration gave rise to the celebration of CARICOM-Cuba Day, and regular encounters at the Heads of Government and Ministerial levels.

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Source: www.caricom.org/jsp/pressreleases/pres495_10.jsp