• Submitted by: manso
• International
• 12 / 10 / 2010

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CMC. Friday, December 10, 2010. CARIBBEAN Community Chairman Bruce Golding on Wednesday renewed calls for the United States to lift its trade and economic embargo against Cuba.

Golding, who is also the prime minister of Jamaica, made the call as four Caribbean countries observed the 38th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Havana.

Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago established relations with Cuba in 1972 despite protests by Washington.

Since then, several other Caribbean Community (Caricom) countries have established diplomatic relations with Havana.

Washington imposed the embargo after Fidel Castro came to power after overthrowing the dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959.

"We in Caricom have long considered Cuba an important regional and hemispheric partner and an important element in our diversity," Golding said in his statement.

"In this context, the community will continue to support the call for the lifting of the unjust economic embargo imposed on Cuba, which for too long now has represented a major hindrance to the attainment of the full development that its people so rightly deserve.

"As we celebrate another year of friendship and look forward to another year of continued cooperation, I take this opportunity, on behalf of the governments and people of the Caribbean Community, to extend our best wishes for the well-being and prosperity of the government and people of Cuba and to reiterate the community's commitment to the further strengthening and enhancement of the close bonds of friendship, cooperation, and solidarity which unite us."

Golding said that the relationship which Caricom and Cuba have carved out over the past three decades "can be characterised as strong, deep, and solid.

"What we are celebrating today represents not just the oneness of the Caribbean, but also an excellent model of south-south relations, persistently pursued by both sides, amidst an environment of significant changes and challenges in the global political, economic, and social spheres," Golding said in his statement Tuesday.

He said that for more than three decades the friendship between Caricom and Cuba has been carefully "moulded and fostered, as we worked together to forge a comprehensive network of co-operation, which has proven beneficial to both sides".

Golding said that the co-operation between the two parties has been bolstered by the political commitment embodied in the Havana Declaration adopted at the First Caricom-Cuba Summit held in Cuba in 2002.

"It is this Declaration which, inter alia, gave rise to the celebration of Caricom-Cuba Day and which provides for our regular encounters at the Heads of Government and Ministerial levels," Golding added.

Source: //www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/