Global Issues
Cuba Strengthens Regional Ties
With the recently-created Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Cuba is strengthening its regional reinsertion, while progress towards normal ties with the United States would appear to remain a distant prospect, and the return of the right-wing Popular Party to power in Spain could reopen tensions on that front.
On Wednesday, President Raúl Castro demonstrated the importance put on regional integration by travelling to Trinidad and Tobago to participate in the fourth Cuba- CARICOM (Caribbean Community) summit, a mechanism for political exchange and cooperation that was officially created on Dec. 8, 2002 during a meeting in Havana.
Cuba has diplomatic ties with CARICOM’s 14 members: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
In announcing this latest trip by Castro, the second in less than a week, the official Granma newspaper described these meetings as 'scenarios of reflection and decision- making at the highest level for deepening and strengthening relations of cooperation and solidarity.'
'At a time when the region is advancing toward new and higher forms of integration, CARICOM, established on the basis of relations of friendship and respect among its members, has accumulated organisational and working experience that can be used in the process of consolidating and strengthening' the brand-new CELAC bloc, the Granma article said.
For the Cuban president, CELAC’s main advantage is its independence from the United States; moreover, it reflects 'the concept of a united and sovereign region, committed to a common destiny,' as he emphasised during a Dec. 2-3 presidential summit in Venezuela, where the new bloc was officially launched.
However, experts warn that if the new organisation attempts to enter into any conflicts with the United States or replace the Organisation of American States (OAS), it is doomed, because many nations in the region would be opposed to such a move, including the Chilean government of Sebastián Piñera, which holds the rotating presidency of CELAC until 2012.
In any case, Castro does not seem to be unaware of these differences. 'We do not have fully homogenous views, nor do we agree on all political positions. That is part of the reality, and taking that into account, we have to work in a climate of respect and cooperation,' he said in his speech in Caracas.
CELAC includes 33 nations in Latin America and the Caribbean, home to a total population of 580 million. Although the region has significant natural resources and has posted strong economic growth in recent years, there are serious inequalities in the distribution of wealth, with 174 million people living in poverty.
In June 2009, the OAS decided by consensus to overturn a 1962 resolution that kept Cuba out of the hemispheric organisation. But the Castro government refused to return, announcing that instead it wanted to strengthen, expand and harmonise representative integration mechanisms in the region, including all of the Caribbean islands.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service