KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Cu­ba’s am­bas­sador to Trinidad and To­ba­go, Gus­ta­vo Veliz, has warned that coun­tries sup­port­ing the Unit­ed States’ po­si­tion on its eco­nom­ic em­bar­go against Cu­ba risk be­com­ing com­plic­it in a pol­i­cy that could cost lives.

His warn­ing fol­lowed T&T’s his­toric de­ci­sion to vote against a Unit­ed Na­tions res­o­lu­tion call­ing for an end to the em­bar­go.

In a state­ment af­ter Wednes­day’s vote at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA), Veliz ac­cused the US of pur­su­ing a pol­i­cy with dev­as­tat­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­se­quences for the Cuban peo­ple.

“A crime is be­ing com­mit­ted against Cu­ba. Sup­port­ing the US nar­ra­tive means be­com­ing com­plic­it in, or con­tribut­ing to, a pol­i­cy whose con­se­quences can cost hu­man lives. Every pass­ing minute may mean the loss of a life, in­clud­ing that of a child, as a re­sult of elec­tric­i­ty short­ages and the in­abil­i­ty to ac­cess es­sen­tial goods, med­i­cines and ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties,” he said.

T&T joined the US and 15 oth­er coun­tries in op­pos­ing the res­o­lu­tion, break­ing with more than three decades of sup­port for calls to end the em­bar­go.

T&T was the on­ly Cari­com mem­ber state to vote against the res­o­lu­tion, which was sup­port­ed by 130 coun­tries. Twen­ty-five coun­tries ab­stained.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion on Wednes­day, say­ing it re­flect­ed its com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy, free­dom and the fun­da­men­tal rights of the Cuban peo­ple.

She said the UNC sup­port­ed the Cuban peo­ple but would not sup­port what she de­scribed as a “mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship.”

Al­though Veliz did not di­rect­ly crit­i­cise T&T’s vote, he re­called the coun­try’s his­toric role in es­tab­lish­ing diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Cu­ba in 1972, when the is­land faced sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­na­tion­al iso­la­tion.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go holds a spe­cial place in the his­to­ry of Cu­ba’s re­la­tions with the Caribbean. In 1972, it was one of the first four coun­tries to for­mal­ly es­tab­lish diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Cu­ba, at a time when our coun­try faced sig­nif­i­cant in­ter­na­tion­al iso­la­tion,” he said.

Veliz said Cu­ba deeply val­ued the courage and his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance of that de­ci­sion, which marked a turn­ing point in re­la­tions be­tween Cu­ba and the Caribbean. He al­so thanked cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go who con­tin­ued to sup­port the Cuban peo­ple.

“We ex­press our sin­cere grat­i­tude to all those in Trinidad and To­ba­go who con­tin­ue to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Cuban peo­ple. Sol­i­dar­i­ty is not a crime. The block­ade is the crime,” he said.

The am­bas­sador al­so re­ject­ed at­tempts to frame the UN vote as a de­bate about democ­ra­cy or Cu­ba’s po­lit­i­cal sys­tem.

“This is not a de­bate about Cu­ba’s po­lit­i­cal sys­tem or democ­ra­cy. At­tempts to frame the is­sue in those terms are in­tend­ed to di­vert at­ten­tion from the fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: the un­jus­ti­fi­able en­er­gy siege im­posed on Cu­ba and the col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment in­flict­ed up­on its pop­u­la­tion,” he said.

Veliz ac­cused the US of de­lib­er­ate­ly try­ing to pro­voke a hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis in Cu­ba and us­ing the pop­u­la­tion’s suf­fer­ing as a po­lit­i­cal weapon. He al­so al­leged that the US had ex­ert­ed ex­tra­or­di­nary diplo­mat­ic pres­sure on oth­er coun­tries to in­flu­ence their votes.

“We must al­so de­nounce the ex­tra­or­di­nary diplo­mat­ic pres­sure ex­ert­ed by the Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Unit­ed States to the Unit­ed Na­tions in an at­tempt to force coun­tries to change their votes,” he said.

De­spite the al­leged pres­sure, Veliz wel­comed the res­o­lu­tion’s adop­tion, de­scrib­ing it as a sig­nif­i­cant vic­to­ry for in­ter­na­tion­al law and ev­i­dence of the grow­ing in­ter­na­tion­al iso­la­tion of US pol­i­cy to­wards Cu­ba.

He said he was con­fi­dent Cu­ba’s long­stand­ing re­la­tions with Caribbean coun­tries would en­dure.

“We re­main con­fi­dent that truth, jus­tice and rea­son will pre­vail once again in in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, in­clud­ing in the long­stand­ing bonds of friend­ship, co­op­er­a­tion and sol­i­dar­i­ty be­tween Cu­ba and the mem­ber states of Cari­com.”