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Wednesday, August 20, 2025

Remove sanctions against Venezuela and Cuba–Caricom leaders

by

Asha Javeed, Lead Editor Investigations
776 days ago
20230706
Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, left, speaks during the press conference at the conclusion of the 45th general meeting at the Hyatt Regency, last night.  At right, is Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis.

Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, left, speaks during the press conference at the conclusion of the 45th general meeting at the Hyatt Regency, last night. At right, is Bahamas Prime Minister Philip Davis.

NICOLE DRAYTON

Cari­com has raised the is­sue of sanc­tions against Venezuela, the block­ade against Cu­ba, and the view that more needs to be done to stem the flow of guns in­to the re­gion.

Cari­com chair­man Roo­sevelt Sker­rit, who host­ed a press con­fer­ence at the con­clu­sion of the 45th gen­er­al meet­ing at the Hy­att last night, said that re­gion­al lead­ers raised these and oth­er is­sues with US Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken when he held a cau­cus ses­sion with them yes­ter­day.

“We raised the is­sue of the em­bar­go against Cu­ba and we re­it­er­at­ed our call to the Unit­ed States to have this block­ade against Cu­ba lift­ed. And al­so, we urged the Unit­ed States to re­move the sanc­tions on Venezuela be­cause of the far-reach­ing im­pli­ca­tions of the sanc­tions on Venezuela,” he said.

Sker­rit said at some point he hoped Cu­ba would be a mem­ber of Cari­com.

He not­ed that while the US an­nounced that they have tak­en ac­tion with the ap­point­ment of a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor—Michael Ben’Ary—who will serve as the very first co­or­di­na­tor for Caribbean Firearms Pros­e­cu­tions, there was more that need­ed to be done in the re­gion.

“We still be­lieve that there are ad­di­tion­al things that the US can do to stem the flow of guns with­in our re­gion,” he said.

He said there was al­so ex­ten­sive en­gage­ment on the is­sue of Haiti with Blinken and the Pres­i­dent of Rwan­da.

“We touched on a num­ber of is­sues, the is­sue of cli­mate change and its im­pacts on our world. The is­sue of cli­mate fi­nanc­ing, look­ing at a new ar­chi­tec­ture for the in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions and how they treat coun­tries like ours. We al­so dis­cussed how we can join forces with those who have ex­pressed in­ter­est in their com­mit­ment to pro­vid­ing tan­gi­ble sup­port on the ground in Haiti to­wards the res­o­lu­tion of the cri­sis, cur­rent­ly con­fronting our broth­ers and sis­ters in Haiti.

“And so, we look for­ward to col­lab­o­rat­ing with Rwan­da, who has of­fered to al­so en­gage the African Union,” he said.

Free move­ment of peo­ple

On the in­te­gra­tion move­ment, Sker­rit said lead­ers took the “de­ci­sion to seek to have the free move­ment of all cat­e­gories of peo­ple to live and work”.

“Ob­vi­ous­ly, there are some le­gal is­sues that we have to ex­am­ine. And we have giv­en some months to ex­am­ine those le­gal is­sues and to en­sure that by 30th of March, 2023 (next gen­er­al meet­ing), to take a deep­er po­si­tion on this,” he said.

He ac­knowl­edged that there are some chal­lenges for some, “but we are com­mit­ted to this”.

In ad­di­tion, Cari­com mem­bers will have ac­cess to pri­ma­ry health and emer­gency health, ac­cess to ba­sic ed­u­ca­tion—pre, pri­ma­ry, and sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion.

“Of course, we have this sort of se­cu­ri­ty agree­ment in place al­ready that peo­ple can ben­e­fit from, but we be­lieve this is a fun­da­men­tal part of the in­te­gra­tion ar­chi­tec­ture,” he said.

“I think we would have served and have served the com­mu­ni­ty well at this meet­ing by ar­riv­ing at that de­ci­sion. And we hope to see that it will be im­ple­ment­ed by the 30th of March, 2024. So this is great news.”

Sker­rit said that of all the is­sues he dis­cussed, this was the one that pleased him most.

“And I be­lieve the found­ing fa­thers are smil­ing from heav­en, that the present gen­er­a­tion are bold enough to ar­rive at a de­ci­sion,” he said.

CARICOM


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