SPEECH BY DAVID COMMISSION, AMBASSADOR OF BARBADOS TO CARICOM AT THE IX CONTINENTAL MEETING OF SOLIDARITY WITH CUBA (October 9-12 in Mexico City)
“LET CUBA BE THE CORNER-STONE OF A NEW LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN CIVILIZATION”
I dedicate this Address to our dearly departed sister Tamara Armenteros of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) Comrades, The very last duty I performed in Barbados before making this trip to Mexico was to represent the Government of Barbados at a solemn ceremony to commemorate the 49th Anniversary of the 6th October 1976 terrorist bombing of a Cubana civilian aircraft in Barbados, and the third anniversary of the CARICOM-Cuba Day Against Terrorism.
That great C.I.A inspired tragedy that resulted in 73 totally innocent people losing their lives in the most horrific manner, motivated the governments and people of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to take actions to have our Caribbean region designated as a Zone of Peace.
It also caused us to come together in great solidarity with the nation and people of Cuba, and it led every single one of the fourteen independent CARICOM countries to establish Embassies in Cuba.
In addition, that tragedy and the undeserved martyrdom of the 73 victims, led the governments of CARICOM and Cuba to designate the 6th of October as CARICOM-Cuba Day Against Terrorism.
Colleagues, we should all be aware that acts of undeserved suffering – the undeserved suffering of innocents – generate a moral or spiritual force – a “soul force” – that has the capacity to produce mighty effects!
Some of our greatest liberation leaders – leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King – understood this concept well, and deployed their people’s “soul force” to achieve mighty victories.
Today, we witness the government of the United States of America (USA) floundering and rapidly losing prestige and moral standing in the eyes of the people and governments of the world. And so, the question arises:- Might this have something to do with the USA’s brutal, unjust, 63 year campaign of vile and undeserved persecution of Cuba? Might it have something to do with the 33 years in which the countries of the world have voted for an annual United Nations (UN) Resolution denouncing the blockade and calling for its termination, only to have the USA shamelessly disrespect the moral conscience of the world?
No empire can survive unless it has some degree of prestige in the eyes of the people it seeks to rule over, and Cuba is – in effect - playing a critical role in stripping away from the US empire whatever prestige it might have had! We must therefore make the point to the USA:- “The more you victimize Cuba, the more you destroy yourself!”
Comrades, there are two major phenomena shaping our world today.
One is the interlocking series of crises that the world faces – an economic crisis, a climate crisis, an environmental crisis, a political crisis, a moral crisis, a cultural crisis – with all these crises combining together to produce a major existential crisis of our civilization.
And simultaneously, we are witnessing the so-called “unipolar world” of the late 20th and early 21st centuries slipping away and a new “multipolar world” taking shape.
So, the crucial question for us in Latin America and the Caribbean is:– “How should we respond to this state of affairs?”
Surely, if there is to be a multipolar world, Latin America and the Caribbean must have the ambition to be one of its powerful poles!
And similarly, if our world civilization is to be saved, surely Latin America and the Caribbean must play a role of significance in saving it!
Our response must therefore be to unify our region of Latin America and the Caribbean and forge it into one of the major sovereign, independent, self determining, progressive poles of the new multipolar world order.
And the way to do it is to set out on a campaign to rid our Caribbean and Latin American region of all remaining colonies, while simultaneously rallying around Cuba – the exemplar of Latin American and Caribbean principle, dignity, sovereignty, self-determination, internationalism, social equality and humility – in an unstoppable effort to break the ungodly victimization and isolation that has been inflicted on that heroic nation.
We must also resolve to use Cuba as the primary “reference point” or “guide nation” for the new unified, self-respecting, sovereign and progressive Latin America and the Caribbean that we are going to build.
In light of the foregoing, I am hereby proposing a new vision and sense of mission for our collective progressive struggle in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Let us:-
undertake a collective, determined effort to complete the unfinished mission of the decolonisation of our region by providing our Puerto Rican, Martinican, Guadeloupian, and other French, Dutch, US and British colonised Antillean brothers and sisters with all of the solidarity and support that they need to complete their struggle;
profoundly deepen and strengthen our campaign to end the criminal U.S blockade of Cuba; and
extend that anti-blockade campaign beyond its current parameters and transform it into an even larger project that sets out to craft a unified Latin American and Caribbean Civilization centred on the “Cuban Model” of adherence to principle, dignity, sovereignty, self-determination, internationalism, social equality and humility.
Comrades, I say forward ever; backward never!
Onward to a new Latin American and Caribbean Civilization!