José Ramón Balaguer Cabrera, member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and head of the Department of International Relations, arrived in Bridgetown on November 22, presiding over an important delegation that will participate in several activities to celebrate the 45th Anniversary of diplomatic relations with Barbados and with the Community of Caribbean States (CARICOM), which will be honored next December 8 by the 6th CARICOM-Cuba bilateral Summit. The delegation is also composed of Idalmis Brooks, DRI official, and the professors of the University of Havana, Dr. Francisca López Civeira, president of the José Martí and Fidel Castro chairs, and Dr. Jacqueline Laguardia, of the Norman Girvan chair on Caribbean studies.
The party delegation included in its plan important bilateral events such as meetings with the leader of the ruling Democratic Labor Party (DLP) and Prime Minister of Barbados, Freundel Stuart, with DLP General Secretary George Pilgrim, with the President of Parliament, Michael Carrington, with the Leader of the Opposition, Mia Mottley, and with the leaders of the different organizations that make up the Movement of Solidarity with Cuba, in which the fraternal exchange prevailed, the political initiatives to continue strengthening the bilateral relations and the regional integration, as well as solidarity activities in the view of the challenges we face in the current international scenario.
The II Colloquium on Fidel's Legacy, organized together with the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus of Barbados, is a prime place of the program, coinciding with the first anniversary of the passage to the immortality of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution. A total of 10 leading professionals, politicians and academics from the Caribbean planned to present different profiles of their thinking and action.
As a happy prelude to this great event, a Cultural Gala was envisaged with the participation of young Barbadian artists, summoned by the National Cultural Foundation, as well as young and amateur children of the various levels of education to interpret various cultural events such as folk dance, classical ballet , declamation of poetry, interpretation of Cuban-Caribbean repertoire pieces, who, guided by Cuban professors, set out to demonstrate the strength of the sub region’s cultural integration. The Premiere of a new documentary about the terrorist attack on the Cubana airplane in 1976 opened the gala, with the presence of its Venezuelan director and musicologist, who would travel from their country to provide their solidarity contribution.
The culmination of the program would be the diplomatic reception marking the historic date indicated above, co-chaired by Foreign Minister Maxine McClean, the Ambassador of CARICOM, Gail Mathurin, and the Ambassador of Cuba, Francisco Fernández, in which discourses the milestones of the links would come to light mutually beneficial among our nations. Among them, recognizing the granting of an agrement to the first Ambassador of Barbados in Cuba, as well as the projects that will be submitted on December 8 to the VI CARICOM-Cuba Summit for the new triennium of relations.
The Cuban delegation also planned to visit the Monument erected to the victims of terrorism in the town of Payne Bay, St. James, to lay a wreath. Finally, the Head of DRI CC PCC would make a visit to the headquarters of the Cuban sports mission, made up of eight coaches hired by Cubadeportes that work with the Barbadian National Sports Council, in a wide range of activities with schools, clubs and the sports federations of the country.