T&T blanks CELAC initiative for end to US blockade of Cuba

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Trinidad and To­ba­go has dis­as­so­ci­at­ed it­self from calls urg­ing an end to the US block­ade of Cu­ba and to up­hold the re­gion’s Zone of Peace pol­i­cy, which were made in the Bo­go­ta De­c­la­ra­tion at the re­cent 10th Sum­mit of heads of state and Gov­ern­ments of the Com­mu­ni­ty of Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean States (CELAC).

At the sum­mit, Bar­ba­dos High Com­mis­sion­er to T&T, David Comis­siong, al­so called for CELAC to hold fast to its col­lec­tive de­nun­ci­a­tion of the Unit­ed States’ “il­lic­it uni­lat­er­al block­ade of CELAC mem­ber Cu­ba as a gross vi­o­la­tion” of the re­gion’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised des­ig­na­tion as a Zone of Peace—and that CELA must al­so de­nounce ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings of re­gion­al cit­i­zens.

The sum­mit con­clud­ed in Colom­bia last Fri­day.

T&T was rep­re­sent­ed by its Charge d’Af­faires in Pana­ma, of­fi­cials said.

The Bo­go­ta De­c­la­ra­tion, in­volv­ing 35 prin­ci­ples on cur­rent is­sues, was is­sued at the cli­max of the sum­mit.

Ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ment, T&T dis­as­so­ci­at­ed it­self from cer­tain items, in­clud­ing the first para­graph. This stat­ed: “We high­light the full va­lid­i­ty of the Procla­ma­tion of Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace and the un­re­strict­ed com­mit­ment of CELAC mem­ber states to en­sure re­spect for this Procla­ma­tion by all states, as adopt­ed at its Sec­ond Sum­mit of Heads of State and Gov­ern­ment, held in Ha­vana in Jan­u­ary 2014, which recog­nis­es the re­gion as a zone of peace and free of nu­clear weapons in ac­cor­dance with he Treaty for the Pro­hi­bi­tion of Nu­clear Weapons in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean (Treaty of Tlatelol­co) and its Ad­di­tion­al Pro­to­cols. This is based on the pro­mo­tion, and re­spect of the pur­pos­es and prin­ci­ples of the Char­ter of the Unit­ed Na­tions and in­ter­na­tion­al law.”

T&T, along with Ar­genti­na, Chile, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Ecuador, El Sal­vador, Hon­duras, Pana­ma, Pe­ru and Paraguay, al­so dis­as­so­ci­at­ed them­selves from para­graph sev­en of the de­c­la­ra­tion.

This called for coun­tries that sup­port­ed the UN Gen­er­al As­sem­bly Res­o­lu­tion (Oc­to­ber 29, 2025) to re­it­er­ate the need to end the eco­nom­ic, com­mer­cial and fi­nan­cial em­bar­go im­posed against Cu­ba, as well as their op­po­si­tion to laws and reg­u­la­tions with ex­trater­ri­to­r­i­al ef­fects. It al­so said the des­ig­na­tion of Cu­ba as a state spon­sor of ter­ror­ism, and its con­tin­ued in­clu­sion on the list, has cre­at­ed ob­sta­cles to in­ter­na­tion­al fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tions with Cu­ba.

T&T al­so dis­as­so­ci­at­ed from an as­pect on Para­graph 19, which called for agree­ment on the im­por­tance of strength­en­ing co­op­er­a­tion in mi­gra­tion man­age­ment, in­clud­ing re­turn process­es, “... and re­call our com­mit­ment to deep­en co-op­er­a­tion and di­a­logue on mi­gra­tion and mo­bil­i­ty in a com­pre­hen­sive, bal­anced, in­te­grat­ed man­ner, based on shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and on com­mit­ment to safe reg­u­lar and or­der­ly mi­gra­tion in ac­cor­dance with na­tion­al com­pe­ten­cies and with full re­spect for in­ter­na­tion­al law and hu­man rights.”

T&T dis­as­so­ci­at­ed it­self from a ref­er­ence to “we re­it­er­ate the im­por­tance of re­gion­al frame­works for di­a­logue on mi­gra­tion.”

Bar­ba­dos’ Comis­siong, ad­dress­ing CELAC’s For­eign Min­is­ters meet­ing, said since its 2010 es­tab­lish­ment, CELAC has sig­nalled the en­dur­ing val­ue of a uni­fied Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean voice and re­mains the on­ly fo­rum in which all de­vel­op­ing hemi­spher­ic coun­tries are ful­ly rep­re­sent­ed, un­der­scor­ing its unique le­git­i­ma­cy and con­ven­ing pow­er.

“It re­flects the his­toric vi­sion of the great nine­teenth-cen­tu­ry lib­er­a­tor Si­mon Bo­li­var, who recog­nised that the strength of our re­gion lies in its uni­ty, and the 21st-cen­tu­ry in­spi­ra­tion of the late great Fi­del Cas­tro and Hugo Chavez,” he said.

Comis­siong added that ex­pe­ri­ence has shown the re­gion that CELAC’s ef­fec­tive­ness is close­ly linked to sus­tained po­lit­i­cal en­gage­ment among mem­ber states and con­ti­nu­ity in its work.

“... We must strength­en our fol­low-up mech­a­nisms to en­sure im­ple­men­ta­tion of agreed out­comes,” he said.

Cit­ing the Zone of Peace and Cu­ba, Comis­siong said, “We must al­so be de­ter­mined to en­sure that CELAC func­tions in a con­crete way as an in­stru­ment of de­vel­op­ment in our re­gion. As we all know, there can be no de­vel­op­ment with­out peace! And so, we must all make a pro­found com­mit­ment to up­hold and de­fend CELAC’s his­toric 2014 ‘De­c­la­ra­tion of Ha­vana’, which pro­claimed our re­gion as a Zone of Peace.

“That means our de­nun­ci­a­tion and re­jec­tion of the ex­tra-ju­di­cial killings of our cit­i­zens by an in­trud­ing great pow­er! We must al­so hold fast to our col­lec­tive de­nun­ci­a­tion of the Unit­ed States’ il­lic­it uni­lat­er­al block­ade of our CELAC mem­ber state of Cu­ba as a gross vi­o­la­tion of our re­gion’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised des­ig­na­tion as a Zone of Peace.

“In­deed, let’s all en­sure that we up­hold our du­ty as mem­bers of this great fra­ter­nal re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion to give our mem­ber state of Cu­ba all of the con­crete sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port that it needs as it faces the cur­rent threat to its sov­er­eign­ty and to the well-be­ing of its peo­ple.”

Urg­ing CELAC to as­sert it­self - now more than ever - as a uni­fied voice in glob­al gov­er­nance for ef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Latin Amer­i­ca and Caribbean pri­or­i­ties, Comis­siong added, “The chal­lenges be­fore us do not call for iso­lat­ed re­spons­es, but for co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion ground­ed in shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”