PM stands by UN vote; says Cubans deserve democratic freedoms

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­fend­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­toric de­ci­sion to vote against a Unit­ed Na­tions res­o­lu­tion call­ing for an end to the Unit­ed States em­bar­go on Cu­ba, de­clar­ing that her Gov­ern­ment will not sup­port a “mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship.”

In a state­ment is­sued on be­half of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) hours af­ter the vote yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed the de­ci­sion re­flect­ed her Gov­ern­ment’s com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy, free­dom and the fun­da­men­tal rights of all peo­ple.

“The UNC sup­ports the Cuban peo­ple; we do not sup­port a mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship. The Cuban peo­ple de­serve democ­ra­cy,” the state­ment de­clared.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so en­dorsed the Unit­ed States’ cam­paign for po­lit­i­cal change in Cu­ba, back­ing the po­si­tion of US Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio.

“The Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment has been spear­head­ing a cam­paign for democ­ra­cy in Cu­ba. Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio, of Cuban her­itage, is right: for Cu­ba to pros­per, there must be po­lit­i­cal re­forms and the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights and free­doms of the Cuban peo­ple must be re­stored.”

She ques­tioned why cit­i­zens of Cari­com coun­tries should en­joy the right to freely elect and change their gov­ern­ments while Cubans were de­nied the same op­por­tu­ni­ty.

“We can­not de­mand democ­ra­cy, free and fair elec­tions, free­dom of ex­pres­sion and po­lit­i­cal rights for our­selves while re­main­ing silent when those same free­doms are de­nied to the Cuban peo­ple,” she said.

She al­so ac­cused Cu­ba’s rul­ing elite of en­joy­ing priv­i­leged lifestyles while or­di­nary cit­i­zens ex­pe­ri­enced hard­ship.

“While the Cuban peo­ple suf­fer, the lead­ers of the Cuban regime and their fam­i­lies live in lux­u­ry. The ex­ploita­tion of or­di­nary Cubans to sup­port the lav­ish lives of those as­so­ci­at­ed with the rul­ing regime has to end.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that T&T re­spect­ed the sov­er­eign right of oth­er coun­tries to de­ter­mine their for­eign poli­cies and ex­pect­ed the same re­spect in re­turn.

“Those per­sons in Trinidad and To­ba­go who sup­port dic­ta­tor­ship in Cu­ba would nev­er sup­port it in our own coun­try. There is noth­ing ro­man­tic or ide­al­is­tic about dic­ta­tor­ship masked as a rev­o­lu­tion­ary strug­gle for free­dom,” she said.

In an ear­li­er re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “At the same time, it would be hyp­o­crit­i­cal for any leader, whether past, present or fu­ture, to ad­vo­cate for or de­fend a sys­tem that ac­tive­ly sup­press­es dis­sent, si­lences op­pos­ing views and de­nies its cit­i­zens the very free­doms that we cher­ish here at home.”

T&T was among 17 coun­tries vot­ing against yes­ter­day’s res­o­lu­tion, while 130 sup­port­ed it and 25 ab­stained.

The US Em­bassy in Trinidad and To­ba­go thanked T&T for its vote. In a so­cial me­dia post, the em­bassy said, “Thank you, Trinidad and To­ba­go, for stand­ing with the Cuban peo­ple and their hope for free­dom.”

In April 2015, how­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pub­licly cham­pi­oned an end to the US block­ade against Cu­ba and cel­e­brat­ed the restora­tion of diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions be­tween Wash­ing­ton and Ha­vana.

Speak­ing at the Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as in Pana­ma, where then-US pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma and Cuban pres­i­dent Raúl Cas­tro held his­toric talks, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the diplo­mat­ic break­through as a defin­ing mo­ment for the re­gion.

“It is for all of us in the Amer­i­c­as, a very his­toric and defin­ing mo­ment, one which we ad­vo­cat­ed a very long time ago,” she said at the time.

She specif­i­cal­ly re­called T&T’s role, along­side oth­er Caribbean coun­tries, in es­tab­lish­ing diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Cu­ba in 1972 and ad­vo­cat­ing for an end to the block­ade.

“You will re­call that Trinidad and To­ba­go, along with Ja­maica, Bar­ba­dos and Guyana, called for this. In 1972, we es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Cu­ba and we have been amongst those lead­ers call­ing for the end of the block­ade on Cu­ba, and for Cu­ba to be re-ad­mit­ted in­to the fam­i­ly of na­tions.”

She fur­ther re­mind­ed re­porters, “It was on­ly last year, you may re­call, at the Unit­ed Na­tions where I called for the end of the block­ade against Cu­ba, and from what I heard to­day, it ap­pears that Pres­i­dent Oba­ma is pre­pared to look at the sec­ond part of end­ing the em­bar­go. The first part is tak­ing place, but there is still a lot more work to be done.”