Editorial | Assisting Cuba

As the economist John Keynes observed, in a different context, a century ago: “In the long run we are all dead.”

In the current context, a month is distressingly close to the long run. In that time, an awful lot of Cubans, especially vulnerable old people and the very young, might be, if not dead, debilitatingly compromised, suffering from hunger and malnutrition.

It is against that backdrop that this newspaper finds it especially disconcerting the seeming lethargy, rather than urgency and speed, with which the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is approaching the deepening humanitarian crisis in Cuba.

Ideology and politics seem to be central calculus, preventing the community from acting quickly together, to address the issue.

If that is indeed the case, then those members of the 15-member community which believe that owe Cuba a debt of gratitude for its past help, or feel morally bound to assist the Cuban people, should exercise the variable geometry on foreign policy that appears to have emerged from the Basseterre summit last week as the apparent new norm in global relations. If CARICOM continues to dither on the Cuban humanitarian question, they should act together, as a coalition of the urgent, on the matter.

As is widely known, Cuba, a single-party socialist state 90 miles from Jamaica, has been under an economic embargo from the United States since the triumph of Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959. Jamaica has been among the countries that have consistently condemned the embargo, the latest being Parliament’s passing a resolution to that effect in October.

However, things have grown progressively worse for Cuba, with the retreat of leftwing global allies and the return of Donald Trump as president of the United States.

In his year in office, Mr Trump tightened the embargo. In the early days of the New Year, he sent the US military into Venezuela to remove and rendition the country’s leader, Nicolás Maduro, then ordered Mr Maduro’s successor to halt the shipment of oil to Cuba. Venezuela supplied two-thirds of Cuba’s petroleum.

HUMANITARIAN CRISIS

This has served to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis in the country. Cuba has faced long power cuts. Factories limp along with little power. Hospitals have had to cut back their services. Normal commerce has all but halted.

At their summit in the St Kitts and Nevis capital last week, several leaders acknowledged the humanitarian impact of the oil blockade. But there appears to be differing views on how to help and whether assistance would be interpreted as a life-line of sorts to the Cuban government in a circumstance where some leaders back either overt regime change, or radical reform in Havana.

Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar in the former camp. “We cannot advocate for others to live under communism, but want to live here under democracy and capitalism,” she said at the summit’s opening ceremony. “That is an oxymoron. It is a contradiction.”

Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, straddles the latter camp, apparently mindful that chaotic regime-change in Cuba would also be potentially destabilising for Havana’s neighbours.

“Apart from our fraternal care and solidarity with the Cuban people, it must be clear that a prolonged crisis in Cuba will not remain confined to Cuba,” he said. “It will affect migration, security, and economic stability across the Caribbean basin. It is, therefore, important that we carefully consider this matter and take collective action.”

Added Dr Holness: “Let there be no doubt, Jamaica stands firmly for democracy, human rights, political accountability, and open market-based economies. We do not believe that long-term stability can exist where economic freedom is constrained and political participation is limited.”

These considerations were part of the mix when the leaders held closed-door discussions of the matter, which were likely to be been complicated by the attendance of the summit by the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, for talks on a reset of America-CARICOM/Caribbean relations, in the context of President Trump’s reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine.

PLANNED TO HELP

At the meeting’s end, Terrance Drew, the St Kitts and Nevis prime minister, a medical doctor who studied in Cuba, said CARICOM planned to help with the humanitarian crisis in the country. He dissembled on the related political/ideological question.

But even on the humanitarian issue there was a lack of clarity and certitude.

“With respect to Cuba and the humanitarian efforts, we are going to respond on the humanitarian end in short order, within a month,” he told reporters. “We will give more specifics on it very, very, shortly, but within a month we’re going to respond in a significant way to help the humanitarian situation in Cuba.”

What that aid package will look like, and to whom it will go, is not clear. Food and drugs, happily, are not oil. It could therefore be credibly channelled through NGOs, once the Cuban government permitted it.

Which is the difference with the US’ announcement of its partial lifting of the oil embargo, if it did not support the operations of the Cuban government and military. Given the structure of the Cuban state, there is a need for greater clarity on how oil delivered to Havana can fuel power plants or run factories or hospitals without the involvement of the existing Cuban government.

Back to CARICOM and its humanitarian aid, the iffy approach on the matter doesn’t breed confidence and carries more than a whiff of political jockeying.

To quote Keynes, again in relation to his ‘long run’ observation and its application to economics: “Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.”

CARICOM’s politicians shouldn’t make the same mistake.