Rickey Singh : Unique challenge to US

From the Trinidad Express, Wednesday, April 28th 2010 - AS Trinidad and Tobago copes with hilarious bacchanal politics, particularly as it relates to the presence of an American election campaign strategist as adviser to the United National Congress (UNC), I wish to draw attention to a unique challenge from Cuba in relation to the US’s almost half a century economic blockade against it.

Ricky_Singh I am aware that foreign policy seems to have no place-as yet-in the campaign for the May 24 general election. And with the heavy focus on the evolving strategic alliance against the People’s National Movement (PNM), production of election manifestos remains a work in progress.

It was Keith Rowley who had observed, as Kamla Persad-Bissessar was settling down to her job as the UNC leader-in-waiting to be the next prime minister, that she was a ’very lucky’’ politician with things favourably falling into her political lap.

Well, while Rowley must now be hoping that ’luck’’ will also favour him to retain his Diego Martin West constituency, National Security Minister Martin Joseph may well have further contributed to Persad-Bissessar’s ’lucky’’ gains by his role in the Government’s faux pas in denying entry into this country of the American election strategist Bernard Campbell, only to declare in humiliation -in the face of vehement protests-that Campbell was free to return.

There is more in the mortar than the pestle to this Campbell episode, but it seems quite safe at this stage, even before the official release of lists of candidates for Nomination Day, that if the PNM returns to power there will be no Martin Joseph in a new Patrick Manning cabinet.

With regard to the alacrity with which Kamla Persad-Bissessar moved to recruit Campbell as an adviser on strategy for the UNC’s campaign, it serves to remind us of a persistent dependency on foreign expertise - without any critical assessment of its necessity.

But more of this later, as I return to what the issue mentioned earlier -little Cuba’s challenge to big brother US. It is a matter that may also have to be addressed by the new T&T government given Caricom’s long-standing defiance of Washington through its diplomatic embrace of Cuba.

Briefly, Cuba last week challenged the USA to lift - even for just one year -its very punitive trade, financial and economic embargo instituted since 1962.

The challenge came from Cuba’s highly-rated specialist on American politics and foreign policy, Ricardo Alarcon, president of his country’s National Assembly. Alarcon is a former Cuban ambassador to the United Nations and is a very influential figure in the Cuban high command.

It was in direct response to a cynical argument by US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, during her recent address to a university audience in Kentucky that the Castro brothers (the retired Fidel and Raoul, current president), do not want to see an end to the embargo because they neither want ’a transition to democracy, nor normalisation (of relations) with the US’’.

Long viewed as hawkish when it comes to normalising relations with Cuba, Clinton contends that the Castro brothers really prefer to maintain the political status quo with the embargo, as its removal and a new relationship with the US would mean ’losing all their excuses for what hasn’t happened in Cuba in the last 50 years...transition to democracy’’.

Alarcon was not amused. He told journalists in Havana after casting his ballot at municipal elections, that: ’If she (Clinton) really thinks that the blockade benefits the Cuban government, which she wants to undermine, the solution is very simple: Let them (US) lift it even for a year to see whether it is in our (Cuban government) interest or theirs...’’

Alarcon said that ’there were things that Clinton (as Secretary of State) could do with the stroke of the pen to improve relations’’ such as, he said, allowing the wives of two of five Cubans serving prison sentences in the US for espionage...’’ to enter the country.

The row over the embargo seems destined to continue beyond the next US presidential election, despite rhetoric and occasional gestures from both Washington and Havana.

It is all occurring at the same time as the Clinton-led State Department is sustaining its international campaign against Cuba on various fronts.

The campaign is focused on denigrating Cuba’s system of governance without multi-party democracy and which successive administrations in Washington have failed to topple since 1962.

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