The Tribune

By KEILE CAMPBELL

Tribune Staff Reporter

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

FOREIGN Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell defended Cuba’s right to participate in the world economy yesterday despite the pressure the United States has put on the island.

Speaking at the Organisation of American States General Assembly in Panama City, Mr Mitchell said The Bahamas supports Cuba’s independence, territorial integrity and access to food, healthcare and hemispheric affairs.

His comments placed The Bahamas firmly against Washington’s decades-long pressure campaign on Cuba, with the US framing its sanctions as a response to repression, human rights abuses and threats to American national security and foreign policy.

Cuba is enduring one of its worst economic crises in decades, with food, fuel and medicine shortages, prolonged blackouts and a strained healthcare system. The crisis has been aggravated by longstanding US sanctions and, according to UN human rights experts, recent US fuel restrictions that have squeezed the island’s energy supply and threatened Cubans’ access to basic services.

The Cuban government has also faced sustained criticism over its own human rights record, including the imprisonment of people linked to the July 2021 protests.

In a voice note distributed yesterday, Mr Mitchell said what was “supposed to be a normal and quiet session of resolutions” had developed into “its own drama against the backdrop of a conservative swing throughout the hemisphere”.

He said “events in the United States” were driving some of the latest developments in the OAS region, saying the body was designed to help countries discuss and solve problems while preserving “values of democratic governance, human rights, and dignity, peace and security” and the rule of law.

“The history of success on those issues is not so stellar,” Mr Mitchell said. “There is a sharp divide on ideological grounds between left and right, and the issue of economic dominance and political dominance by the United States of America.”

Mr Mitchell also linked The Bahamas’ position on Cuba to Haiti, saying the country applies the same values to the crisis-stricken Caribbean nation.

“We apply the same values to Haiti that struck the first blow for African people in the world for freedom. We agree that there is still a need in this world for affirmative action and reparations for past discrimination against people of African descent,” he said.

Haiti remains engulfed by gang violence, mass displacement and hunger, forcing regional governments to confront a crisis that has repeatedly tested CARICOM, the OAS and wider international efforts to restore security.

Mr Mitchell said CARICOM countries were “keeping their heads down out of the line of fire” as ideological divisions widen across the hemisphere.

“Even as small island developing states, low-lying coastal states, our votes predominate by the numbers in the OAS forum,” Mr Mitchell explained.

Mr Mitchell also said The Bahamas is examining what role it can play in Bolivia, where the government has declared a state of emergency amid civil unrest.

“The government of Bolivia is right leaning, and right now there is significant civil strife in that country,” he said. “And The Bahamas has been asked to join a delegation of OAS to go to Bolivia to see what the OAS can do to usefully resolve the problem and avoid the violence of war.”

Mr Mitchell said the region’s political divide extends across South America, pointing to Brazil and Mexico as left-leaning countries and Argentina and Chile as right-leaning countries.

He also used his remarks to press countries on climate change, calling the issue “existential” and urging nations to accept the science, adapt, mitigate and move away from fossil fuels.

He closed with what he called a “moral tale” about the judicious use of power, referring to the Star Wars trilogy.

“These three movies show you in this trilogy that the powerful can be brought down by the small and meek, that is why we in The Bahamas argue for the judicious use of power, and there is this aphorism,” he said. “People who say that a small voice doesn't matter have obviously never spent the night in a dark room with a mosquito.”