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The Greater Caribbean This Week…
Wilton Park conference on Cuba
by Norman Girvan
Wilton Park, a gracious country estate set in the tranquil downs of southern England, seems a far cry from the heat and turbulence of the Caribbean. Now an international conference center, it has been the venue of several encounters on Caribbean policy issues in recent years. One such was the Conference on "Cuba: Future Prospects and Integration into the Western Hemisphere" on October 18-20 last.
A moving spirit in the Conference was Ambassador Sally Cowal, formerly US Ambassador to several Caribbean countries, now President of the Cuban Policy Foundation based in Washington DC. Ambassador Cowal, a Republican, is campaigning vigorously for the lifting of the US Government’s 40-year-old embargo on Cuba.
Her reasons are straightforward: the embargo is counter-productive politically as well as being economically harmful to the United States. Lifting the embargo would provide significant opportunities for US exporters in sectors like agriculture and pharmaceuticals.
The Foundation’s research, funded in part by US corporations with an interest in the Cuban market, has quantified such opportunities. The results are targeted to members of the US Congress whose constituencies stand to gain from exports to Cuba.
Attending the Wilton Park Cuba Conference were senior Cuban officials and academics and key figures from Latin American and Caribbean think tanks, the Washington-based financial institutions and the European Commission. The setting was ideal for making the kind of informal contacts that often precede major policy developments.
In a paper prepared for the Conference, this columnist observed that the end of the Cold War has provided the context for Cuba-Caribbean relations to develop along pragmatic and businesslike lines.
In 1989 Cuba had formal diplomatic relations with only nine states of the Greater Caribbean region and no formal trade or economic agreements. Trade was almost entirely with the oil-exporting countries.
By 2002 diplomatic relations had been established with 24 regional states, trade and economic cooperation agreements had been signed with nine and with CARICOM as a whole, and trade relations had been developed with most. Cuba has also become a significant recipient of investment from Mexico in tourism and banking and from Jamaica, also in tourism.
In addition, over 6,800 students from the Greater Caribbean region are on scholarship in Cuban institutions, mostly in medicine, public health and sport.
The Association of Caribbean States (ACS), in which Cuba was a founding member in 1994, provided a broad multilateral framework for developing relations of functional cooperation with the entire region. Cuba has chaired the ACS Committees on Tourism and on Transport and has provided leadership to major initiatives in sustainable tourism and air transport policy; as well as participating in others such as the protection of coastal ecosystems, language training, the Caribbean Environmental Strategy, cooperation in natural disasters prevention and mitigation, and the ACS Special Fund.
Heads of State and Government of the ACS have condemned the US Helms-Burton Act, which seeks to tighten the embargo through extra-territoriality provisions.
The Wilton Park Cuba Conference is one more step in the normalization and further development of Cuba’s relations with its neighbors in the hemisphere.
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