BRIDGETOWN-With a trail of projects to be developed between our countries, the VIII CARICOM-Cuba Summit has exceeded our expectations, said the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, at a press conference after the closing of the event, held on Tuesday in Barbados.
The meeting with the media, which was also attended by the president of Suriname, Chandrikapersad Santokhi, pro tempore president of CARICOM; the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, Mia Amor Mottley, and the secretary general of the organization, the Belizean Carla Barnett, recognized the CARICOM-Cuba partnership as "an exemplary model of South-South cooperation, fruitful and mutually beneficial".
As reported by the dignitaries, the VIII Summit highlighted the cooperation between the states of the Caribbean Community and Cuba in areas such as health, education, agriculture, human resources development and capacity building, construction, sports and disaster risk reduction and mitigation, both nationally and regionally, and in the fight against climate change.
It was agreed to strengthen cooperation in these areas, "to contribute significantly to the development and greater well-being of the peoples of the Caribbean".
The leaders and heads of delegations also made a special recognition to the contribution of the Cuban brigades of the Henry Reeve International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Situations of Disasters and Serious Epidemics, in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in the region.
At the meeting it was agreed, among other initiatives:
-To share best practices in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and other epidemics common to the Caribbean, and to continue evaluating the potential for the application of innovative Cuban biotechnological drugs for the prevention and treatment of the COVID-19 virus and other infectious diseases.
-Continue collaborating in the implementation of the Regional Center for the Developmental Stimulation of Children, Adolescents and Youth with Special Educational Needs in Guyana.
-Work on the establishment of the Regional School of the Arts in Jamaica.
Strengthen cooperation and common efforts in tourism by implementing multi-destination tourism and building greater resilience within the sector.
-Find ways to promote economic and trade relations by identifying common strengths and potential complementarities, and through the implementation of the Second Protocol to the CARICOM-Cuba Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreement.
-Promote food and nutritional security for our peoples.
In assessing the results of the VIII CARICOM-Cuba Summit, the Cuban President pointed out that two concepts prevailed throughout the dialogue and debate.
One, he said, was the legacy left by the ideas and actions of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, to which Army General Raúl Castro Ruz has given continuity; as well as the legacy of the four founding leaders of the Caribbean Community and the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba: Errol Barrow, of Barbados; Forbes Burnham, of Guyana; Michael Manley, of Jamaica, and Eric Williams, of Trinidad and Tobago.
And the other common thread that marks these relations is solidarity - Díaz-Canel pointed out - under the principle, "which we have shared among all of us, that it is not giving what we have left over, but, more than anything else, sharing what we have among all of us".
"Every problem of every Caribbean country is a Cuban problem and we know that Cuba's problems are also the problems of the Caribbean," said the Cuban President, who also detailed new proposals that emerged from the Bridgetown meeting.
Today, he added, several Caribbean nations have proposed new projects that broaden the scope and scope of the areas in which we can collaborate, deepen those we have already been working on, and open other new areas of cooperation.
