Letter of the Day | Intercession for Cuba: A preferred zone of peace

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Hope springs that the US Supreme Court ruling on tariffs, along with other circumstances, will serve to strengthen the resolve and endeavour in countries that would wish to lend a helping hand to the cause of the Cuban people in this their season of distress that has taken them into even deeper paths than they have had to endure over time.

It is widely accepted and publicly acknowledged that Cuba, a country of people celebrated for kindness and helpfulness to so many, across so many borders, is by no means deserving of its present painful plight and anguish.

That golden sentiment, one could successfully wager, would have helped to spur the release of their neighbourly statement this past week from the former heads of government of the Caribbean Community on the humanitarian crisis in Cuba.

Here in Jamaica, just as how, on the wings of migration, our people have been blessed to have kinsfolk, for example, in the US, Canada, and the UK, that has long been so next door, in Cuba.

And remarkably, along our Independence journey, particularly since the mid-1970s, the hand of generosity that has stretched forth from Havana to Kingston has been of landmark proportions in widespread areas of Jamaican life in education, culture, sports, health, and agriculture.

The gift of GC Foster College, at Winter’s Pen, has ripened into a foundational element of the joy of Jamaica’s reach and experience at the Olympics and World Games. It is home for the training and education of athletics coaches who serve in several countries across the globe.

Nor do we, even momentarily, forget the gifts of the Josè Martì and Garvey Maceo institutions, and the improved eyesight experienced by so many in our land, among copious developmental acts of kindness.

Readiness in expressing our appreciation and gratitude pushes us to urge our faith-based organisations to place a special focus on making intercession on behalf of Jamaica’s benefactors and friends in Cuba in like manner as they would be moved to do for the people of other friendly territories such as the UK, Canada, and the US, were any of them similarly or otherwise besieged.

The strong US link of friendship could hardly be more compellingly addressed than by their chief diplomat, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in effusive expression here on Jamaican soil in March, last year: “And I can think of no better friend in the Caribbean and frankly in the Western Hemisphere than Jamaica.”

Inescapably, both Cuba and the US are Jamaica’s longtime friends. This is so notwithstanding, for example, our non-subscription to Cuba’s form of government or to the presence of the strong political hand that attaches to judicial appointments in the United States.

Is it not our principled duty, then, to approach and exhort our friends to seek fervently to settle their differences at the conference table, in respectful search for meaningful accommodation in our preferred zone of peace?

Doubtlessly, silence is not an option; and seeking after peace is not a crime, nor is crying out for justice!

A.J. NICHOLSON