BELIZE CITY, Mon. Dec. 13, 2021– In 1961, two years after the Cuban revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro overturned the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in Cuba, the United States severed diplomatic relations with the country, forcing the island nation into isolation. Cuba has been under a vicious US embargo since. All the countries in our region that have friendly relationships with the US were called upon to treat Cuba as a pariah state.
But in 1972 four island nations — Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados — in the middle of Cold War tensions, decided that the US position was unjust, and reestablished diplomatic ties with Cuba. Belize, in a precarious position because of the intolerable, unjustified Guatemalan claim, decided in 1995 it could no longer go along with the US position, and after years of being friendly with Cuba, established full diplomatic relations with that nation.
In establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba, Belize showed that it cared about doing the right thing. Belize’s relationship with the US remains strong, but like the rest of CARICOM, we don’t join in on its persecution of Cuba.
The establishment of diplomatic relations opened the door to a relationship that has been one-sided, if we measure what Cuba got compared to what we have derived. Hundreds of Belizeans have been trained in medicine, engineering, agriculture, veterinary science, sports, the arts, and other fields, and hundreds of trained Cubans, mainly doctors and nurses, have been deployed to our country at very little cost to help support our delivery of public health services.
In the arts, Carlos Perrote has done outstanding work, training young Belizeans in music, and in sports, Esmidio Limonta Muñoz helped lead our volleyball girls to glorious silver in the 20th Central American volleyball championships in 2018.
On the commemoration of the 49th anniversary of the “establishment of diplomatic relations between the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Cuba, and the nineteenth anniversary of CARICOM-Cuba Day,” on December 8, 2021, the Government of Belize declared the forging of such relations a historic achievement for Belize, CARICOM, and Cuba.
A government press release said that since 1972 “affairs between CARICOM and Cuba have grown tremendously on the basis of friendly relations, mutual respect, cooperation and solidarity”, that “Cuba’s characteristic humanitarian ethos manifested itself yet again in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic”, and that at this time “Belize reiterates its call for the immediate end of the unilateral and illegal economic and financial embargo imposed on Cuba, which continues to have a devastating impact on the country.”
On the 25th anniversary of bilateral relations between Belize and Cuba, on July 15, 2020, the Belize government said our people have “a deep admiration and respect for Cuba’s independent spirit, its self-sustenance, its willingness to chart its own path, its ingenuity and resilience in the face of ever-compounding difficulties and challenges.”
On the 49th anniversary, Amandala says, may our countrys great friendship with Cuba reach 50, a hundred, may it last forever. Que viva la revolución!