Dec 14
Commentary
Stupid, petty, vindictive, short-sighted, counter-productive, a huge diplomatic faux pas. These are the some of the words that could be used to describe the U.S. decision not to issue a special license to allow the Trinidad Hilton hotel to host the Cuba-CARICOM Summit in Port of Spain on December 8…
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Unwelcome meddling by the United States Trinidad Express
US out of step on Cuba Trinidad Guardian
Shame on the USA! Federation of Independent Trade Unions
CARICOM’S stinging rebuke to the United States Rickey Singh
Blunder after blunder Raffique Shah
Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister apologises to President Raul Castro Trinidad Guardian
SPECIAL STATEMENT BY HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT OF CARICOM AND CUBA
This would be funny if it were not so serious. What the U.S. Government refuses to recognize is that, as Norman Girvan says here,
the Helms-Burton law is domestic law within the United States. It is not international law. In fact, it breaks international law. This particular application of the necessity of getting a special license for holding an international meeting in a third country is outrageous to begin with and became almost incredibly outrageous when the license was denied. The Platt Amendment became Cuban law back in 1901-1903, but Washington has not been able to force the inclusion of Helms-Burton into Cuban law, although some lawmakers in Washington continue, quite seriously, to try to accomplish that goal. Those attempts force us to be mindful at every juncture of Cuba-U.S. relations.
Jane Franklin
janefranklin.info
US officials insist that hemispheric support for Cuba against the US embargo is only rhetorical, that it costs the US nothing in its relations with the region to be so out of step.
Is that the case? What would send a message of seriousness? Can it be achieved without cost to presumably higher priority bilateral relations?
If Cuba decided to retake its seat at the OAS, what would happen?
John McAuliff
Fund for Reconciliation and Development
For those who may be thinking that the Trinidad Hilton incident might have been due to the action of some low-ranking official , to bureaucratic oversight, or was simply a matter of U.S.-Caricom relations: this is s not the first time something like this has happened. In April 2006 15 Cubans were evicted from the Mexico City Sheraton hotel or orders of the U.S. Treasury in enforcing the Helms-Burton Act. (” U.S. Treasury Evicts Cubans from Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City International Relations Center”; http://americas.irc-online.org/am/3220 ).
What makes the Mexico incident even more appalling is that the Cubans were attending a U.S.-Cuba Energy Summit organised by the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association, that the Treasury Department had been informed about the event and the Cuban participants well before it happened, that the action was in violation of Mexico”™s anti-discrimination law; and that the Treasury Department ordered Sheraton to turn over the room deposits of the Cuban guests!
In February 2007 The Guardian newspaper reported that the Oslo Hilton Hotel had refused a booking from a Cuban trade delegation under orders from the U.S. under the Helms-Burton Act; and that the Hilton Hotel chain had been ordered to refuse bookings from Cubans worldwide (” No room at the Hilton: Cubans find US trade ban stretches to Oslo”, http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2005899,00.html)
The incident caused a political uproar in Norway and protestors pointed out that the action was in violation of Norway”™s anti-discrimination laws. However, as the Vice President for Communications of the Hilton chain explained, Hilton executives faced arrest in the United States, fines and possible imprisonment if Hilton had not complied.
There can be little doubt that the Trinidad incident is the result of deliberate and conscious policy by the U.S. Government, that the policy would have been executed irrespective of the laws of Trinidad and Tobago, and that the political ramifications of humiliating a friendly government and of insulting 14 heads of government with which the U.S. government has friendly relations, were of secondary importance to the U.S. Government to enforcing the terms of Helms-Burton Act; a law aimed at reinforcing the blockade and further strangling the Cuban economy.
Governments of countries much larger and more economically important than Caricom, such as Mexico and Norway, are placed in the position of doing without U.S. hotel chains entirely if they wish to maintain their sovereignty and enforce local laws. Of course, no country wants to be do without U.S. hotel chains when they want U.S. visitors and U.S. business. That is why we in the Caribbean should continue to lend our voices to the worldwide campaign to lift the U.S. blockade on Cuba and repeal the Helms-Burton Act.
Norman