BARBADOS – A new era in cooperation between two Caribbean nations, is set to begin this week when Barbados and Cuba hold a major dialogue on bilateral issues and joint projects.
The Fourth Meeting of the Barbados-Cuba Joint Commission, to be held on December 7 and 8 (CARICOM-Cuba Day) at the Accra Beach Hotel, Rockley, Christ Church, reinforces 34 years of diplomatic relations.
This relationship is based on generations of Barbados-Cuba migration, and decades of friendship, cooperation and solidarity on the world stage.
The bilateral cooperation program for the next year will be determined by the Barbados-Cuba Joint Commission after a discussion of issues on the regional and international agenda. It will be formalized by the signing of the agreed minutes of the meeting and the issuing of a communiqué.
A highlight of the two-day exercise, part of which falls on CARICOM-Cuba Day, is a wreath-laying ceremony at which both countries will recall shared sorrows – the 30th anniversary of the Cubana air disaster, in which 73 people were killed when a Cubana Airways aircraft was blown up off Barbados.
Cuba has continued to demonstrate its keenness to deepen relations with Barbados and other member nations of the Caribbean Community. This relationship has yielded six major agreements to facilitate sporting and cultural exchange, scholarships, joint action in the war on drug trafficking, reciprocal trade and investment promotion and the avoidance of double taxation.
Health and education will top the agenda of the December 7 to 8 meeting, which will also include discussions on foreign trade, science and technology, agriculture, culture, disaster mitigation, sports, transport and tourism.
The Commission is to examine the issue of the accreditation of Barbadian medical graduates of Cuban universities and Havana’s offer of Barbados’ participation in the Operacion Milagro eye care program.
The ties that bind the Caribbean’s largest nation to one of the smallest go beyond family links and solidarity on the international political stage. The bombing of a Cubana Airways passenger aircraft shortly after takeoff from Seawell Airport (now Grantley Adams International) on October 6, 1976 is the only act of international terrorism committed within Barbados’ territory.
Small wonder, then, that the Cubana memorial, in the west coast community of Paynes Bay has not only become a symbol of this shared pain, but serves also as a permanent reminder that in good times and in bad, the two Caribbean nations continue to forge a destiny of genuine goodwill and partnership.
The Barbados-Cuba Joint Commission is a living, working testimony to a history of shared experience that rises above and beyond the barriers of language, culture and distance. It is a Caribbean experience at work.
