Former Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, speaking Friday on Beyond the Headlines
Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson is appealing for the Caribbean heads of government to make it clear that they stand in solidarity with the people of Cuba in the face of the US-led oil blockade against the Caribbean nation.
His appeal comes ahead of Caribbean leaders meeting in St Kitts & Nevis next week for their Intercessional Meeting.
Mr Patterson, speaking Friday on Radio Jamaica’s Beyond the Headlines, said the Executive Order signed by US President Donald Trump, threatening to impose tariffs on any country that sells oil to Cuba could severely affect the health and safety of Cubans.
He stressed that cutting off the country’s energy supplies means “you’re cutting off food supplies, medical supplies,” and it also has implications for sanitation services, “which could result in an epidemic (or) a pandemic.”
Reflecting on the recent US military action in Venezuela, in which that country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, was snatched out of his residence and taken to the United States, Mr Patterson said, “as unjustified and horrible, and indefensible in law” as that intervention was, the actions now being taken against Cuba “is of an unprecedented dimension.”
Mr Patterson is urging Caribbean leaders to press the US Government to revoke this order, stressing that “we can never accept, however small we are, that we live in a world where might is right; where people, because of military and economic power, must oppress countries smaller in size, with fewer resources, and simply do whatever we are ordered to do, or refrain from doing what we would like to do because others would prefer if we didn’t.”
He ended with the question: “If we are going to do that, what does sovereignty mean?”