He­len Dray­ton

Among Democ­ra­cy’s key virtues are the im­per­ma­nence of gov­ern­ment and peo­ple-cen­tred sys­tems that check pow­er. In the 64 years since in­de­pen­dence, we have changed gov­ern­ment nine times. This vig­i­lance is a hall­mark of cit­i­zens’ vigour—much like Amer­i­cans who as­sert­ed their pow­er in the midterm elec­tions.

But the US is not T&T—far from it. We are tiny in both size and econ­o­my, vul­ner­a­ble to eco­nom­ic, ge­o­graph­ic and oth­er forces. We have an ex­cel­lent his­to­ry of mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial re­la­tions with Amer­i­ca, in­deed all coun­tries, based on the tra­di­tions of mu­tu­al re­spect, shrewd in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions and diplo­ma­cy that pre­served our dig­ni­ty and sov­er­eign­ty.

Our Gov­ern­ment said it had un­der­tak­en a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of for­eign pol­i­cy to en­sure de­ci­sions make the coun­try stronger, safer, and more pros­per­ous. How? Where is the ev­i­dence? While it has the le­git­i­mate right to re­shape for­eign re­la­tions poli­cies, it has no right to sub­or­di­nate our sov­er­eign­ty to for­eign agen­das that are clear­ly not in our coun­try’s in­ter­est, es­pe­cial­ly to a bul­ly­ing su­per­pow­er’s de­struc­tive agen­das.

That kind of sub­servience was ev­i­dent when our gov­ern­ment aban­doned prin­ci­pled for­eign pol­i­cy by vot­ing against a UN res­o­lu­tion to end the US em­bar­go on Cu­ba and ab­stain­ing from a res­o­lu­tion con­demn­ing threats against the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court (ICC). It may ar­gue that its sup­port for the Trump Ad­min­is­tra­tion pro­tects our eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests from puni­tive sanc­tions, but sac­ri­fic­ing our for­eign-re­la­tions in­de­pen­dence can­not be in our best in­ter­ests. That was cow­ard­ly.

To jus­ti­fy its shame­ful sup­port for the US Cuban em­bar­go, it said that it ad­vo­cat­ed in the in­ter­est of the suf­fer­ing Cuban peo­ple and not the “au­to­crat­ic mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship.” It said that it called for an end to “ex­ploita­tion,” reaf­firm­ing its re­jec­tion of com­mu­nism.

Yet, af­ter 60 years, US sanc­tions have not trans­formed Cu­ba’s po­lit­i­cal sys­tem, and the peo­ple suf­fer the con­se­quences. How would vot­ing against lift­ing the em­bar­go re­lieve the peo­ple’s agony? Why then does our Gov­ern­ment prop up the Cuban regime by trad­ing with it? If our Gov­ern­ment re­jects com­mu­nism, why does it main­tain com­mer­cial re­la­tions with oth­er com­mu­nist coun­tries? Why the du­plic­i­ty con­cern­ing Cu­ba?

Clear­ly, the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil’s struc­ture im­plies that sanc­tions are not based sole­ly on hu­man­i­tar­i­an con­sid­er­a­tions but large­ly on geopo­lit­i­cal pow­er, which ac­counts for its in­ac­tion against oth­er coun­tries’ his­to­ries, in­clud­ing Is­rael’s, of re­pres­sion and hu­man rights abus­es.

Af­ter 60 years of puni­tive sanc­tions, Cu­ba is still a one-par­ty state, cast­ing se­ri­ous doubt on the ef­fec­tive­ness of iso­la­tion in pro­mot­ing po­lit­i­cal free­dom. Sanc­tions rarely achieve de­mo­c­ra­t­ic trans­for­ma­tion. US pol­i­cy as­sumes hard­ship will spark dis­sent and re­volt, yet un­der au­thor­i­tar­i­an regimes, cit­i­zens strug­gle to or­gan­ise, and lead­ers hoard scarce re­sources while cit­i­zens suf­fer. Pro­longed sanc­tions give regimes a con­ve­nient scape­goat for eco­nom­ic mis­man­age­ment, shift­ing blame to a for­eign pow­er in­stead of do­mes­tic lead­ers. Sanc­tions re­duce eco­nom­ic out­put, in­crease pover­ty and star­va­tion, fu­el cor­rup­tion, and wors­en hu­man rights abus­es. Sanc­tions im­pede hu­man rights, con­tra­dict­ing our Gov­ern­ment’s rea­sons for vot­ing against lift­ing the em­bar­go.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the US em­bar­go on Cu­ba has sur­vived changes in Amer­i­can lead­er­ship, the fall of the So­vi­et Union, and the end of the Cold War, prompt­ing ques­tions about whether any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the em­bar­go 60 years ago is still valid to­day.

We want the same free­doms we en­joy here for the Cuban peo­ple, and it is rea­son­able to chal­lenge our Gov­ern­ment’s rea­sons for sup­port­ing sanc­tions that have sig­nif­i­cant­ly cre­at­ed the peo­ple’s agony and failed to bring about po­lit­i­cal change in Cu­ba. Af­ter 60 years, the sanc­tions have failed. Wouldn’t diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment be a pro­duc­tive strat­e­gy? His­to­ry shows sanc­tions may help when paired with diplo­ma­cy and in­ter­nal pres­sure, as was the case with apartheid South Africa. But sanc­tions aimed at regime change or po­lit­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion al­most al­ways fail.

The Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port for sanc­tions against Cu­ba was fol­lowed by its re­treat from sup­port­ing in­ter­na­tion­al law through its dis­grace­ful ab­sten­tion on the No­vem­ber 2, 2026, res­o­lu­tion con­cern­ing the ICC’s Re­port, which con­demned threats, at­tacks, and in­ter­fer­ence di­rect­ed against the Court, its judges, and per­son­nel. Giv­en our Gov­ern­ment’s state­ments on Cu­ba as a re­pres­sive and mil­i­tary dic­ta­tor­ship, it is iron­ic that it ab­stained from the ICC Res­o­lu­tion when that very Court pros­e­cutes crimes against hu­man­i­ty. Our Gov­ern­ment’s ab­sten­tion was, in­deed, a stand against in­ter­na­tion­al law, and a vote against our lega­cy. It was our for­mer prime min­is­ter, ANR Robin­son, who, in 1989, first pro­posed an in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal court at the UN to in­ves­ti­gate and pros­e­cute in­di­vid­u­als charged with the gravest crimes against hu­man­i­ty, in­clud­ing geno­cide.

To un­der­mine our sov­er­eign­ty is shame­ful. Gov­ern­ment Want­ed?