Caricom's dance with Condoleezza

[struggle4progress]

Rickey Singh
Sunday, March 12, 2006

<snip> The meeting is scheduled for Nassau on March 21-22 and will be hosted by current chairman of the Community's Council for Foreign Relations, Bahamas' Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell. <snip>

However, given the strong and principled stand taken by Caricom leaders at their 2005 summit when dealing with terrorism, it seems reasonable to expect that our foreign ministers would seek to raise the issue of the Cuban emigré, Luis Posada Carriles. He was clearly implicated in the bombing of a Cuban aircraft in 1976 off Barbados, and is currently being sheltered in the USA.

In recalling that horrendous tragedy in which all 73 people on board the commercial flight perished, the 2005 Caricom Summit communiqué called for Posada and all "perpetrators of this act of terrorism to be brought to justice, and so bring closure to this egregious incident which caused so much pain to the people of this region".

Our Caricom heads of government and their foreign ministers will do well - perhaps Condoleezza Rice as well - to spend a little of their time digesting what former US President Jimmy Carter has written on "the distortion of American foreign policy" under the Bush administration, and also his warning as to why Washington should not confuse its "war on terrorism" with attacks on fundamental human rights - at home and abroad. <snip>

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/columns/html/20060311T100000-0500_100387_OBS_CARICOM_S_DANCE_WITH_CONDOLEEZZA_.asp