Ambassador Donna Forde, Under-Secretary General of Caricom’s Directorate of External and Community Relations, and Annita Montoute, Interim Director of the House of Higher Studies’ Institute for International Relations (IRI), will attend the seminar.
Caricom Today indicated that a panel discussion will be held starting at 5:00 p.m. local time and will be attended by David Commissiong, Ambassador of Barbados to the Community, Mark Kirton, former Acting Director and IRI Professor, and Michele Lowe, Principal Coordinator of the Office.
José Francisco Piedra, Former Cuban Ambassador to Jamaica, Dr. Kai-Ann Skeete, researcher at the Shridath Ramphal Center for International Trade, and other guests will also speak.
Over the years, this integration bloc and Cuba have built a deep relationship based on solidarity and cooperation.
Next December 6 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of relations with the first four independent Caribbean states: Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.
These countries established diplomatic relations with Havana in 1972 after gaining their independence from the United Kingdom and openly defying the United States’ economic, trade, and financial blockade.
CARICOM was born on July 4, 1973 with the signing of the Chaguaramas Treaty by 15 countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Monserrat, Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname,
and Trinidad and Tobago.
Cuba has provided collaboration and professional training for more than 50,000 students from these nations, in addition to collaborating in sectors as important to the region as tourism and the adoption of policies to address the effects of climate change.
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