CARIBBEAN-CARICOM chairman says mechanism to extend aid to Cuba “fully on the way”.

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, CMC – Chairman of the 15-member Caribbean Community (CARICOM) grouping, Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew, Monday said that the mechanism “is fully on the way” to extend the promised humanitarian assistance to Cuba.

“CARICOM will update. They updated last week, and they will update this week. But the mechanism is fully, fully on the way to extend that humanitarian help to our brothers and sisters in Cuba,” Prime Minister Drew told a news conference here.

Last week, the Guyana-based CARICOM Secretariat announced that regional governments were preparing to dispatch humanitarian aid to Cuba, which has been rocked by repeated and extensive blackouts as the United States has sought to cut off the supply of oil to the country.

Washington has also maintained its decades-old trade and economic embargo on the Caribbean country, hoping that Havana will embark upon a pro-Western capitalist system.

The Secretariat said that the CARICOM’s initiative is supported by the government of Mexico, “which has identified suppliers in Mexico able to deliver the items to the port of departure, and which will provide free shipment from Mexico to Cuba”.

Prime Minister Drew told reporters the regional leaders who met here last month for their 50th summit had “committed that within a month we would have a mechanism set in place to get humanitarian aid to Cuba.

“That meeting was at the end of February. This is at the end of March. We are well within the time frame, and we have already established the pathway, or route, or mechanism for delivering that humanitarian aid to Cuba with the help of the Mexican government. And so, that has started.”

The St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister said that his government has committed US$500,000 and has already delivered the first US$100,000 to the CARICOM Secretariat.

He said there are multiple options regional countries can choose from regarding humanitarian aid to Cuba. In the case of St. Kitts and Nevis, “we are highlighting …baby food, which we know is critically important, but we have a list, and we are working through it.

“I want to thank the other countries that have contributed significantly as well. And in short order, CARICOM will update,” Prime Minister Drew said, adding, “in today’s world, opportunities must be pursued, negotiated, and secured.

“Nobody is going to bring the opportunity to you or to us and rest it on our lap. We have to be innovative. We have to be proactive. We have to establish relationships that would allow us to meet our objective, and that is why we are so aggressive in our diplomatic outreach,” he added.