US Focus on Cuba Puts Cloud Over Caribbean

Financial Times
October 23, 2003

US focus on Cuba puts cloud over Caribbean

By Canute James

On October 25 1983, the US led several Caribbean allies
in a one-day invasion of Grenada, a tiny island nationof
fewer than 100,000 people.

A juntahad split from the communist government and
seized power and Ronald Reagan, then US president, was
determined to prevent a second Cuba from taking root.
Though controversial, the junta’s overthrow marked an
undeniable highlight of US engagement with the region,
where governments once curried favour with Washington by
standing up to communism.

More recently, Washington regarded the Caribbean as its
"third border" - a co-operative bulwark against drug
smuggling, illegal migration and, more recently,
potential international terrorism.

Twenty years after Grenada, that relationship is
deteriorating. Plans by George W. Bush, US president, to
"weaken" Cuba’s government have left Caribbean
governments preparing for further tension in their
already strained relations with Washington.

Cuba is not the only issue testing US-Caribbean
relations. Others include the region’s tepid support for
the US-led invasion of Iraq and disagreements over the
International Criminal Court and the proposed Free Trade
Area of the Americas.

The big exception has been the Dominican Republic. A
commitment of Dominican troops for the Iraq peacekeeping
effort has helped to win the country’s inclusion in a
free trade agreement with the US and several Central
American countries.

"We can see the pattern in this, with the recent changes
in emphasis in the US attitude to countries in the
region," a senior Trinidadian diplomat said.

"The Dominican Republic, which early and unreservedly
backed the Iraq invasion, is now Washington’s favourite
in the region. Many others are being ignored."

For its part, the Bush administration is unhappy that
several Caribbean states have refused so far to exempt
US nationals from the International Criminal Court’s
jurisdiction over alleged war crimes. Washington has
vowed to suspend military aid to countries that do not
agree to exemption.

The 15-nation Caribbean Community tried but failed to
discuss the matter with US officials. Patrick Manning,
Trinidad’s prime minister and leading opponent of the US
position on the ICC, was not invited to a recent meeting
between Mr Bush and regional prime ministers.

P.J. Patterson, Jamaica’s leader, declined the
invitation for fear of how acceptance would appear to
his neighbours.

"The US has already divided the Caribbean by offering
the Central American countries a free trade agreement"
separate from the proposed FTAA, says Vaughan Lewis, an
economist at the University of the West Indies. "Central
America backed Washington in its war against Iraq."

Several Caribbean leaders also worry that their small,
open economic systems will be damaged if the FTAA is
implemented by its 2005 deadline, and are asking for an
extension. Robert Zoellick, the US Trade Representative,
has refused.

"Naturally, in the new climate of the ’You are either
with us or against us’ policy of the Bush
administration, we can expect both sanctions and
rewards," Mr Lewis said.

But Kenny Anthony, St Lucia’s prime minister, who met Mr
Bush, says too much is being made of Mr Bush’s
invitations to breakfast. The talks between four
regional leaders and the president provided "an
opportunity to re-engage the Caribbean" and were not an
effort to "divide and rule".

Mr Anthony is supported by Ralph Gonsalves, the prime
minister of St Vincent, who did not criticise the US-led
invasion of Iraq and was not invited to meet Mr Bush.
The US is not retaliating for positions taken by the
Caribbean countries, such as over the ICC, he said.

"You may say there probably has been some clumsy
footwork by some people, but I do not put the malignant
spin on it that some people are suggesting."

Although small, the islands hold more than a third of
the votes in the Organisation of American States, and
thus considerable potential weight in hemispheric
politics.

"This is not an insignificant factor, but one that the
region has never used as a bloc," says a senior Jamaican
official.

"Mr Bush’s new focus on Cuba will strain relations with
the Caribbean. No country with strong diplomatic ties
with Havana will back down under pressure from
Washington."

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