For the President of the USA to include a sovereign Caribbean nation in his unilaterally determined list of five states as an "axis of evil" - Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea and now Cuba - is a matter that evidently requires collective response by CARICOM, a Community of sovereign states.

Not only does Cuba have diplomatic relations with ALL of the independent countries of CARICOM - there is a Joint Cuba-CARICOM Commission through which structured dialogues take place on trade, economic, technical, cultural, sports and other issues. There is also a partial free trade agreement between Cuba and CARICOM.

Additionally, Cuba is a member of the Caribbean Forum (CARIFORUM) of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries linked with the European Union (EU).

CARICOM had played a key role in making this possible, and Cuba is expected to shortly sign an agreement with the EU that will give it access as a full participating country in the ACP-EU partnership agreement on aid and trade.

If, therefore, Cuba is part of an "axis of evil" in state-sponsored terrorism, as claimed by Bush - without offering a shred of evidence, and consistent with a contempt even for his European allies - then not just CARICOM, but the Organisation of American States (OAS) as well, need to address this as a matter of urgent importance to hemispheric peace and security.

The Community's Council of Ministers, the second highest organ of CARICOM outside of a Heads of Government Summit, will be meeting on the eve of the 32nd General Assembly of the OAS, scheduled for Barbados on June 2-4.

Since a draft Inter-American Convention on Terrorism is high on the OAS Assembly's agenda, as well as follow-up action on the shaping of an Inter-American 'Democratic Charter', it is difficult to imagine how the hemispheric body's meeting can avoid making a pronouncement on President Bush's unilateral, unsupported claim that Cuba, a major partner of CARICOM, though not now in the OAS, is part of an "axis of evil" in sponsoring terrorism.

Likewise, the CARICOM Council of Ministers, which will be finalising the agenda for the forthcoming 23rd regular Heads of Government Conference in Georgetown in July, can hardly ignore the implications of Bush's claim against a Caribbean partner state with which it is so integrally involved in advancing goals of common interest, regionally and internationally.

Having failed to get Cuba invited for the Third Summit of the Americas that was hosted by Canada in Quebec City in April last year, but assured that this could happen when the Fourth Summit is held, CARICOM is well placed - providing there is the political will - to influence the OAS General Assembly to seek clarification/evidence of Cuba as an hemispheric nation engaged in state-sponsored terrorism.

Without requesting such information from Washington, the Assembly's discussion of the `Draft Inter-American Convention against Terrorism’, as item five on its agenda, will lack the significance, if not actually being meaningless, to what the member states wish to convey.

Therefore, the Council of Ministers of CARICOM is expected to strategise on how best to have the issue raised as one of interest to more than the Community. In fact, to the Western Hemisphere as a whole, not to mention the other member states of the United Nations, among them the African and Pacific states of the ACP-EU arrangement.

Barbados, as host for both the Council of Ministers Meeting and the OAS General Assembly has a crucial role to play in whatever initiatives are ultimately taken at both meetings on how to respond to President Bush's claim against Cuba as a Caribbean nation engaged in sponsoring international terrorism.

Bush and 'Free Elections’
Last week, President Bush received at the White House former President Jimmy Cater who briefed him on his recent historic mission to Cuba. The Bush-Carter session came within days of the verbal blasts by the current President's personal attacks on Castro, and rejection of any idea of terminating the U.S. 40-year-old embargo against Cuba.

So what is new after Carter's Cuba journey that Bush had found painfully difficult to prevent, despite the prodding of the hawks in his administration, among them the anti-Castro Cuban exile Otto Reich, now the new Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere. Reich had vowed to make the maintenance of the U.S. embargo a central focus of his tenure in office.

Well, for a start, as Bush made clear in one of his more emotional attacks on Castro while in Florida last Monday to support the re-election campaign of his brother Jeb, as Governor of the state, he is now talking of "free and fair elections" in 2003 for Cuba's National Assembly.

He and his Republican Party have never recognised elections in Cuba as having anything to do with a concept of democracy in a political system that differs from America's and our own within the Caribbean Community.

This, of course, does not mean that in the absence of traditional multi-party system of elections, the Cuban National Assembly is a fraudulent parliament and that Castro is not the popular leader of the Cuban people.

Bush personally should be careful how he talks about "free and fair elections" after what `Time' magazine had front-paged as the `Unpresidented’ election of November 2000 when the chaos and corruption of the `chad votes’ took place in `democratic’ Florida.

He was to be subsequently declared the `winner’ against the Democrat's Al Gore by a one-vote majority, cast in his favour by the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Incidentally, Gore had garnered more than 300,000 popular valid votes than Bush across the nation.

As Justice John P. Stevens of the U.S. Supreme Court was to observe after that historic 5-4 ruling on December 12, 2000 in his dissenting judgement: "Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law..."

It may, therefore, be more profitable for Bush to carefully assess President Carter's report on his Cuba mission, rather than to get all excited about Castro, the “tyrant” in Havana, as he described him.

The "tyrant" happens to be the same Castro whose popularity is legendary. Ask the Pope. Ask Carter, both of whom have now met with Castro in Havana, and remain critical of aspects of the Cuban system of governance.

So, Mr. Bush, you may keep the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Mr. Castro's government will not crumble because of it. Indeed, as more and more American lawmakers, corporate executives and media people are openly admitting, the embargo stands as a stunning reminder of a flawed U.S. foreign policy objective.

In the meanwhile, we await the outcome of this week's CARICOM Council of Ministers Meeting and, subsequently, that of the OAS General Assembly.