Ambassador Peter Black of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaking with the Guyana Chronicle yesterday, commended host country Barbados for exercising the initiative to have as the primary theme, `The Multi-Dimensional Approach to Hemispheric Security' at the 32nd General Assembly of the Organisation of American States (OAS).

In a brief break from the final plenary session of the three-day Assembly which ended last evening at the Sherbourne Conference Centre, Black said, "Jamaica has always taken the view that we have to adopt a wider and more practical response in fighting terrorism, with the alleviation of structural poverty being integral to such an approach."

His interview came within hours of a scheduled media briefing last evening by OAS Secretary General, Cesar Gaviria, which he was expected to share with the Assembly's chairperson, Barbados Foreign Minister Billie Miller.

Asked whether he was, therefore, displeased or disappointed as Jamaica's head of delegation that U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell did not specifically welcome this multi-dimensional approach, Black said he would prefer to express his "encouragement" of the evident "widespread support" among delegations at the Assembly for the Barbados initiative that was "consistent with what I understand to be the position of CARICOM".

In response to what position, if any, was taken during the Assembly either by the Caribbean or Latin American delegations on the allegation by the U.S. that Cuba was "sponsoring international terrorism", the Jamaican representative shrugged his shoulders, smiled and replied: "Frankly, it is difficult to speak for the Assembly's delegates. But I can tell you that no one seemed to have felt the issue was of any significance to raise. Not even the U.S. delegation alluded to it in the general discussion on the Inter-American Convention on Terrorism."

Black said that so far as Jamaica was concerned "Cuba, with which we have very good relations, is certainly not a state sponsoring terrorism or any so-called axis of evil".

He said that it was for other sovereign, independent nations of the Caribbean and Latin America to make known, if they consider it at all necessary, how they feel about a mere allegation that a Caribbean nation, namely Cuba, was a so-called "terrorist state".

Black also said he would have preferred a statement that is more "positive" about the time frame on release of frozen aid to crisis-ridden and poverty-stricken Haiti. But he stressed that the resolution that was earlier passed by the Assembly was "encouraging" and had been supported by the delegation from Haiti.

At a press briefing earlier, Haiti's Foreign Minister, Joseph Phillip Antonio, said he would prefer to describe the approved resolution as "average" rather than either "positive or disappointing".