CARIBBEAN Community (CARICOM) Foreign Ministers have rightly given what is considered "friendly advice" to Cuba following its recent crackdown on dissidents with long jail terms and the executions of three convicted hijackers.

But the "advice" on a perceived need for more "transparency" in Cuba's criminal justice system and "open debate" on social, economic and political progress, would have been more meaningful had it also included a specific criticism of the continuing hostility, including terroristic activities, from United States soil directed at Cuba.

Friends must have the right to also disagree. This is applicable in CARICOM's "friendship" with Cuba - whose rights as a sovereign state have been continuously violated by successive administrations in Washington - as well as in relations with the USA, whose "friendship" Caribbean governments and people also rightly cherish.

It is unpleasant when such disagreements have to be placed in the public domain -as considered unavoidable when the Community Foreign Ministers met in the Vincentian capital, Kingstown, last month for a regular two-day meeting.

To avoid conveying the wrong impression of taking a lead from President George Bush's administration in its ongoing pressure-cooker tactics against the government of President Fidel Castro, the CARICOM Ministers invited for consultation at their meeting a Special Ministerial Envoy of Cuba.

As their communiqué subsequently announced, the ministers expressed their concerns to the special Cuban envoy when they met on May 8, for "a frank exchange, as befitting relations among friends".

In accordance with its often officially expressed appreciation for the special relationship that has evolved, over 30 years, between Cuba and CARICOM, it was not surprising that the Castro government avoided making any public statement of its own following the exchange of views at the Kingstown ministerial meeting.

Having earlier successfully opposed an initiative at the Organisation of American States (OAS) by Nicaragua, co-sponsored by the USA and Costa Rica, to condemn Cuba on human rights issues in a forum from which it was expelled, CARICOM felt it was in an even better position to make a friendly appeal to Cuba.

That appeal covered a call for clemency for the jailed dissidents as well as for "greater transparency" in Cuba's criminal justice system.

Another 'appeal' in the carefully-worded statement of May 8, was directed at the USA. But, regrettably, it was more implicit than explicit, revealing a puzzling caution when prevailing evidence would support "frank" advice, "befitting relations among friends", being offered also to Washington.

There are times when diplomatic language leads more to a guessing game of intentions than inspire movement on what's really desirable.

Could the Foreign Ministers not have been specific, for example, in urging the George Bush administration to engage Cuba in pursuing dialogue rather than Washington continuing confrontation politics - even if they wished to delay for future consideration, stated examples of forms of terrorist activities against Cuba from US soil?

There is today a yawning gap in CARICOM-USA relations compared to what existed with Bill Clinton in The White House. Perhaps both sides need to make a critical assessment of how to strengthen relations.

Without, of course, Caribbean governments - especially those more vulnerable to Washington's pressures - compromising what's essential in the fundamental principles that guide the Community's foreign policy.

Like remaining opposed, for instance, to the dangerous doctrine of pre-emptive war for "regime change", as applied to Iraq with the sidelining of the United Nations Security Council, and on which issue they now face growing pressures at home for "misleading" information on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Or, in any way sanctioning punitive measures against a sovereign state by the world's sole superpower without seeking resolution to problems through dialogue. As is the case of US economic and financial embargo, plus hostile acts against Cuba.

In consideration of any new initiative on USA-CARICOM relations at their forthcoming Summit in Montego Bay next month, Caribbean leaders could perhaps reflect on the advisability of offering to play a mediating role in helping to end the more than four decades of confrontational politics between Washington and Havana.

We are small, but along with some of our allies in the OAS, the Caribbean Community is well placed to play a positive role in the promotion of efforts to normalise relations between the USA and a Caribbean nation just some 90 miles off the shores of America, as part of an overall review of US-Caribbean relations.

Assuming, of course, that the Bush administration has any interest in ending the failed policy of an economic and financial embargo against Cuba and bring to an end aggressive acts against the Cuban government which has survived successive administrations in Washington since the Castro-led revolution of 1959.

It taxes the imagination for the Bush administration to demand, as prior conditions for dialogue with Cuba, what it considers "free and fair elections" and conformity, generally, by the Castro government to official Washington's position on "democracy" and "human rights".

Not after, as some would argue, what transpired in Florida at the last Presidential election that led to the emergence of Bush as President on the basis of a casting vote by the Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court.

Or, following what Washington, in collusion with Tony Blair in London, did in undermining the legitimacy and authority of the United Nations Security Council in the pre-emptive war against Iraq. And, also, current controversial cases of human rights violations in the USA under the cover of "homeland security".

The USA cannot be the "chief violator of human rights", as Cuba's `Granma International’ recently screamed in bold headlines in a report on the "tragedy and chaos in Iraq".

But Washington and its allies, as well as CARICOM and its allies, should find time for a critical evaluation of the Cuban Foreign Ministry's published response to the latest annual US State Department Report with its focus on "patterns of global terrorism".