NEWS
Cuba’s Day at UWI by Tennyson S.D. Joseph
W ednesday 7 December 2022 will be remembered as the day when Cuban President, Miguel Díaz-Canel came to The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus. It was an historically momentous occasion, and according to our knowledge, it was the first ever visit by a Cuban President to a campus of The UWI. After attending the CARICOM-Cuba Summit on 6 December to mark the 50 th year since the four independent CARICOM states of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago ended Cuba’s isolation by establishing formal diplomatic relations (the actual anniversary date being 8 December), President Díaz-Canel graciously agreed to address the opening session of a CARICOM-Cuba colloquium organised by the Department of Government, Sociology, Social Work and Psychology at Cave Hill, as the final stop of his official visit to Barbados. The one-day colloquium was the
brainchild of Barbados’s Ambassador to CARICOM David Commissiong, Cuban Ambassador to Barbados Sergio Pastrana, and Dr. Tennyson Joseph of the Department of Government, Sociology, Social Work and Psychology, who all thought it prudent to capitalise on the presence of CARICOM and Cuban officials attending the annual summit and extend the discussion to an additional day to include academics, activists, civil society and ordinary citizens. The colloquium, dubbed Celebrating 50 Years of Cuba-CARICOM Relations , comprised six panels which covered topics such as “50 Years of Fighting the
Miguel Díaz-Canel President of Cuba
Blockade Against Cuba” , “Reflections on Major Milestones and Turning Points in the CARICOM-Cuba Journey” , “50 Years of CARICOM-Cuba Cultural/ Artistic Interactions and People to People Relations” , “Examining CARICOM-Cuba Educational, Medical Scientific and Technological Collaboration” , and “A Cuba-CARICOM People to People Conversation” . The closing panel took a prospective approach and focused on “Current Realities and Prospects for the Next 50 Years of Cuba-CARICOM Relations” . Each panel was organised to facilitate presentations from both Cuban and CARICOM participants. In addition, many of the CARICOM-based panellists were themselves persons with past or ongoing connections to Cuba, either as students within the Cuban university system, ambassadors, through family connections or academic-research interests. Among the panellists, for example, were Cuban
Barbados's Ambassador to CARICOM, David Comissiong (left) with other attendees at the colloquium
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