Airport Modernisation and Cuban Cooperation

As our flagship Argyle International Airport (AIA) celebrates its 8th anniversary this week, a team of Cuban engineers is continuing the Cuban record of selfless contribution to its continued development. The team is working along with local counterparts in a maintenance and modernization project, so essential in an industry which requires constant development and modernization.

While in itself very important, this project helps to emphasize and reinforce the critical role that the Republic of Cuba has continued to play in the economic and social development of our country. It is fitting that the AIA should be the medium for this reinforcement, for the AIA has been the biggest high-profile manifestation of Cuban development cooperation with our country.

The AIA could not have been constructed and put into operation without what our Prime Minister fondly calls “the coalition of the willing”, the contribution of a wide-ranging number of countries with differing social and economic systems. In the western hemisphere the contributions of the Republics of Cuba, and Venezuela have been crucial to the success of the AIA. Both countries, though greatly maligned, including by some prominent Vincentians, and facing very restrictive international sanctions, never wavered in their support for the AIA and SVG in general.

For this our people should be grateful. In the case of Cuba, its contribution to our country’s development is best known in the fields of education and health. It is Cuba which, even when not diplomatically recognised by St Vincent and the Grenadines, opened the doors to tertiary education for Vincentian students especially from the underprivileged classes.

However, it is not only in these social areas that Cuban cooperation has been vital to our developmental thrust. Though not as much in the limelight, that cooperation has touched many areas, but of course, by its very nature, the impact of Cuban assistance has been felt most in the health sector.

This cooperation is remarkable given the fact that the sanctions from the USA, despite being condemned time and again by the United Nations, has left the majority of Cuba’s citizens in a far worse position today than many Vincentians. Cuba has not backed away from its commitments. No country on earth suffers as much from the crippling sanctions which threaten third countries for trading with Cuba.

It is an issue which seems to escape too many of us. Our government continues to express its gratitude but too many of us listen to the propaganda of others. Sometimes this is even manifested in the shameful hostility to Cuban internationalist workers here, especially in the health sector. Such ingratitude must be condemned. Even as we more and more appreciate the role of the AIA in our development process, not just in tourism, but also in trade and critically, in deepening contacts between Vincentians here and abroad, we must not shy away from expressing our gratitude and in turn calling for an end to the illegal blockade of Cuba.