OPINION: Fear stalks our region

Last Updated on Saturday, 23 May 2026, 4:42 by Denis Chabrol

By former President Donald Ramotar

The second term of Donald Trump as President of the United States has created deep fear in our region. This is akin to the Caribbean being recolonised after some six and a half decades since Independence came to our region.

This is seen in the deafening silence of Caricom countries in relation to the atrocities that are being committed by the U.S in our area.

The latest is the “indictment” of former President of Cuba, Raul Castro.

Imagine indicting a man who led a country that has done tremendous humanitarian work in the Caribbean and beyond. Cuba has been on the front line in major struggles both against natural disasters and in solidarity with people fighting for freedom.

Recall that Cuban doctors and teachers have been sent to Asia, Africa and Latin America to enhance people’s welfare and to educate them so that they could make valuable contributions to their own countries’ development.

We know first hand in the Caribbean of Cuba’s generous contributions to our countries. Cuban personnel served selflessly in various sectors of our societies. The work of their doctors and other medical workers is legendary. But their contributions were not confined to medical service, they were in the forefront of education, culture and other technical areas in several countries in the Global South. Recently when Covid-19 was devastating the world, Cuba contributions were tremedous and their personel heroic. Some developed countries sought their help eg. Italy.

At every disaster they are among the first to volunteer.

Their medical workers fought diseases such as Ebola and Covid as heroically as their soldiers stood with Angolan and South African patriots in defeating the South African apartheid army in the 1980s.

Moreover the Cuban Government, at great sacrifice, helped to educate at their universities, thousands of young people from all over the world. That is genuine solidarity.

To think that the United States is trying to find an excuse to invade Cuba by using the flimsy excuse of two planes shot down in 1996 that were invading Cuban airspace and carrying out subversive acts against the Cuban people.

Just for the record they were doing those activities for decades, from U.S territory. They were on such a mission when the Cuban pilots intercepted them and ordered them to leave Cuban airspace. They refused and were shot down. This was self defence, that was not aggression.

Compare that to just recently the U.S. missile killing 168 girls in a dormitory in Iran. Compare that to the U.S participation with Israel in deliberately murdering innocent, defenceless women and children, including babies in Gaza, the West Bank and now in Lebanon.

Anyone that looks at the news on the T.V. must be appalled by the casual way President Trump speaks about killing people. The attack that killed the Ayatollah and most of his family members is still fresh in people’s minds. The easy way he shouts about killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s army while he was on a peace mission in Iraq.

In our own region what about the killing by the CIA of seventy three persons on board the Cubana Airlines 455 in 1976.

The list of such atrocities is much too long to continue to enumerate. However as we follow events in this area we must ask about the legality of United States air force killing more than a hundred persons travelling in small boats in the Caribbean. No attempts to stop and search is done, they are just murdered.

The U.S. is pushing an agenda to dominate the world; they seem to want to be a super-colonial power.

In conclusion it is apposite to recall the words of Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller who spoke about the silence of the intellectuals during the early violations by the Nazis in Germany in the 1930s. He said: “First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I said nothing, then they came for the Socialists but I was not a socialist so I said nothing, then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I said nothing. Then they came for me…”

Today it is Cuba and Iran under the hammer of U.S aggression. Which country would it be tomorrow. Stand up, Speak out before it’s too late!