Cuba has passion for Africa and humanity - St Lucia PM

ST LUCIA Prime Minister Kenny Anthony says Cuba has great passion for humanity and peoples of Africa.

And St Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister, Ralph Gonsalves, said the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) was very unprepared to confront the Ebola virus disease.

On arrival at the Jose Marti International Airport on Sunday for the ALBA-member states extraordinary heads of state and government and international agencies on Ebola, Prime Minister Anthony said it was a fact that no single country was 100 per cent ready to confront the deadly Ebola epidemic.

“Humanity is facing a great tragedy. And the people of West Africa need solidarity at this moment in time. And clearly, Cuba is in a unique position to assist because it is the only country in our region that understands tropical diseases,” he said.

Prime Minister Anthony said Cuba was always “another big room in our house” adding that the hosting of the regional summit on Ebola was initiated by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and agreed to by his Cuban counterpart Raul Castro.

He said the aim of the summit was to protect Latin America and the Caribbean region from the Ebola epidemic.

“Ebola is a crisis to humanity. It is affecting our brothers and sisters in Africa,” Prime Minister Anthony said. “Cuba has moved in. Cuba has this great passion for humanity and particularly peoples of Africa. In our hemisphere [Americas region] the ALBA initiative has significance. Many of the CARICOM member states are very vulnerable. We have no capacity to deal with these crises. For this reason we are grateful to Cuba. For us in St Lucia, it is exceedingly comforting that Cuba is ready to offer support and advice. While others are preoccupied with their own borders and taking measures in their own interests, it’s interesting Cuba has not focused exclusively to its own borders.”

He said Cuba was preoccupied with ensuring global safety.

And Prime Minister Gonsalves said the Government of Cuba was wise as ever.
He thanked the ALBA leaders, Fidel Castro, President Maduro and President Raul Castro for bringing the region together to moot ways of dealing with Ebola.

“The threat of Ebola is a real one. In CARICOM we are very unprepared to confront
Ebola,” Prime Minister Gonsalves said.

He said Cuba had been preparing not only to adequately protect its citizens but also contributed to international missions attending to the affected African countries.

“I want to endorse the suggestion by Comandante-en-jefe (Commander-in-Chief) Fidel
Castro for a relationship between the US and Cuba on this very important global matter,” Prime Minister Gonsalves said. “It is clear Cuba has a great function on this global fight against Ebola. I note [US] Secretary of State John Kerry commended the Cuban government for its internationalist duty on this matter (Cuba has a 165-member highly trained medical brigade in Sierra Leone) but we need to structure relations on this and other issues.”
He said St Vincent and the Grenadines was attending the ALBA summit to learn and see what Cuba was doing regarding preparedness against Ebola.

So far, a group of Caribbean countries have put bans on travellers who have passed through Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from entering their territory.

Jamaica, Guyana, St Lucia, Haiti and Colombia all introduced bans while the US which has an Ebola case has introduced screening measures but not introduced a ban.

Ebola has claimed over 4,500 lives in West Africa and is considered the biggest global health emergency since the outbreak of HIV/AIDS.

The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) summit meet to define its joint contribution to face the Ebola health challenge to prevent the disease from spreading to the Latin American and Caribbean region.

ALBA, founded by Fidel and late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in 2004, is an international organisation of regional scope that fights against poverty and social exclusion.
Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela, Surinam, Guyana and Haiti make up the membership.