Dear Editor,
They came across the waters — 650 souls from 33 nations, crossing seas of indifference with 20 tons of compassion. They came not to posture but to prove that humanity, when summoned, does not need permission. From Naples to Natal, from Chiapas to Chicago, they came — their ships laden with rice, fuel, medicines, and the audacity of empathy. And as Havana’s skyline shimmered into view, something else came into focus: the shameful absence of the Caribbean.
Three ships — Our America Convoy to Cuba — glided into that harbour of hardship. And not one bore the flag of CARICOM. The region’s moral compass, it seems, has drifted so far from Cuba that even decency requires diplomatic clearance
“BEYOND WORDS” AND BENEATH DIGNITY
CARICOM’s Basseterre summit promised relief “in short order.” That was February 25. Twenty-three days later, the only thing dispatched was disappointment.
Chairman Dr. Terrance Drew — who spoke so confidently of “humanitarian outreach within a month” — now presides over a silence as cold as bureaucracy. No plan unveiled. No team deployed. No gesture visible. Only the usual fog of committees “being finalized shortly.”
The irony is obscene: a summit themed Beyond Words has produced nothing but words.
Mia Mottley, whose cadence once electrified COP podiums with talk of “moral leadership,” now appears transfixed by the art of omission. Mia, who once said the world needed “fewer speeches and more service,” seems to have joined the choir of the conveniently speechless.
Andrew Holness , seasoned defender of Cuba and prophet of the people’s cause, has offered little beyond mutterings of “proper process.”
Perhaps experience has bred caution — or perhaps weariness has replaced courage. But moral fatigue, once admitted, is surrender.
And then comes Irfaan Ali, the self-proclaimed steward of Guyana’s “world-class” miracle — a man who has turned adjectives into policy. World-class economy. World-class infrastructure. World-class potential. Indeed. But never has a phrase so often spoken revealed so little substance.
Ali’s Guyana may be awash in petrodollars, but it is parched of principle. The country’s boom has birthed billionaires faster than it has birthed moral vision. His speeches blush with triumph; his conscience hides behind trade statistics. If prosperity is to mean anything, it must mean the power to act humanely — not to hoard applause.
World-class cowardice, Mr. President, is still cowardly.
THE RUBIO SPECTER
It is impossible to ignore the ghost that hovered in Basseterre — Marco Rubio, Washington’s gatekeeper of grudges. What he offered was not partnership; it was patronage. He smiled for the cameras, but his message was clear: Remember who pays the bills.
And remember they did. For like obedient pupils to a substitute teacher, CARICOM’s heads sat still, repeating the phrase “strategic alignment” while their own moral inheritance slipped quietly into insult. The Caribbean, once defiant and dignified, seems content to play the part of polite provincial — nodding, hosting, obeying.
THE FORGOTTEN FRIEND
Where were these “leaders” when Cuban hospitals darkened for want of fuel? When fishermen docked for lack of oil? Cuba trained our doctors, taught our engineers, treated our sick during hurricanes and cholera outbreaks. It gave without counting. Yet those who once received now ration their gratitude.
Solidarity, for this generation of Caribbean statesmen, is a word for speeches — not for ships.
A CONVOY OF CONSCIENCE
The Our America Convoy did not wait for memos or mandates. It moved — as conscience always must. Its three vessels carried medicine and moral clarity. They sailed where others submitted. They acted while CARICOM calculated.
That is the lesson history will write: that at a moment when Cuba needed its Caribbean kin, strangers across oceans remembered its friendship, while neighbours remembered their foreign policy
THE EPILOGUE OF COWARDICE
So let the records state:
CARICOM met in splendour, but the people of the world met in service.
The small nations of the Atlantic carried words; the global citizens of conscience carried aid.
And perhaps years from now, when the slogans fade and the “world-class” illusions crumble, our leaders — Drew, Mottley, Holness and Ali — will ask themselves how it came to this: how they traded the chance to be human for the comfort of being silent.
Until then, it remains what it is — jelly on toast: soft, sweet, and useless against the hunger of history.