Home  News Regional News CARICOM ready to meet with Obama
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CARICOM ready to meet with Obama |
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Monday, 17 November 2008 |
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) will be seeking early engagement with United States President-elect Barack Obama to lay the foundation for improved US-Caribbean relations, CARICOM Chairman Baldwin Spencer has said.
Spencer, who is also the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) that the region welcomed the presidential victory of Obama -- the first African American to be elected to the White House.
“I think Obama has been able to capture the imagination of the entire world and so it was clearly a wonderful feeling as I sat and watched the returns and recognized that a new chapter in the history of the United States was indeed unfolding,” Spencer said.
Obama, the Democratic Party candidate for the election, won a landslide victory over his Republican Party opponent, John McCain, sparking wild celebrations throughout the Caribbean where some regional leaders had openly expressed support for his candidature.
Spencer said that the victory goes beyond the shores of America, adding that the “world has a new leader in Barack Obama.
“As far as the Caribbean is concerned we will want to see that Barack Obama will seek to develop a more engaging relationship with the Caribbean and indeed the Western hemisphere,” Spencer told CMC, adding “so that we can work together to ensure that the entire region develops in such a way that all of its people can benefit from all the resources and the programs that he will pursue”.
Last Tuesday's historic win clears the way for Obama's formal inauguration as the 44th President of the United States on January 20.
Spencer said that the Caribbean would make reference to outstanding issues, including trade, the question of the deportation of criminals back to the Caribbean as well as the concept of development “and where the Caribbean should fit on the United States agenda going forward”.
“I think some effort will be made at the CARICOM level at least to seek to engage representatives of President elect Obama initially to lay some foundation upon which we will be able to engage the new president of the United States in dealing with matters of importance to the Caribbean.”
The CARICOM chairman said remarks by Obama during the campaign regarding relations with Cuba would be another matter the region would probably initiate since “it would strengthen the relationship overall”.
He recalled that during his recent address to the United Nations General Assembly, he had called on the new US president, whoever it may have been, “to seek to change the policy that they have towards Cuba and I am looking for President elect Obama to in fact do that.
“I believe that it will be a positive development not only for Cuba but for the entire Caribbean and the hemisphere on a whole, so I would certainly think that all of us would be pleased if President Obama would move reasonably swiftly to begin to engage in such a positive manner which would significantly improve relationship with Cuba and indeed the hemisphere,” he added.
Washington has imposed a near four decade trade embargo on Cuba since former Cuban president Fidel Castro came to power in a coup and implemented a Communist system of government on the Caribbean island.
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