The seminar will be attended by Ambassador Donna Forde, Deputy Secretary General of Caricom’s Directorate of External and Community Relations, and Annita Montoute, Acting Director of the Institute of International Relations (IRI) of the University of Caricom.

CARICOM Today stated that a panel discussion chaired by Barbados’ Ambassador to the Community, David Comissiong, former UWI Acting Director and IIR Professor Mark Kirton, and UWI Senior Coordinator Michele Lowe would begin at 17:00 local time.

Other participants will be former Cuban Ambassador to Jamaica Jose Francisco Piedra and Dr. Kai-Ann Skeete, Researcher at the Shridath Ramphal Center for International Trade, among other guests.

Throughout these years, that integrationist bloc and Cuba have deepened relations based on solidarity and cooperation.

December 6 will mark the 50th anniversary of relations with the first four independent Caribbean States: Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago.

These countries established diplomatic ties with Havana in 1972, after gaining their independence from the United Kingdom and in open defiance of the US economic, commercial and financial blockade.

CARICOM emerged on July 4, 1973, with the signing of the Treaty of Chaguaramas by 14 countries: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Monserrat, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago.

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