Letters & Opinion

Move To Have U.S. Embassy In St. Lucia

Call For Greater American Diplomatic Presence In Caribbean

Photo of Eliot Engel
By Eliot Engel

IN April 2009, on one of his first trips abroad as president, Barack Obama visited Trinidad and Tobago for the Summit of the Americas. At the Summit, he declared that “the energy, the dynamism, the diversity of the Caribbean people inspires us all and is such an important part of what we share in common as a hemisphere.”

I could not agree more. The countries of the Caribbean are of profound importance to the United States and particularly to the millions of Caribbean-American citizens in our country.

Unfortunately, our sparse diplomatic presence in the Caribbean significantly impedes our ability to engage more deeply with our partners. That is why I recently introduced the United States — Caribbean Partnership Act of 2014 in the House of Representatives. This bill would establish U.S. embassies in the five countries in the Caribbean with which we have diplomatic relations but no permanent diplomatic presence: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

Passage of my legislation will deepen the relationship between the United States and the Caribbean and build on the Obama administration’s efforts to enhance economic, energy and security cooperation with the region.

Why is this legislation so important? Imagine countries where tens of thousands of American citizens travel for pleasure or business; where thousands of American citizens go to school; where there is a constant concern about drug trafficking and the impact of drug-related violence; but where the United States has no U.S. embassies. That is precisely the case with these five Caribbean nations. All diplomatic relations with these countries are managed by the U.S. embassy in Barbados.

U.S. embassies on these five islands would bring major benefits to our friends in the Caribbean. For example, these embassies could help deepen our trading partnerships by working with the U.S. private sector to identify mutually beneficial economic opportunities. And our embassies could target development assistance to where it is most needed on each of these islands.

While these countries are small, they cannot be taken for granted. They are key voting members of the United Nations and other international organizations. As members of the Organization of American States (OAS) — the only political organization in the Americas that actually includes the United States — their votes are extremely important, particularly as member states choose a new secretary general next year.

With democracy under attack in the hemisphere, it is important that we work with our partners in the Caribbean to ensure that the next OAS secretary general is willing to protect these fundamental freedoms. Interestingly, while the United States has no physical diplomatic presence, both Venezuela and Cuba have embassies in all five countries.

Without a U.S. presence in these five countries, it is very difficult to conduct in-person diplomacy with our counterparts on a range of crucial international issues. Currently, in order to meet with government officials, the private sector or civil society, U.S. diplomats must fly in from Barbados or Washington on expensive, infrequent flights, and at times stay overnight in costly island hotels. Close working relationships with key leaders cannot develop because our diplomats are not there to maintain them.

Regrettably, our diplomacy is often reduced to phone calls and emails, even though we all know that the best interaction is carried out in person. In addition, U.S. citizens living in these countries do not have full consular services to assist in the event of emergencies.

Right now, the United States is rightly focussed on the many crises around the globe from the Middle East to West Africa. Yet, we must not lose sight of our long-term interests closer to home, and we cannot take for granted our neighbours in the Caribbean. Establishing a physical diplomatic presence throughout the Caribbean is just one small way that we can deepen the historic partnership that our countries share.

(U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., is the ranking minority member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.)

7 Comments

  1. One of the beautiful things about the country of the U.S.A. is how its people have made great efforts to evolve and live up to its Creed, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This declaration however, has continued to prove elusive, primarily because of the propagation of the Religious teaching that the Supreme Being is a so-called White man. This doctrine embeds the myth of White Supremacy/The God Complex in the minds of Caucasians, while creating the Inferiority Complex in the rest of the Human Race who subscribe to this falsehood, from Asia to South America.

    Many of us, having heard of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and the Genocide committed against the African People with the blessings of the Catholic Church, will never know that the tremendous wealth accumulated by the Western Countries which made the U.S.A. the greatest Economic power of our times, was the result of the wealth generated from the enslavement of our parents.

    The U.S. President Theodore/Teddy Roosevelt sheds much light into the mindset of the White Supremacist and their attitudes and behavior towards the rest of the Human Race. The roots of this attitude can be found in a concoction of history, fable, and fantasy pertaining to the Aryan Race that sprang from the Caucasus Mountains, North of today’s Iran. Even the word Iran is a derivative of the word Aryan.

    The tale is told of the Aryan as the most beautiful human specimen, white skinned, blue-eyed, and of superior intelligence to all of mankind, having migrated North, South, East, and West building great civilizations in Egypt, China, India and all the World. However this “Pure” White Race committed the fatal error of mixing its blood with non-white Chinese, Indian, African. The sad result of this miscegenation resulted in dirt and deterioration. History then went on to record the long decline of those mongrelized civilizations.

    A group of Aryans followed the Sun westward to the area of Northern Europe called Germany not making the mistakes of their brother Aryans. Rather than copulate with those with “Lesser Blood”, they killed and exterminated them – as done to the native American and Arawak People. By exterminating them the Aryans maintained the purity of the “White Blood”. After centuries in the German Forest, the myth continues, the pure Aryan evolved into an even superior being called the Teuton, who paid no homage to Kings and Emperors, but developed a political system of democracy among his own kind.

    As the Teutons moved across the British Isles they did not contaminate their “Pure Blood”. Teddy Roosevelt wrote in 1906, “The world would have halted had it not been for the Teutonic conquests in alien lands.” Luckily for world civilization, these Teutons obey their instincts and methodically slaughtered the native men, women and children, keeping their Teutonic Blood pure, and became known as Anglo-Saxons.

    The Anglo-Saxon’s myth of white Supremacy intensified with King Henry VIII braking with the Pope to create The Church of England. Henry claimed that the break with the Pope was a reconnection to the purer Anglo-Saxon tradition that existed before the Norman conquest of 1066. Henry was gone but the myth of white supremacy had been reinforced and reinvigorated. Centuries of Aryan and Teuton history revealed these Laws of Civilization;
    1. The White race founded civilization
    2. When the White race maintains its Whiteness, civilization is maintained.
    3. When the White race loses its whiteness, civilization is lost.

    These laws were proved by pointing that the Magna Carta, debated laws in Parliament, produced exemplars like Shakespeare, and tinkered the Industrial revolution to life. But woe to those who ignored civilization rules and went to Africa, India, and China. There were just too many Africans, Indians, and Chinese to slaughter, in order to establish superior civilizations. Given these constrains the best that could be hoped for was to establish colonies and the exploitation of local primitives in order to produce greater wealth for the Teutons Anglo-Saxons in Europe. By the end of the nineteenth century, Britain’s Empire had fifty colonies, France had thirty-three, and Germany had thirteen colonies; 90 percent of Africa, and 56 percent of Asia was colonized.

    But to continue civilization the Aryan had to move westward across the Atlantic with white Christians to North America, eliminating the Native Peoples from Plymouth Rock to San Francisco Bay. The Christian Aryans slaughtered Indian men, women, and children to establish civilization as they understood it, from Sea to Shining Sea. As the Teutons exterminated the “savages”, a newly formed nation established its Laws based on the doctrine of White Supremacy. The legislation establishing who could become an American citizen, The Naturalization Act of 1790, begins: “All free white persons…” while Congress debated whether Jews or Catholics could become citizens – of course, Blacks were not even considered human beings.

    In the embryonic stage of the USA, on the Atlantic Coast, many dreamed when the American Aryan would reach the Pacific Coast and leap across to Asia until they reached their original home in the Caucasus, and a White band of civilization would bring peace to the World. It was and is ALL ABOUT RACE. One writer says, “Is it not Race that puts a hundred million Indians under the domination of a remote island in the north of Europe(the same one you call Mother country)? The Race of the Negro is of appalling importance. The French in Canada are still French, and on the manners of the Germans and the whites in Missouri, and the heart of Illinois, I found abundant points of resemblances.” This was written many years ago, and anyone who does not reside under a Rock has been hearing tales of Teutons like Darren Wilson, a police officer murdering Black boys like Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.

    During the 1800s American Universities taught that the Aryan was God’s highest creation, that the Negro was designed by God to servitude, and the American Indian was doomed to extinction. Phrenology, the study of skulls, taught that the Caucasian Skull was the most symmetrical, and since the circle is the most beautiful shape in Nature, it followed that the Caucasian’s cranium was the original creation of God. Samuel Morton a phrenologist, measured the capacity of different craniums and determined the Native American’s was smaller than the Teuton brain, comforting many Americans who now saw God’s hand in the extermination of the ‘Indian’. Oh, there was so much of this pseudo science taught, that one book, “Types of Mankind”, concluding that only the White race was civilized, and wherever Caucasians mixed with inferior races the result was barbarism. These barbaric races never can again rise until they are exterminated and the Caucasian substituted.

  2. So the Aryans are coming to bring civilization to the primitives? You should examine the wickedness of the Teutons in their oppression of the people of Cuba, for not allowing them to bring civilization in the form of prostitution and gambling to their island. Towards the end of the 1800s, the Aryans had decided to make the Caribbean Sea an “American Lake”, and to cut a Canal through Central America. Around 1890 young nationalists had arisen around the World to reclaim their homelands from the White Christian Colonial Pirates. Spain was battling insurrections in both Cuba and the Philippines colonies, which the US Navy considered valuable links in the Caribbean and Pacific.

    Spain had an army trained to fight fixed battles with heavy armaments with many soldiers. The Cubans freedom fighters had little money and resorted to guerilla warfare. The Spanish Christians deployed a tactic known as “Reconcentrato” that forced the civilians into concentration camps to deny moral support to the freedom fighters. The Spanish placed the whole of Cuba under martial law, placing them in roofless pig pens surrounded with barbed wire. Thousands of innocent Cubans died of starvation and diseases.

    The freedom fighters received favorable press in the States, with many Americans assuming the Cubans were revolting to become like Americans. Kendal Adams president of the University of Wisconsin asked the 1897 graduating class, “What has Spain ever done for civilization? what books, what inventions have come from Spain? so few were their discoveries in the scientific fields they are scarcely worth mentioning.

    McKinkey won the presidency, and Theodore Roosevelt begged and lobbied for the job of Secretary of the Navy. McKinley was hesitant knowing Teddy was a pugnacious Aryan who thought that he was appointed by God to “civilize” the World. Roosevelt was given a job as assistant Secretary of the Navy, at the time Congress was debating whether to annex Hawaii and whether to invade Cuba. William McKinley was the 25th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1897, until his assassination on September 14, 1901, six months into his second term.

    In September 1897, when Teddy’s boss Secretary of the Navy John Long was out, Roosevelt attempted to instigate McKinley to start a war – any war, any place; he just wanted war. Anyway on February 15, 1898 the USS Maine exploded in the waters off Cuba killing hundreds of American Sailors. This was the excuse Roosevelt wanted, even stating that the explosion was no accident, and with the Press instigating war, McKinley signed the war against Spain in April 1898 proclaiming it was to bring freedom to the people of Cuba.

    Soon it became clear that the freedom fighters were predominantly Black, prompting the American commander to state, “they were made up of considerable Black people, only partially civilized, in whom the old spirit of savagery has been more or less aroused by years of war…” Before the invasion the Press had portrayed the Cubans as predominantly white men and brave as any Aryan. Upon learning they were Black, the Press made a 180 degree turn, calling the Freedom Fighters lazy, thieving, and a murderous gang.

    Roosevelt led a group of soldiers known as “Rough Riders” on a charge up Kettle Hill on San Juan Ridge. The Americans soon defeated the Spaniards, and Roosevelt became the Poster boy for American Imperialism. (Big Stick policy refers to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy: “speak softly, and carry a big stick.” ) The war in Cuba was brief, and on July 17, 1898 Spanish and American troops gathered in the city of Santiago for the surrender ceremony.

    This “Great” American Theodore/Teddy Roosevelt who would later become President Roosevelt, wrote that , “Blacks were a perfectly Stupid Race” and it would take “many thousand years” before Blacks became even “as intelligent as the ancient Athenians”. The American Aryans had no intentions of handing over Cuba to this inferior Blacks, instead they handed Cuba to the same old Spanish civil authorities; the same White men they had just defeated and denying the Black freedom Fighters any role in the state affairs of Cuba. The Spanish flag came down and the Stars and Stripes went up. Cuba was forced to hand over Guantanamo Bay to the Americans, a place still occupied by these Aryans to imprison and torture Muslims held without charge.

    Cuba has suffered hundreds of years from these Aryans, and even today the White Supremacist has attempted to starve Cuba into submission, so what crumbs do you think will fall to St. Lucia if the Aryans build an Embassy or even a White House on the Morne?

  3. Jamaica

    In the lead-up to the 1980 elections, Jamaica was embroiled in four years of bloodshed. The sitting Prime Minister Michael Manley headed the “progressive” People’s National Party (PNP) while Edward Seaga headed the “reactionary” Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Manley had openly criticized American foreign policies and began to build a relationship with U.S. enemy Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Given the Cold War the United States was involved in with Russia, the CIA did not want Jamaica to be friendly with communists.

    According to Gary Webb’s book,”The Dark Alliance,” Norman Descoteaux, the CIA station chief in Jamaica began a destabilization program of the Manley government in the late ’70s. Part of that plan was assassinations, money for the Jamaican Labour Party, labor unrest, bribery and shipping weapons to Manley’s opponents, like Lester “Jim Brown” Coke. Coke was a political enforcer and bodyguard to Seaga.

    According to a 2010 article on newsone.com, former CIA agent, Philip Agee, said the “CIA was using the JLP as its instrument in the campaign against the Michael Manley government, I’d say most of the violence was coming from the JLP, and behind them was the CIA in terms of getting weapons in and getting money in.”

    There was reportedly an assassination attempt on the late legendary singer Bob Marley’s life funded by the CIA. Writer Timothy White speculates, in his biography of Marley, “Catch A Fire,” that Jim Brown was part of a team of armed gunmen led by JLP enforcer Carl “Byah” Mitchell that attempted to assassinate Marley.

    Bob Marley Fire Burning Down Everything

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5ePJjAXxIs

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  4. Grenada

    Grenada won its independence from Britain in 1974. Five years later, Maurice Bishop came to power by a coup at a time when the country was facing serious economic problems. Bishop turned to Cuba to improve the situation on the small island. The relationship soon caused a problem with the U.S. administration led by President Ronald Reagan, who believed Grenada was growing too close to Cuba and the Soviet Union. Reportedly Bishop turned down Reagan’s offer to establish democratic elections.

    The U.S. administration became increasingly concerned over Bishop’s intentions after it learned of plans for the island to build an airstrip. Bishop maintained Cuba was assisting in the project to increase tourism to the island; Reagan believed it was a plan for Cuba to use it as hub for supporting communist activities in Central and South America.

    Bishop would later be killed in a coup along with at least 100 other people at the Mount Royal prison. The event, known as the Massacre at Mount Royal, reportedly caused the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States along with Barbados and Jamaica to call on the U.S. administration for help.

    Author William Blum in “Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Intervention Since World War II” called this plea one of the “fundamental falsehoods concerning the invasion.”

    Reagan would use this plea and a rescue mission of American citizens to invade Grenada.

    The U.S. Army’s Rapid Deployment Force (1st, 2nd Ranger Battalions and 82nd Airborne Division Paratroopers), U.S. Marines, U.S. Army Delta Force, U.S. Navy SEALs and other combined forces comprised the 7,600 troops from the United States, Jamaica, and members of the Regional Security System defeated Grenadian resistance.

    Bishop’s Body was never returned to his family, and is believed to have been eaten by Ronald Regan and members of his administration.

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    Why does the “good” Christians of United States continue to ferment turmoil and murder around the world, while everyone remains silent and not condemn this black stain upon us as human beings?

    Many of us who are not duped by the practitioners of white supremacy, are conscious of the innate hostility practiced against people who desire independence and freedom from the oppression of the Caucasian Christian. With the recent revelation of the Nazi practices of the C.I.A., we thought we had seen it all as far as the hypocrisy of the Caucasian Cristian against people of Color, but this morning I found this plan by these devils to kill Cubans:

    Young Cuban hip-hop musicians have been sucked into a USAID secret operation aiming at regime change in Havana. Rappers from underground circles were unwittingly supposed to promote anti-government sentiments, but the operation was haplessly executed.

    A new AP investigation has exposed a secret program by America’s Agency for International Development (USAID) to infiltrate Cuba’s underground hip-hop scene to form a movement of “socially-conscious youth” opposing the Communist authorities. The operation lasted for over two years, in 2009-2011.

    USAID has denied the allegations, claiming “Any assertions that our work is secret or covert are simply false,” in a statement on Wednesday. It stressed that its programs are aimed at strengthening civil society, “often in places where civic engagement is suppressed and where people are harassed, arrested, subjected to physical harm or worse.”

    The agency’s principal contractor, Washington-based Creative Associates International, associated with a Serbian team to promote Cuban rappers and get the underground hip-hop subculture to stir political dissent in Cuba.

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