A foreign policy somersault

Jul 09, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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(Kaieteur News) – The recent statement by the Government of Guyana on Cuba represents a startling departure from the position that Guyana itself has consistently articulated at the United Nations General Assembly under President Mohamed Irfaan Ali. Rather than a carefully calibrated foreign policy intervention, the statement appears rushed, poorly considered and internally inconsistent with the very positions advanced by Guyana’s own Head of State over the past several years.

The language of the statement is striking because it avoids the central issue that has dominated Guyana’s own diplomatic interventions on Cuba: the impact of the United States economic embargo and the recent naval oil embargo aimed at crippling Cuba.

Instead of acknowledging the decades-long sanctions regime imposed on Cuba and calling for its removal, the statement shifts attention toward vague concepts such as “humanitarian law,” “transparency,” and “good governance.” In doing so, it departs sharply from the approach previously taken by President Ali himself at the United Nations.

Between 2021 and 2025, President Ali’s statements at the UN General Assembly consistently recognised the need for a change in the international approach toward Cuba. In 2021, he stated:

“The strained relations between the United States and Cuba are also a matter of deep concern to our region. We are convinced that normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States would have a beneficial impact on peace in the hemisphere and greater prosperity for all.”

That statement identified the problem correctly: the abnormal relationship between Washington and Havana. It did not frame Cuba’s difficulties merely as an internal governance issue. Instead, it recognized that the hostile relationship between the two countries had regional consequences and that normalization would benefit peace and prosperity.

In 2022, President Ali went further, declaring:

“In our own region, we again join the overwhelming majority of members of the international community in reiterating Guyana’s rejection of the sanctions imposed on the Republic of Cuba.”

This was an unambiguous position. Guyana aligned itself with the majority of the international community in opposing sanctions against Cuba. It acknowledged that external economic pressure was a major factor affecting Cuba’s development.

In 2023, President Ali again strengthened that position, stating:

“The Republic of Cuba has been the object of aggression for more than six decades. We repeat our call for the dismantling of the unacceptable embargo against our sister Caribbean state.”

He also called for an end to Cuba’s designation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. In 2024, he reiterated that Cuba’s “right to development continues to be stymied by the economic embargo,” again calling for the embargo to be removed. In 2025, he spoke of the need for “a frank conversation on Cuba,” while emphasizing that lifting the embargo and removing Cuba from the terrorism list were central to Cuba’s future prosperity.

These statements represent a clear and consistent diplomatic position: Guyana recognized that Cuba’s economic difficulties cannot be separated from decades of external economic pressure.

The recent Foreign Ministry statement, however, appears to abandon that position. It speaks of a “sustainable solution” based on “the will of the Cuban people,” but it fails to acknowledge the most obvious external factor affecting Cuba’s economy: the United States embargo, which has been repeatedly condemned by Guyana at the United Nations. More recently, restrictions affecting Cuba’s access to energy supplies have worsened shortages and humanitarian difficulties.

The omission is glaring. A statement claiming solidarity with the Cuban people while refusing to identify the principal external pressures affecting Cuba’s economy is incomplete at best and politically hypocritical at worst.

The reference to “humanitarian law” is also bizarre. Humanitarian law traditionally concerns the conduct of armed conflict: the protection of civilians, treatment of prisoners of war, and obligations during wartime. Cuba is not a country experiencing an armed conflict. There is no war taking place on Cuban territory. Therefore, invoking humanitarian law in this context appears misplaced and risks confusing a political and economic dispute with the legal framework governing warfare.

The statement’s emphasis on “the will of the Cuban people” is also presumptuous. No government has the right to speak on behalf of another nation’s population while ignoring the external forces shaping that nation’s circumstances

Guyana appears to have adopted language remarkably close to the arguments advanced by Washington: focusing on internal Cuban matters while avoiding condemnation of the sanctions regime. Indeed, if one were unfamiliar with Guyana’s previous diplomatic statements, one might reasonably assume that this new statement had been drafted in alignment with the United States position rather than emerging from the independent foreign policy tradition Guyana has historically maintained.

The danger is that this represents more than a poorly worded statement. It raises questions about the direction of Guyana’s foreign policy. A country that previously defended non-interference, sovereignty, and opposition to unilateral sanctions now appears to be moving toward a posture that mirrors the priorities of a major external power.

Unless Guyana is flip-flopping, a foreign policy statement must demonstrate consistency, historical awareness and respect for international realities. By failing to condemn the embargo that Guyana itself previously described as unacceptable, the Government has created the impression of a dramatic diplomatic retreat.

The result is a statement that contradicts the President’s own record at the United Nations, weakens Guyana’s credibility in the Caribbean, and raises troubling questions about whether Guyana’s foreign policy is drifting away toward becoming an instrument of US imperialism.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• crippling Cuba, Cuba, Foreign Policy, Peeping Tom, United States economic embargo

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