FORMER MINISTER URGES T&T TO STAND BY CUBA

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an is urg­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go to stand by Cu­ba, in­sist­ing that the Caribbean na­tion’s sov­er­eign­ty must be re­spect­ed and its peo­ple de­fend­ed.

His com­ments come amid a fiery con­fronta­tion be­tween the Unit­ed States (US) and Cu­ba at the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) yes­ter­day, which saw pro­ceed­ings briefly sus­pend­ed fol­low­ing heat­ed ex­changes over the decades-long Amer­i­can em­bar­go against the is­land.

The con­fronta­tion erupt­ed as the US rep­re­sen­ta­tive ac­cused Cu­ba’s lead­er­ship of cor­rup­tion, re­pres­sion and en­joy­ing lav­ish lifestyles while or­di­nary cit­i­zens strug­gled with short­ages of ba­sic ne­ces­si­ties.