ANDREW HOLNESS, Stop Swallowing ‘Elephantic Rubian’ Camels

Why Kingston Must Demand Hard Evidence—Not Diplomatic Excuses—on Cuban Infant Mortality

Too often in Caribbean diplomacy, Kingston strains at procedural gnats while swallowing whole an ‘elephantic’—gigantic, grotesque, Republican-inflated, and morally puffed-up—Rubian camel. When Washington insists that extraterritorial sanctions pose no real obstacle to humanitarian care in Havana, polite acquiescence is not statesmanship; it is abdication. Before Jamaica accepts official assurances at face value, Prime Minister Andrew Holness must demand answers to four evidentiary questions.

1. Prime Minister Holness, what evidence would establish that American policy is materially contributing to Cuban infant deaths, and will you apply that standard impartially?

   
   

The allegation is grave enough to require precision, not diplomatic evasion. “Infants” means children under one year; evidence concerning children generally cannot automatically establish an infant-specific claim. “Markedly” also requires a demonstrable, substantial effect, not merely a plausible connection between sanctions and suffering.

On 8 June 2026, UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned that children were dying because doctors lacked essential medicines and supplies, reporting an infant mortality rate of 9.9 per 1,000 births—double the earlier level. These are serious warnings, but a higher mortality rate does not independently prove how much American policy caused.

Will you therefore seek the underlying mortality series, reference periods and independent verification? Will you distinguish total infant deaths from deaths attributable to particular restrictions? The responsible position is neither “Washington kills every baby” nor “causation is complicated, therefore Washington bears no responsibility.” It is to establish whether identifiable measures materially increase preventable deaths, while acknowledging what remains uncertain.

2. Which American measures can be connected to specific failures in infant care, and will you demand evidence that humanitarian exemptions actually work?

   
   

A credible causal argument requires four links: an American restriction; an obstructed transaction or delivery; a resulting clinical shortage; and an avoidable neonatal death. General condemnation cannot substitute for that proof, but neither can a legal exemption substitute for a functioning hospital.

The UN’s June account linked fuel restrictions and tightened extraterritorial sanctions to harm affecting vulnerable Cubans, citing pressure on maternal health services and obstacles involving traders, insurers, shippers and banks. A medicine theoretically available for export remains practically inaccessible when payment, transport or hospital electricity fails.

Will you request independently checked records of procurement refusals, banking blocks and interrupted maternity services? Will you ask Washington to demonstrate usable humanitarian payment and shipping channels, rather than merely invoke their legality? The test is whether essential care reaches mothers and babies reliably—not whether either government can issue a polished statement while leaving the practical bottleneck untouched.

3. Will you scrutinise Havana’s contribution to infant mortality as rigorously as Washington’s, without allowing either government to hide behind the other?

Rising infant mortality can have multiple causes. A credible inquiry must examine domestic healthcare management, resource allocation, maternal nutrition, staffing, infrastructure and data quality alongside external sanctions. Separating timing from causation also requires estimating what mortality would likely have been absent those sanctions, rather than manufacturing a precise death toll from incomplete aggregate statistics.

Nevertheless, shared responsibility is still responsibility. If domestic failures create vulnerability and external restrictions aggravate it, neither contribution cancels the other.

Will Jamaica support independent access to maternity facilities, anonymised clinical records and procurement evidence? Will you press Havana for transparency while pressing Washington to remove verified humanitarian obstacles? Babies deserve neither selective anti-Americanism nor selective indulgence towards American power; they deserve consistent scrutiny of every preventable threat to their survival.

4. What immediate, measurable action will Jamaica pursue while the extent of responsibility is being established?

   
   

The UN General Assembly again voted to end the embargo in October 2026 amid warnings over healthcare disruption. That political judgement matters, but a vote is not a clinical study, and international condemnation cannot quantify infant deaths attributable to American measures.

Your obligation is to explain what Jamaica will do with credible warning signs before uncertainty becomes an excuse for paralysis. Publish the humanitarian changes Jamaica seeks, the diplomatic representations it makes and the metrics by which progress will be judged—prioritising reliable access to medicines, nutrition, fuel and neonatal care.

The defensible conclusion is narrower than the accusation yet urgent: UN reporting supports serious concern that American restrictions endanger Cuban infants, even if current evidence does not prove they do so “markedly.” That distinction strengthens the case for scrutiny. Will you pursue protection now, demand verification openly and revise your position as the evidence warrants?

Dennis A. Minott, PhD, is a Jamaican physicist, energy, and policy analyst, educator, and public commentator based in Port Antonio, Portland. A longtime advocate for Caribbean self-determination and evidence-based governance, he writes frequently on regional diplomacy, science, empathy-training (CEL), and economic equity.