Hospital Jamaica Needs Sharper Scalpels, Doctor Holness!

By Dennis A. Minott, PhD

November 8, 2026

The operation that removed Jamaica’s backbone (Source: AI-Generated Image Commissioned by DAM)

Hospital Jamaica has developed a peculiar complaint. Its Government can locate the national interest during speeches, but whenever Washington enters the consulting room, the diplomatic backbone becomes difficult to find. Nurse, check beneath the ceremonial sash. If necessary, order an ultrasound of the conscience.

On 28 October 2026, the United Nations General Assembly voted 130 to seventeen, with twenty-five abstentions, to demand an end to the American embargo against Cuba. Jamaica abstained. Apparently, when the patient is suffering, one innovative treatment is to withhold support for removing a recognised source of distress.

Let us examine the entire Caribbean ward before anyone accuses this columnist of operating with a rusty party-political spoon.

The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname voted for the resolution. Seven governments retained sufficient muscular control to press the appropriate button. Their example establishes that Caribbean geography does not automatically cause paralysis.

Trinidad and Tobago voted against. Jamaica, Guyana and Haiti abstained. Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Lucia recorded no vote. Montserrat, CARICOM’s fifteenth member, has no separate UN membership or General Assembly vote. Please do not prescribe blame to a patient who possesses no voting finger. Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana

Nor should non-participation be falsely reported as an abstention. The three absent delegations owe their publics explanations; absence alone proves neither a secret bargain nor its motive. Nevertheless, solidarity that disappears precisely when the roll is called requires more than a reassuring bedside manner.

This fracture also predates October. In May, CARICOM’s foreign ministers condemned obstruction of Cuba’s fuel supplies and affirmed its sovereign right to receive fuel. Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago expressly reserved their positions. The regional chart already showed warning signs. Nobody should now pretend that every monitor suddenly malfunctioned together. CARICOM

Barbados and Belize subsequently addressed the UN jointly, demanding practical humanitarian access and warning that assistance could not replace ending the embargo. Here were two governments capable of distinguishing a dressing from a cure. Humanitarian parcels matter; removing obstacles to ordinary economic life matters too. UN Transcripts

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar defended Trinidad and Tobago’s contrary vote through appeals to democracy, freedom and opposition to Cuban repression. Those are legitimate concerns. But, Madam Prime Minister, explain the clinical connection: how does opposing an end to economic restrictions deliver freer elections? Does the ballot box emerge when the refrigerator stops working? Caribbean Times

Condemn censorship. Demand political freedoms. Scrutinise Havana’s economic failures. None requires prescribing external hardship for ordinary Cubans. A government can oppose repression and oppose the embargo simultaneously. Caribbean leaders surely possess enough intellectual fingers to hold two principles without dropping either into Rubio’s Washington lap.

Now to Jamaica’s operating theatre.

Foreign Minister Kamina Johnson Smith argued that repeated resolutions had failed to improve conditions, that Cuba needed domestic reform and international integration, and that the text omitted this broader context. Jamaica opposed unilateral measures but withheld its affirmative vote. Jamaica Information Service

An extraordinary consultation! The medicine has not worked because the authority administering the restriction refuses to stop; therefore, the neighbouring physician becomes less willing to demand its removal. By that reasoning, a stubborn infection should be rewarded with a quieter laboratory.

The Government’s parliamentary motion the previous day supported dialogue, reform and reducing economic restrictions. Fine. Where is the demonstrated incompatibility between those objectives and voting to end the embargo? A resolution need not contain the complete medical textbook before a doctor recognises an obstructed airway.

Information Minister Dana Morris Dixon denied American pressure. That denial belongs in the record. I allege no purchased vote, undisclosed payment or proven bargain. The public conduct supplies sufficient material without inventing a stuffed suitcase containing rolled-up bundles of elastic cheques covertly placed beneath the operating table. Jamaica Gleaner

But sovereignty is not established merely by announcing that a decision was sovereign. Ministers must explain its purpose, evidence and expected benefit. What changed? What diplomatic initiative followed? How will abstention improve access to food, energy, medicine or finance? Kindly produce the treatment plan.

A press conference can announce a change; it cannot, by itself, establish that the new destination serves either Jamaica’s people or our suffering neighbours in Cuba.

Our smaller states need rules restraining larger powers. Weakening that principle because the affected neighbour has objectionable domestic policies is remarkably hazardous preventive medicine. Today Cuba lies on the trolley. Tomorrow, whose disobedience will justify another economic tourniquet?

Dr Holness, Hospital Jamaica needs sharper scalpels: instruments capable of separating national interest from diplomatic convenience, compassion from performance, and principled independence from beautifully upholstered submission.

The Cuban people are human beings, not laboratory animals for competing ideologies. Their government must answer for its failures; Washington must answer for its restrictions; CARICOM governments must answer for their choices.

And Jamaican citizens must insist on examining the chart before applauding the surgeon.

Emeritus Physician to Jamaica Patterson, beg yuh keep on keeping their consciences awake. We cannot afford another successful operation in which the backbone disappears.