Dear Editor,

The excellent article by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, published in The Nassau Guardian by permission of Caribbean News Now, highlights the uncertain economic results of desperate people who overturn dictators.

First, I would like to point out that of the countries that successfully negotiated compensation for lost assets with Cuba, you did not mention the United Kingdom. My father worked for the Fire Offices Committee in London, a representative committee of all British Insurance Companies, whose main mandate was to negotiate insurance treaties with every country that the British insurance companies did business with. For example, British insurers insured many of the German factories decimated by Word War II.

In the case of Cuba, the British insurances companies, which held significant assets in Cuba that were nationalized, negotiated compensation that included a trade deal to supply Cuba with British built Leyland Double Decker buses. No details of the agreement were made public, but sense dictated that a deal on trade benefited both parties.

Politicians like to play the power game, but often ignore the long-term benefits of good relationships. The U.S.A. has many tremendous assets such as have become commonplace in the U.S.A. and in China and worldwide in the form of cyber technology, cell phones, TV, and computers, and have the expertise to sell and service them. So they need to make such trade a part of any deal with Cuba, who will certainly be negotiating with China to supply them and build hospitals and agricultural universities, for China and Cuba's benefit.

The world is forecasting a world shortage of food. Cuba has immense potential as an exporter of food products and other natural resources. The time has come to be reasonable and diplomatic and above all to avoid a trade war with China.

The human rights infringements by Cuba have been well documented. But I question whether China has any better record. As a visitor to Cuba some eight years ago, I was impressed with the relative good health of the population, the system of providing basic food items at a nominal cost to local people and no signs of vagrancy or begging on the streets. A happy people, whose main complaint was that they were not allowed to voice complaints; a well-disciplined society, where the police carried a screw driver in the holster, not a gun. The screw driver was needed to remove the car licence plate if it was parked in a no parking area.

In China even the lawyers are being jailed for opposing the present regime, or for defending clients who have suffered injustice.

In the case of Cuba and the overthrow of Batista by the revolutionary movement headed by Fidel Castro, the population found themselves ruled by a so-called socialist or communist dictator, who struggled to find an economic system to support the population even through he nationalized all the foreign-owned assets.

Zimbabwe is another example of a dictator, Mugabe, now aged over 92, holding on to power whilst the thriving agricultural economy fell into a non-productive disaster as a result of the nationalization of farms and the expulsion of the white farm managers, many of whom were born in Zimbabwe. Was any compensation paid to the farm owners or did Great Britain make any attempt to negotiate or recompense these farmers?

Syria is another example. Has the action of the U.S.A. and Great Britain and other members of the European Union brought any economic benefits to the population of Syria? That is the case of a civil war, and an invasion by ISIS and other terrorist organizations linked to religious beliefs that make women into slaves, and have been part of the Third World War now going on. There is a maxim that the best form of government is a benevolent dictator; maybe like the Pope, or Mahatma Gandhi in India.

Cromwell in Great Britain was forced to lead a civil war against King Charles because he refused to negotiate or allow free elections. The last straw was when Charles started to bring in foreign troops to fight for his cause. When this failed he was tried before a special court and condemned to die on the scaffold as a murderer who dared to kill his own people.

History has many lessons to teach us today about democracy. The nature of democracy needs to be re-examined.

The history of the 18th and 19th centuries devolved through diplomatic negotiations behind closed doors, and resulted in numerous treaties with the objectives of keeping nations at peace. Once the treaty which guaranteed Belgium from invasion was broken, the Second World War commenced as the guarantors had guaranteed to defend Belgium against Hitler's Nazi invasion of her territory.

In the last 65 years, the U.S.A. and others have used their superior power to oppose dictators who opposed any form of democratic government. Invited in by those in the respective countries who claimed to represent the majority of the downtrodden population, and because the dictators brought in foreign troops from Russia and other communist countries, and for other economic reasons like the control of natural resources like oil and gas, the wars in Korea, Syria, Afghanistan, Liberia and Libya have all resulted in immense economic losses to the majority of the population; and untold deaths of civilians, for which no compensation is ever paid.

Congratulations to you for publishing your article, and  I hope these further comments will contribute to the debate.

- Anthony Howorth

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