Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), Edwin Carrington, has expressed deep regret at the death of Oliver Jackman who served his home country Barbados, the Caribbean region and the international community as journalist, diplomat and jurist. He passed away recently at age 76.
Carrington in his message of condolence said that this “unique gentleman and scholar has served his country, the region and indeed the wider world with distinction and is a tremendous loss at a time when such experience and wisdom are surely needed in this Caribbean Community.”
The secretary-general traced Jackman’s career from when he made his mark in the sphere of broadcast journalism and created one of his many firsts by becoming the first Chief Information Officer of Barbados. He later established his regional credentials when he became Deputy Federal Information Officer of the Federal Government of the West Indies in Port-of-Spain, from 1959 to 1961.
He then embarked on an international career with the United Nations system, particularly in Africa, but returned to his country’s service on the attainment of Independence as one of its first batch of diplomats, serving first at UN Headquarters then rising to become head of the Foreign Service. Jackman also served at different times as Ambassador to Canada, Cuba, Haiti, the United States and Permanent Representative to the Organisation of American States and European Community.
“It was in this last posting that I had the great and memorable pleasure of working with him during my service at the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Secretariat in Brussels,” Carrington said. In 1995 he was elected for a six-year term as a judge of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. He has also served as a member of Haiti’s Truth and Justice Commission and more recently as a member of the Barbados Social Justice Commission and the Barbados Constitution Review Commission.
