A series of meetings of ministerial and heads of government is being held in the region at both the Caricom and OECS levels at this time, in preparation for their usual more formal and scheduled mid-year meetings. The heads have found themselves meeting more frequently this year, as the financial and economic meltdowns in the United States and Europe have descended. They are aware too, that the financial breakdowns by major conglomerates like CLICO and the Stanford Group have given many of our citizens in both the OECS and Caricom a deep sense of imminent threat to the livelihoods of their citizens.
But as we meander our way through these events, there is obviously an underlying sense in the words and minds of both the regional technocrats and heads of government of our states, of uncertainties in our region which do not have their sources mainly in the wider international shake-up. Caricom Secretary General Carrington, addressing the recent meeting of the Council for Trade and Economic Development (COTED) last week, noted the current global financial and economic crisis. And he also observed that there have been “forces of globalization and free trade over the past two and a half decades” that “have wrought havoc on small vulnerable developing economies such as ours in the Caribbean Community.”
But he also chose to remind the meeting that he “could not help noticing that a number of the issues thereon have been on the Agenda of the COTED from many years.” And while observing that it was “certainly time that such issues be resolved,” the Secretary-General advised the meeting (surely not for the first time), that “the need for firm decision-making and robust implementation measures is paramount.”
Those who have heard all these words before would be tempted to shout not “hooray,” but “so what else is new”? Thirteen years after the heads of government welcomed the West Indian Commission Report, Time for Action, but rejected its recommendations for timely implementation of decisions, some might find it surprising that such a call would have to be made again. Particularly after the Caricom Secretariat itself was mandated in July 2007, following a heads’ review of the ‘Report of the Technical Working Group on Governance’ appointed by themselves, to proceed to provide them with appropriate guidelines for making the implementation of decisions of the institution more efficient.
Do the citizens of the region feel persuaded nowadays of the words of their leaders when they speak of their intentions for Caricom? Only two or so years ago, Prime Minister Golding of Jamaica certainly demoralized many non-Jamaican Caricom states’ citizens when he suggested that while he was agreeable to Jamaica implementing the Caricom Single Market, when it came to implementing the ‘E’ in the agreed Caricom Single Market and Economy, a Government of Jamaica would have difficulty if that process affected the sovereignty of Jamaica. Did Mr Golding not remember that it was in deference to a previous Jamaican Government’s sensitivities that in the process of obtaining consensus on a CSME, it was agreed in 2003 that Caricom would be understood to be a ‘Community of Sovereign States’?
But now, at the recent COTED meeting the Prime Minister’s advice seems different, and is worth quoting at length: “If ever there was a time when we need the sense and the strength of Community, it is now. If ever there was a time when we need to resist the latent instinct that resides inside everyone of us in the Caribbean, that sometimes when we face trauma we can’t resist thinking that we perhaps would stand a better of chance of making it if we break from the pack and try to go it alone – we have to resist that. As tedious sometimes as Caribbean consultation and Caribbean action is, we are going to have to band together in a way that perhaps [we] have never felt was necessary before.” Are these just words, induced by the severity of the global crisis and its impending impact on us? Or should the Government of Jamaica not now take the lead in proposing that the secretariat come forward with the proposals requested by governments for more effective implementation?
The question is urgent because there are indications that other countries are getting restless about the promise of the CSME. Only last week, the Prime Minister of St Vincent queried whether a CSME can proceed with progress only in trade and financial investments without the proper observation of the complementary rules proposed on movement of persons in that very CSME. And certainly others are entitled to ask whether, in the spirit of Caricom and its regime of freedom of movement, Caricom states as a whole were not entitled to be consulted by the Government of Barbados to elicit their sensitivities before that country’s new regime came into operation. Would the European governments seek to amend the Schengen Agreement on movement of persons without some form of prior consultation? And is it useful to cynically suggest when such questions are asked, that in effect we are not as sophisticated as the Europeans? Or to hide behind the old figleaf that ‘our political culture’ is different from theirs, and therefore we have to find another way?
Way back in 1974, virtually on the morrow of its founding, both Haiti and the Dominican Republic made requests to join the Caricom Community. We found fancy words to resist this request of the DR in particular – like, it was necessary “to deepen before widening.” Below that surface was also the notion that ‘our political culture’ was different from theirs. Within the last fortnight, thirty-five years later, we understand that the Ministers of the Caricom Council for Foreign and community Relations (COFCOR) agreed (the communiqué does not explicitly say so) that the DR should participate in its meetings; and that “the COFCOR acknowledged the re-submission by the Dominican Republic of its application for membership to CARICOM and noted that the matter would be considered further at the upcoming meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government”. This, we suspect is diplomaticspeak for indicating that the DR will be formally invited to negotiate the basis for its admission to Caricom.
We know, of course, that the DR has been involved in the last decade or so, in vigorously participating in the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations, in gaining adherence to the US-DR-CAFTA agreement, in deepening its economic relationships with Europe generally, and in seeking to give itself more visibility in both Latin American relations and in relations with the emerging states of Asia. As such, it is certainly giving itself an increasing diplomatic presence in the wider Caribbean, no doubt also anticipating the point at which Cuba, her close neighbour, becomes a more formidable presence in all these circles.
We would hope, if this interpretation is right, that when such a decision is taken, our heads of government will take the time to explain in some detail the reasons for The DR’s accession at this time, why it would be beneficial to the community, and the circumstances which have induced them to come to their conclusions.
Last week the Governor of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank made some interesting remarks about the state of regional relations. In these he chose to suggest (shall we say boast?) that, “In this region, the OECS countries have seen the most consolidation when it comes to the resolution of problems”; and that “in the broader Caricom, I don’t think they have that feel, in a sense for what true integration means.”
Taking those observations together with the initiative which Prime Minister Manning and other Eastern Caribbean leaders recently launched, we feel the need for heads to devote themselves either when they meet in Trinidad on Sunday, or in July, for some straight talking on where they think they are, and what they think they need to tell us about where they think our region is.
The road to beneficial integration may be long. But surely we need to know from time to time, where in this pilgrimage we are, where our leaders now think we should be going as the world changes around us, and how they really think all the present tremors are affecting the that CSME road chosen in 1992.
