The earthquake in Haiti and its aftermath, coming not too long before the country’s anticipated assumption of the chairmanship of the Caribbean Community, has thrown into clear relief the changing dimensions of the country’s relationships with her Caricom and hemispheric neighbours. The country’s joining of Caricom, after many long years of knocking at the door (her initial application was made in 1974), had indicated a new understanding on the part of the existing members of the community, that the exclusiveness of the anglophone founding group would have to give way to changing geopolitical realities. And now, the earthquake has sharply brought home to us that the extra-Caricom Caribbean neighbourhood, has as keen an interest as we have in the evolution of that country, even as Haiti has declared its decision to proceed to an even closer relationship with us as a participant in the emerging Caribbean Single Market and Economy.

In the past, particularly during the long period of the Duvalier dictatorships, we have tended to define Haiti in terms of its isolation from us. The West Indian Commission in its report Time for Action sought to grapple with the implicit issue of a now pressing need to define Haiti’s relationship to us. It advised that while full membership of the community was not practicable at that time (1992), an appropriate course would be to take cognizance of the changing ambitions of the non English-speaking states in the Caribbean Sea, including not simply Haiti, but the Dominican Republic and Suriname. The commission’s conclusion was that those countries should have a particular relationship, but should also be placed within a new institutional category, a proposed Association of Caribbean States (ACS) that would also include our neighbouring, Caribbean Sea-bordering, states of Venezuela and Colombia, as well as Cuba.

This proposal, accepted as a solution to the issue of finding new institutional post-colonial linkages to our neighbours, including those Latin American or hemispheric ones, did not seem to have resolved the matter, at least in relation to our Caribbean island neighbours, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. But then, a more aggressive Dominican Republic forced the issue in another way, by using the opportunity of the then European Community’s decision, in the second half of the 1980s, to change its relationship to the ACP partnership, by having itself included in what came to be called the Caribbean Forum. This was a first hint to us that not only were the Dominican Republic and Haiti dissatisfied with their then existing relationship with us, but that the DR in particular was prepared to use the European Union to force the issue of the appropriateness of the relationship(s) among the Caribbean island states in the post-colonial era. Since then, Caricom has felt, not always comfortably, this external pressure or urging to come to terms with ex-colonialists’ perceptions of its regional arrangements, but also with their need to have the post-Economic Partnership Agreement ACP relationships changed.

In anticipation of these changes, and our own elevation of our integration system into a CSME, the acceptance of Haiti into Caricom has provided us with an opportunity for a more visible indication of what we consider the privileged relationships among members of the community, by establishing a physical presence in Haiti (an office of the Caricom Representative). This was, ostensibly, to facilitate practical participation in the CSME, but no doubt also to indicate to the rest of the Caribbean neighbourhood and interested countries of the hemisphere, the sense that we do in fact assert a privileged relationship with the first Caribbean independent state (and in that way differentiating it from the Dominican Repbulic).

Yet, with the onset of the earthquake, an early sense of disappointment with the effectiveness of our presence in the country has arisen. Taking into account that the Caricom representative, Mr Earl Huntley, was out of the country on vacation when the quake occurred, and the inevitable disruption that would have been caused to the office’s effective functioning even if he were there, there has nevertheless arisen a sense of disappointment in the community with the way in which Caricom states have coordinated, or rather in this case not adequately coordinated, their approach to the disaster.

This has not been helped by what appears to have been a difficulty in Caricom’s representatives getting immediate access to Haiti, a situation suggesting inadequate preparatory consultation with other states, in particular the United States. But there also seems to have been a desire on the part of Jamaica (indeed the Caricom state with the closest relationships with Haiti) to have shown itself to be first off the mark, though in its present economic state it was not adequately equipped to do so. Following intra-Caricom consultations the various contentions, conducted  in public, seem to have been resolved, as suggested in the Caricom Secretariat communiqué following the visit of a Caricom delegation to Haiti earlier this month that included the community’s newly-appointed Special Representative to Haiti, former Jamaica Prime P J Patterson. But all in all, Caricom’s appearance on the post-earthquake scene will not have given a positive impression.

It would seem to us that since the overthrow of President Aristide, and our disappointment with the actions of other players including the United States, the community has not spent enough time assessing what the possibilities and limits of Caricom intervention, or diplomatic intermediation, in matters relating to the evolution of Haiti might be. The 2004 virtual expulsion of Aristide from Haiti, no doubt master-minded by the United States, but acquiesced in by Canada (with its huge Haitian diaspora and Haitian-originating Governor General), and then accepted, under OAS’s aegis, by Latin America’s largest country and neighbour of Guyana and Suriname, Brazil, itself led to discord within the community, with some states wanting to boycott the newly-established regime in the country, and others not. But this very turn of events should have induced us to begin to rethink our approach to Haiti’s evolution, and to begin from there, to establish close and continuing diplomatic discussion with, in particular, Canada and Brazil.

In other words we should not have felt any sense of loss of diplomatic autonomy, or constraint on our capacity for sovereign decision-making by seeking to integrate our diplomatic and practical policy approaches concerning Haiti, quite closely with theirs. The reason for this is not difficult to discern. The fact of the matter is that the extent of assistance which Haiti will require (a recent brief by the UNCTAD has indicated it) and the complexity of arranging it, will make it far too difficult for Caricom to come to terms with a networking among interested states, if it is institutionally outside the network. This is necessary if we are to ensure, as some degree of normalcy – and particularly normalcy in domestic decision-making capacity – comes to Haiti, that our Caricom priority of ensuring a positive process of adjustment to and participation in our projected Caricom Single Market and Economy is sustained. This may seem distant to us at this time. But it is well to remind ourselves that the Haitian market, in its normal functioning, would be a substantial entity.

Finally, in seeking to participate in the wider geographical and institutional formulations in which assistance to Haiti will be embedded, we also need to remind ourselves of five other things. The first is that as the wider hemisphere itself evolves, the interest of Canada, a Commonwealth country which has facilitated Caricom diplomatic initiatives in the past will, in the future, play an increasing role in wider Caribbean affairs. The second is, that Brazil, a Latin American country with physical borders with Caricom, has shown, particularly since 2004, a deepening interest in the Caribbean. President Lula has been steadfast in supporting the MINUSTAH presence in Haiti, in spite of criticism from a variety of quarters. And add to this his country’s interest in ‘the Guyanas,’ and France’s continuing interest in its South American presence. Thirdly that France and the European Community have been asserting new interests in the hemisphere, in which both Haiti and the Dominican Republic will feature. Fourthly, the Dominican Republic, Haiti’s co-inhabitant of Hispaniola, has utilized the current situation to elevate its diplomacy in the wider Caribbean, and to assert, to the larger hemispheric states and the EU, its centrality to the evolution of the Haitian issue and thus to Caribbean emerging relations. And finally, but by no means least, Caricom needs to take notice of the deeply practical contribution which Cuba has made to the post-earthquake efforts – a contribution based on its now-long established humanitarian assistance to Haiti, and therefore on a degree of experience of the practicalities of Haitian development which none of our countries have acquired up to this date.

Caricom needs to start thinking of, and relating its practical diplomacy to, these five factors and countries to which we have alluded. We need to start thinking of them as our wider Caribbean neighbours without whom a close and meaningful set of relationships of Caribbean integration and cooperation are unlikely to evolve.