In our editorial last week on ‘The OAS in the hemisphere,’ we observed that our Caricom states, in attending the Mexico conference that established the new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CALC), had given little notice beforehand that they were committed to this Mexican initiative. In the aftermath of the announcement, some Caricom governments, and in particular the head of government holding the chairmanship of our community, were quick to reassure us that the new institution was in no way to be seen as competitive with, or even intended to replace, the Organisation of American States. Rather, it was pointed out that this was not to be seen as in any way different from the situation of member states who had joined other Latin American groupings, for example UNASUR, or the Rio Group which is in fact supposed to be seen as a predecessor organization to the new community. And in similar fashion, it was argued, Caricom states’ adherence to CALC which excluded the United States and Canada was in no way to be seen as an indication or display of antagonism to that country.
Countries can have a variety of reasons for wanting to join, or not join, global or regional institutions. Indeed for a long time, Canada was unwilling to join the OAS, though no one accused successive governments of that country of being anti-US. But in our case, there does seem to be a latent sentiment in some circles that our governments have not really provided either a persuasive rationale for joining the CALC, or any assessment of the value of inter-American institutions which they have previously joined – for example SELA – or which they themselves took the initiative in creating, such as the Association of Caribbean States, ACS, which included the neighbouring hemispheric states of Mexico, Colombia and Venezuela.
We should have thought that before committing to CALC, those Caricom governments which attended the meeting which established it would have discussed the matter at least at the Caricom Council on Community and Foreign Relations, and publicly indicated to us what their intentions and reasonings were. Did Mexico circulate something to our governments reasonably well in advance? Did the Caricom Secretariat do an analysis of the benefits, not necessarily material in the short run, to be gained, and what we saw ourselves effectively contributing to the organization’s business?
It can of course be argued that the adherence of Caricom countries to hemispheric institutions is a logical progression in our coming to terms with our geographic locations, with the changing balance of power in the hemisphere, and with the need for fully pursuing the implications of notions of a wider-than-Caricom regional economic integration. No one would doubt that Guyana and Belize, in the logic of their locations, would subscribe to this thesis. And indeed some Caricom countries, and Caricom as an institution, would see both of these states as ‘point-men’ capable of more effectively advancing the positions of our sub-region from their diplomatic locations as physically part of the continent.
Belize has, for some time, been quite clear that she is part, and likely to become more so with time, of a dual integration process, perhaps the more important of which is likely to become its economic integration with Mexico and the Central American states. The not entirely successful Mexican initiative, the Plan Puebla-Panama or Meso-American Integration and Development Project, initiated by President Fox in 2001, has shown the way from the Mexican perspective. At the same time Belize governments will be aware, given the country’s demographics, that there is a cultural issue that binds it to the states of Caricom. On the other hand, however, the Central American states have been in no way hesitant to accept the United States offer of a Free Trade Area to which the Dominican Republic has adhered.
Guyana and Suriname are members of UNASUR, and Caricom readily accepts that Guyana in particular provides them with a de facto entrée into the perspectives and orientation of the larger states of the continent, which can only be useful to Caricom over the long term. And in that context the Brazilian initiative of South American infrastructural integration necessarily binds those two countries in that direction simultaneously with their commitment to Caricom. Further, Caricom states well understand that the now long-initiated Guyanese diplomacy of what we might refer to as diplomatic protection in the face of Venezuela’s territorial claim, is a geopolitical necessity for Guyana.
In the meantime, some of the smaller states of Caricom – the OECS – have individually taken initiatives to accept the latest Venezuelan aid and trade initiatives advanced by President Chávez. This has given rise to some concern at the wider Caricom level that some of these states have mortgaged an important diplomatic consideration by de facto conceding the claim of Venezuela to Bird Rock in the northeast Caribbean. But on the whole, Caricom as a grouping seems to wish to leave this particular issue in the shadows.
Venezuelan initiatives in the Eastern Caribbean have been prominent even during the short period of the OECS states as Associated States of the United Kingdom – Venezuela at that time seeming to be wanting to be quick off the mark in advance of what it perceived as an inevitable move by these entities to full sovereignty. The Venezuelan interest declined as the economic crisis and recession of the 1980s gripped the country, but taking the historical view OECS states largely see the present revival of Venezuelan initiatives as a continuation of a past which had seemed to be acceptable to a section of Caricom.
For in that context they recall the strong advocacy given in particular by Michael Manley’s Jamaica in the second half of the 1970s, for positioning ourselves in a new definition of Caribbean economic regionalism, and for establishing closer relations with the larger states of Latin America, in pursuit, then, of a New International Economic Order.
Today, of course, Caricom states will be fully cognizant of the reorientation of Cuba towards Latin American economic initiatives, and a concomitant interest of the Dominican Republic in Latin American integration, along with its adherence to the US-DR-CAFTA. When taken together with a strong European interest in the DR’s orientation towards a changing Caribbean, it might well serve Caricom to inform its citizens of whether these changing Cuban and DR orientations are also contributing to influencing its current commitment to a new wider diplomacy, for which Caricom sees the new CALC as a potentially viable vehicle.
On the other hand, should we in that context then be re-evaluating the present significance, and therefore usefulness of the Association of Caribbean States which we initiated? If we are part of a CALC, and Caricom countries physically bounded with the South American continent have their own special relationships, do we, in the context of a CALC, really now need an ACS?