Once could be chance. Twice might be coincidence. Thrice, however, seems a lot like a campaign. It was extraordinary for three high-level meetings between United States administration and Caribbean Community officials to take place in the space of only two months.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s visit to Bridgetown last week for a meeting of Caricom foreign ministers was the latest in the series. It came only a fortnight after US Attorney General Eric Holder’s one-day dialogue with Caricom ministers of national security in Washington DC. That meeting took place six weeks after US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates had gone to Barbados to confer with the seven prime ministers of the Regional Security System member states.
All three US officials claimed that their respective meetings had the same mission – promoting US President Barack Obama’s ‘Caribbean Basin Security Initiative’ that was announced at the Fifth Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago last year. But there must have been other urgent motives for the spate of hasty, high-level meetings.
US administration officials said that they were alarmed by the surge in narcotics-related violence in the Caribbean and wanted to help states to combat drug-traffickers and gun-runners. Mrs Clinton told the Bridgetown meeting that “addressing transnational security challenges in the twenty-first century requires a comprehensive approach. CBSI means working together, not only to strengthen national security forces and anti-trafficking efforts, but also focusing on broader citizen safety partnerships and social inclusion.”
She is correct. There is no doubt that narco-trafficking has imported violent crime into the region and it would be wise for Caribbean mini-states to collaborate with the world’s superpower. The recent security crisis in Jamaica surrounding the attempt to extradite the smuggler Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke was certainly an extreme case of drug-related criminal violence. Worse, it exposed the possible involvement of senior members of the Jamaica Labour Party administration in protecting, or providing succour to, criminals.
The notorious Guyanese drug-smuggler Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan’s trial uncovered evidence that at least one senior member of the People’s Progressive Party administration was allegedly involved in the acquisition of electronic eavesdropping equipment which came into the hands of the drug-smuggler to target his victims.
The results of Suriname’s 25 May elections were another cause for concern. The polls will almost certainly bring to power the National Democratic Party-led Mega Combinatie and the A-Combinatie. Both leaders – Desi Bouterse and Ronnie Brunswijk – have been convicted by courts in the Netherlands for drug-smuggling.
The US must be concerned that governments of Caricom states can come under the control of parties which are complicit in, or which are not fully committed to, combating the narcotics trade. The US must be concerned also about curbing the influence of Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez and containing his Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas. Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo’s grumbling about US policies and Suriname’s Colonel Desi Bouterse’s anti-American mutterings over the years must have added to US concerns about the policies of these two Caribbean Community states.
Mrs Clinton’s fleeting meeting with Caribbean foreign ministers produced yet another document – The Commitment of Bridgetown: Partnership for Prosperity and Security. Caricom already has oodles of documents and it already has its own security plans. These are embodied especially in its 2006 Treaty on Security Assistance among CARICOM Member States and its Regional Framework for the Management of Crime and Security.
Given Caricom’s needs, the US administration could expend its time, visits and money more gainfully in helping the Caribbean Community to strengthen its existing security superstructure instead of inventing fresh ill-funded initiatives.
