All over the Caricom region, as reflected in media commentaries, discussion continues on the retirement of Secretary General Edwin Carrington, on the attributes which a successor should have, on the mode of choosing that successor, and on the role which a secretary general can effectively play in managing and moving along the integration movement. The discussion has proceeded on the basis of some degree of disappointment with the pace of integration over the last few years, and on the degree of responsibility of a secretary general for that. In that discussion, a general assumption would seem to be that the Secretary General could have done much better than in fact he has, with a periodic allusion to those who have the ultimate responsibility for seeking to advance the movement, the heads of government. So the discussion has focused on the abilities of a potential secretary general.
As the discussion proceeds, however, (and we believe that it should continue), it is worth recalling that the present feeling of disappointment over the pace and depth of integration, has precedents. A particular one of present relevance is the perception and discussion about our movement during the long hiatus – 1975 to 1982 – between Caricom Heads of Government meetings. At that time, of course, following the fanfare meetings of 1973 and 1974 which established the Treaty of Chaguaramas and its immediate policy agenda, Trinidad’s Dr Eric Williams ceased to indicate any willingness to attend heads’ meetings, and a general presumption seems to have been that it was not worthwhile having such meetings without the presence of Trinidad & Tobago. Another presumption would certainly have been that, whatever the capabilities of the technocratic leadership of the Caricom Secretariat, unless a reasonable consensus over policy prevailed among the heads of government, including what we might refer to as heads of ‘significant states,’ then it could not be anticipated that much progress would be made.
Dr Eric Williams’ grouse about Caricom at that time was what he considered to be a significant ideological gap emerging among the Caricom leadership, as reflected in the socialist thinking of Michael Manley and Forbes Burnham, after he, Williams, had tried to steer a distinctive “third way” for a Caribbean region of distinctive characteristics. Williams consequently took umbrage at a policy difference which emerged from this ideological distancing, specifically not just the alliances which Manley and Burnham sought to establish with the socialist world, but more particularly the inclination of Manley to give preference to a wider conception of “the Caribbean” which would encompass the neighbouring mainland states of South-Central America, including in particular Venezuela and Mexico. These latter states were also under socialist leadership. But the practical distinction which emanated from the Manley view was the decision to establish an alumina smelter complex, Javamex, which Williams saw as essentially superseding his own plan for a similar complex that would utilize the resources specifically of Caricom states, namely, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica and Guyana.
Williams saw the Manley-Burnham orientation as essentially deviating from what he considered to be the proper structural base (the resources of Caricom states) for Caricom economic integration and industrial growth, and he therefore desisted from interaction with his Caricom colleagues. And it is worth noting, from the perspective of today’s discussions, that it is this period of ideological dissonance and disagreement that saw the disappointingly short-lived, tenures of the distinguished academic and policy adviser, Alister McIntyre, as Caricom Secretary General, and his successor Dr Kurleigh King. Some observers surmised at the time that McIntyre’s voluntary ending of his tenure was due to a perception that dissonance between the heads effectively crippled the ability of a Secretary General and his Secretariat to function, at least in the areas where it was felt that significant progress was urgent.
The increasing difficulties in the main economies of the region – Jamaica, Guyana, and then Trinidad and Tobago, during the second half of the 1970s into the decade of the 1990s led, in effect, to a resumption of consensus on broad economic policy among the Caricom leadership (including Trinidad now under George Chambers), as indicated in the Nassau Declaration on Structural Adjustment, which recognized the need for a change of direction that would emphasise global competitiveness, based on the IMF precepts of structural adjustment as the prerequisite for viable economic growth in a liberalizing global economy. This consensus led to the decision, essentially mediated by the diplomacy of William Demas and Sir Shridath Ramphal, that created the transition from Common Market to Single Market and Economy – the Grande Anse Declaration of 1989, followed by the 1992 decisions that Edwin Carrington inherited as the new Secretary General of Caricom. It would come as no surprise then, that on the basis of this political leadership consensus, the Secretariat judiciously completed the necessary work towards the signature of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas establishing the CSME in 2001. And it would not be surprising either, that in his resignation statement, Carrington speaks proudly of the CSME as one of the region’s successes under his particular watch.
But it might, in retrospect, be posited that the leadership consensus that emerged in the latter years of the 1980s into the 1990s was only what we might call a ‘half-consensus.’ For the sanctification of the new policy, provided in the West Indian Commission Report of Sir Shridath and others, giving approval to the economic direction and certain geopolitical directions, also, as is now well known, provided proposals for a revised institutional or governance structure, thought appropriate to the creation and sustenance of a CSME. We should note that Sir Shridath’s report also provided an institutional solution, and consequently a consensus among the heads, intended to recognize and legitimise the potential salience of Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico in Caricom affairs – the Association of Caribbean States (ACS). This was important for sealing the ideological breach of 1975 between Williams and the others on the role of those countries to which we have referred.
It is, however, the West Indian Commission’s recommendations on institutional structure that have not found favour with the heads, leading to a new dissonance among them on the governance mechanisms that should guide the development of the Single Market and Economy, and the integration of our countries’ economies into the emerging global economic structures. Hence the scene of meeting after meeting, and subsequent report after report, on the so-called governance structure of Caricom, with no result. If the truth be told, the contentions on immigration, induced in recent times largely by the accession of Mr David Thompson’s Democratic Labour Government to office in Barbados, pale into insignificance in that context. For they involve fine-tuning of procedures for which there is much precedent.
The dispute over governance is held, openly or secretly, to revolve around the issue of sovereignty. But knowledgeable West Indians, seeing before their very eyes the evolution of the sovereign states of the European Union into a single economy with a governance structure that blends the decision-making of the European Commis-sion (their Caricom Secretariat) with that of the European Council (the heads of government), must surely be unwilling to give the leaders’ procrastinations much credibility.
So the real issue is the necessity for the emergence, once again, of a credible consensus among the heads on the existing main issue in contention, not the capabilities of a technocratic leadership to implement decisions. Our region is full of competent technocrats, whether from the public service, academia (yes academia, contrary to the view of some regional editorialists) and an increasingly sophisticated regional business sector.
We shall, hopefully, have gotten an indication by the time this editorial appears, of the results of yesterday’s meeting of a limited group of heads, scheduled for Grenada, of their ability to come to terms with their – not Carrington or the Secretariat’s – specific historical responsibilities for our regional process. Physician, heal thyself.