The original Treaty of Chaguaramas which established Caricom in 1973 carefully provided no machinery for exercising central powers of implementation. Since then heads of government have steadfastly made sure that this should not change. Bold initiatives expanding the original objectives of Caricom, shining words expressing visionary goals of togetherness, ringing declarations of unity and brotherhood, solemn promises, hand on heart, of wide-ranging decisive steps towards integration – all these have issued in an unending flow of splendid rhetoric year after year, Declaration after Declaration, Summit after Summit, Protocol after Protocol. But action’s cutting edge has always been lacking.
It isn’t that nothing has been done. The bureaucracy functions very well. As the West Indian Commission pointed out as long as 1992:
“A balance sheet could no doubt be drawn up recording in terms of the Treaty a hundred technical successes, a hundred limited objectives achieved, a hundred administrative battles won, a hundred shopping list items ticked. And it is important that such a balance sheet exists and continues steadily to be supplemented on the credit side. It is important that the work has continued to be done, that the treaty has been treated seriously and every effort made to ensure that its objective are kept in focus whatever the delays and frustrations, that horses continue to be tugged towards the water even if they cannot in the end be forced to drink.There is an underestimated success story of unremitting toil and dedicated service to be told in the continuing, decades-long, effort to achieve the listed goals of CARICOM.”
However, as the West Indian Commission also declared, that is not the vital point. This gradualist, bureaucratic approach simply would not match either the original promise of West Indian unity or the expectation of West Indians or the accelerating challenges of the modern world:
“…. in the end the people’s instinct has been right.In the sense of achieving an integration which deeply matters in their lives, which allows their children more ample prospects, which gives the lands in which they live greater stature and a safer niche in a world of turmoil, the real balance sheet, the true bottom line, shows us falling well short of potential.”
The way to fix the flaw in Caricom was seen as taking steps to introduce machinery by which issues would be extensively debated, agreed resolutions translated into action promptly and effectively, and policies and decisions made subject to common norms and central judicial authority. To this end the West Indian Commission proposed a new structuring of unity to be provided within a revised Treaty of Chaguaramas as follows:
● Conference of Heads of Government
● Council of Ministers
● Caricom Commission
● Caricom Assembly
● Caricom Charter of Civil Society
● Caricom Supreme Court
● Caricom Secretariat.
These were the elements which were to cohere together in a strengthened Caricom. However, it was recognized that they could not all be developed at once. A Caricom Charter of Civil Society with the aim of giving Caricom a framework of social justice and political freedom; a Caricom Supreme Court with appellate jurisdiction in domestic matters and an original jurisdiction in regional matters; a strengthened Caricom Assembly with appropriate arrangements for drawing in other social partners; a secretariat conforming to the new imperatives: together they constituted an agenda for far-reaching and systematic change. However, the foremost need was to start with the basic body – the Caricom Commission. With such a commission in place, continually mobilising and effectively implementing Caricom’s collective will, West Indian leaders could begin together to deal systematically with the report’s other recommendations and with the extensive programme of change, like the Single Market and Economy, already agreed.
However, our leaders have time and time again abjectly flinched. They have opted for extreme caution and the careful preservation of their own insular sovereignties. They decided to seek greater community decisiveness through a Bureau of Heads and now, I think it is, a Council of Ambassadors. Such schemes will not stand a moment’s scrutiny. There is no way that men busy 25 hours a day with immense problems in their own domains are going to be able to galvanise Caricom into greater unity and effectiveness.
If we are serious about integration, we have at least to be certain that there are West Indians of outstanding political experience charged specifically with the task and endowed with the authority – I repeat, endowed with the authority – to make integration work. And they have to be engaged upon that task exclusively: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That was the idea of the Caricom Commission. It is an idea that appears to have been abandoned in favour of more of the same in the form of high-sounding and bound-to-be-ineffectual bureaus of one sort or another.
I fear Caricom is headed for complete stagnation and fatal drift as each constituent part responds separately to the rapidly growing challenges which face us – unless perhaps, just perhaps, a dynamic, preferably young, innovative, imaginative, risk-taking new Secretary-General possessing immense executive skills, negotiating capacity and utter dedication can kick-start a renewed drive to salvage a West Indian nation from the leaden forces of inertia and disintegration. And where, Ian, is such paragon to be found? I can only reply – “Cometh the hour, cometh the man.” For sure the hour has arrived.
