Amidst a flurry of critical press and other comment on Caricom’s fortunes before their Inter-Sessional Meeting in Grenada on the 25th and 26th of last month, our heads of government have once again said relatively nothing about the critical issues which concern the progress of regional integration in our area. They have postponed the issue of a choice of a new Secretary General, confirming criticism of the method of setting up a large, and most likely unwieldly, Search Committee. The committee, apparently not having searched, seems to have simply rejected the applications of those who have offered their names for consideration.
The heads also postponed any conclusive discussion on the long-standing issue of the nature of necessary governance arrangements for the Caricom system – next year marking twenty years since their initial deliberations on, and rejection of, the Ramphal Commission’s Time for Action recommendations. Ironically, Sir Shridath is recorded as having been present in Grenada as part of the Guyana delegation, to record yet another decision on postponement to a special session of heads to be held between now and the next formal meeting of heads in July of this year. His presence suggests another effort by him to persuade towards a conclusion on this matter, and we can only welcome this.
Otherwise, our heads have as usual, sought to persuade with a cascade of words that “the fault, dear Brutus lies not in ourselves” but in others. Perhaps it lies in the authors of the governance recommendations, or in the Caricom Secretariat which some months ago took the blame, indicated by the politicians’ onslaught that either signalled or precipitated the departure of Secretary General Carrington. Prime Minister Golding has seemed to attempt to pre-empt further criticism of the governments by indicating his awareness that the ongoing “Caricom implementation deficit” really represents “the Caribbean people’s implementation deficit,” a delay and loss in progress that we are supposed to be making. And his colleagues and himself, in announcing the coming of their two day retreat on governance, sought to reassure us that in recognizing the “loss in the momentum with regard to the regional integration agenda” and “the associated perception of decline” we should keep our “faith in the onward march of Caribbean civilization.”
But perhaps they were also trying to reassure one another. Followers of the rhetoric of Caribbean politicians will recognize the phrase “Caribbean civilization” as a favourite of Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, whose primary regional organization, the OECS had, on February 23, decried the unwillingness of Trinidad & Tobago to respond to certain arrangements proposed since November 2009 by the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU). These were intended to deal with the issue of the failure of CLICO and the British American Insurance Company (BAICO). But following the ECCU’s announcement that the Trinidad government “has failed to commit the financial resources needed “to make the proposed arrangements,” Dr Gonsalves would have been relieved to be told, according to the Caricom Communiqué, “that funds from Trinidad’s Petroelum Fund would be directed towards the recapitalisation of BAICO” while further advice is sought from the international financial institutions on the resolution of the CLICO/BAICO matter. At least in that respect, the civilization would seem to be working, though there will no doubt be reflection on the fact that, within Trinidad and Tobago itself, there has been virtual paralysis for many months on the part of the government, concerning the question of the treatment of its own citizens caught up in the CLICO affair.
It is fervently and optimistically to be hoped that sufficient preparatory work will be done on the governance issue by whoever or whatever institution will be given the responsibility, to permit a final conclusion by the heads at their planned retreat before their July meeting. Yet we fear that there really is not much more to be said on the issue of governance, that takes its organizational cue from the 2003 heads’ Rose Hall Declaration that Caricom is “a community of sovereign states.” This was a phrase used to allay the fears of some Caricom heads at the time, that the implementation of effective governance arrangements for the CSME would impinge on the essential aspects of their countries’ sovereign status. But it has passed unnoticed by our heads over these near twenty years, that the phrase, originally used by the Europeans as a description of their own institutional arrangements for an Economic Union, has not inhibited them from devising innovative ways of tightening their own collective decision-making governance without feeling a loss of their own much prized sovereignty. France, after all, is still a sovereign state.
In our case, the use of this phrase by our politicians, mostly as a way to oppose when they are in opposition and to reassure oppositions when they are in government, has really become a party political weapon, and now, as such, a virtual hindrance to making progress on the acceptance of governance arrangements for Caricom. Former Jamaican Prime Minister P J Patterson, in speaking on this issue at the UWI on February 18, has sought to reassure that institutional arrangements for governance made in recent years do not negate the reality of the sovereignty of member states, since they do not imply a “political union.”
But we wonder how much his efforts, made before and now, will persuade the recalcitrants. As we have intimated, the issue is now between, very often, the same persons – that is heads of governments and leaders of the opposition exchanging places over the years. Who will forget then Prime Minister Panday’s hard fight to establish the CCJ in Trinidad, and then recent Leader of the Opposition Panday’s rejection of the CCJ – a rejection which now seems to bind Prime Minister Bissessar’s government’s negative decision on the matter.
In his recent UWI Symposium speech, Mr Patterson, who had to face the opposition to the CCJ of Mr Golding’s Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), and former JLP Leader Edward Seaga’s virtual opposition to the CSME, has called for a new consensus on the issue among governments. But the reality, if our previous argument is correct, is that the consensus has to go beyond governments (parties in office), and to include parliamentary oppositions. In that regard, would it not be useful for Caricom heads to take their time, invite the leaders of the parliamentarians to their planned Guyana meeting, and see what consensus can be arrived at, and formally ratified by both government and opposition leaders next July, on these long-awaited proposals for governance institutional arrangements?
After all, twenty years is long enough. And if no arrangements can be finalized before the actual 20th year, then perhaps our heads should give up on the issue, seek alternative ways if they can find them, and stop trying to persuade us to believe that the apparently unacceptable will be accepted over the next twenty years. Enough rhetorical communiqués.
