Wednesday’s editorial, ‘Britain and Caricom,‘ raised a few questions about the coordination, coherence, efficiency and efficacy of Caricom’s collective diplomacy. It focused, among other things, on the failure of the region’s foreign ministers to extract an agreement from British Foreign Secretary William Hague, at the UK-Caribbean Forum in Grenada, to review the exorbitant and discriminatory Air Passenger Duty (APD) unilaterally imposed by the UK on travel to the Caribbean.
All that the resulting Action Plan says on the matter is that ministers agreed “to continue dialogue” – diplomatic speak for “nothing was agreed.” But a Caricom Secretariat press release on January 22, trumpeted that “the most welcome news for the Caribbean” was “the agreement by the UK to re-open dialogue” on the APD. Whoever wrote the press release was either trying to mislead the Caribbean public or was, at best, delusional. One sincerely hopes that our foreign ministers and diplomatic representatives are more realistic about the lack of commitment by the British.
On the other hand, the final paragraph of the Action Plan states that ministers agreed “To support the principle and the right to self-determination for all peoples, including the Falkland Islanders, recognising the historical importance of self-determination in the political development of the Caribbean, and its core status as an internationally agreed principle under the United Nations Charter.” Fair enough, but this laudable, almost innocuous statement must be read against the backdrop of heightened tension between the UK and Argentina over their respective claims to the Falkland Islands and an earlier position supported by Caricom countries that appears to say quite the opposite.
In February 2010, Caricom members attending the Mexico summit that gave rise to the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), endorsed a declaration giving their “backing for Argentina’s legitimate rights in its sovereignty dispute with the United Kingdom” over the ‘Malvinas‘ and calling on the two governments to renew “negotiations in order to find in the shortest time possible a just, peaceful and definitive solution to the dispute,” in accordance with relevant UN resolutions. This stance was reiterated at the CELAC summit in Caracas last December. A nuanced position on the part of Caricom would have been more desirable.
Supporting Argentina’s “legitimate rights” in the South Atlantic suggests pre-judgment of a complex historical and legal territorial dispute and is a path fraught with danger, given the colonial legacy of boundary controversies and disputes involving variously, Guyana and Venezuela, Guyana and Suriname, Belize and Guatemala, and Venezuela’s claims in the Caribbean Sea. It is clearly a matter of existential self-interest that Guyana and our sister Caribbean states not have their sovereignty, territorial integrity and economic interests threatened by centuries-old, colonial era claims.
Indeed, it should be borne in mind that Argentina’s diplomatic manoeuvrings regarding its claim to the Falkland Islands were given some impetus a couple of years ago, when it became apparent that the surrounding seas were rich with oil. Apart from objecting in every forum possible to British drilling, Argentina, last December, got its Mercosur partners to ban from their ports all boats flying the Falklands flag. In response, British Prime Minister David Cameron promised that the UK would never negotiate the sovereignty of the islands, accusing Argentina of “colonialism” in its claim, as it was ignoring the wishes of the inhabitants of the Falklands. And even as the UK has also been mobilising its considerable diplomatic resources, it was announced this week that one of the Royal Navy’s most sophisticated warships is being deployed to the Falklands.
The sabre-rattling on both sides would therefore appear to have everything to do with the discovery of oil in the South Atlantic and the contentious issue of ownership of the potentially vast undersea mineral resources in the Falkland Islands’ EEZ.
Now, with Caricom appearing to have moved away from the CELAC position, the Grenada statement should be viewed, regardless of the territorial implications for Caricom, as nothing more or less than a diplomatic coup for the British. And a cheap one at that, given that Mr Hague only had to promise an investment of ₤75 million over a four-year period for development projects in the Caribbean, without seemingly being sufficiently pressed to give ground on the region’s most burning issue, the APD.
All this begs the question why Caricom states appear to be backing both Argentina and the UK in the dispute, depending on whose company is being kept at the time. While the UN mandate, dating back to 1965, that the matter be settled by negotiation is worthy of support, there should be no attempt to pre-empt the outcome by extending support of Argentina’s “legitimate rights.” Equally, the historically important and fundamental principle of self-determination being advocated by the British should be fully endorsed, but they should also be reminded of the rights of the citizens of their remaining Caribbean dependencies in this respect. And the strategic interests of the region should always come first.
That such contradictory positions have been taken suggests that a weak and hollow pragmatism governs the practice of Caricom diplomacy, rather than a coherent strategy and the espousal of basic principles underpinning strong, focused and well-coordinated diplomacy.
