Obviously, when we focused, in last Friday’s editorial, on PJ Patterson’s cry from the heart and forthright warning about the perils of neglecting Caricom, we thought that his argument was well reasoned and very persuasive. We still do. He and we may, however, have missed a most important point.
In identifying Caricom’s principal defects, viz, ineffective governance, the implementation deficit, the delay in re-engineering the Secretariat, the sloth in advancing greater freedom of movement, and “the failure of the Community to tackle the burning issues of concern to our people,” the former Jamaican prime minister was perhaps too conciliatory towards his erstwhile colleague heads of government. Rather than merely acknowledging the primacy of domestic problems over “sound regional strategies,” he could have more forcefully stated that narrow domestic interests, the lack of a regional vision – or the unwillingness to subscribe to one – and, by extension, a glaring absence of leadership continue to undermine the collective wellbeing of Caricom.
Indeed, whilst invoking the halcyon days of Caricom coherence, collective strength and unity and voicing support for a common foreign economic policy, Mr Patterson is guilty of glossing over the present reality; there are growing divisions in the area of foreign policy, in spite of the existence of the Council for Foreign and Community Relations (Cofcor).
Cofcor, according to the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, is responsible for, among other things, coordinating Community foreign policy “in order to arrive at common positions in relation to Third States, groups of States and relevant inter-governmental organisations.” To this end, back in 2002, the Council had agreed on a revised foreign policy strategy, the main objective of which was to strengthen cooperation relations and develop strategic alliances with like-minded countries to promote economic development, address common problems and influence the international economic and political agenda.
It is perhaps a moot point just how much influence small states can wield, even when operating on the basis of collective strength and unity, in a generally inequitable and Darwinistic global environment. But this should not preclude small states from seeking to live up to Aristotle’s maxim that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. On the contrary, the past examples that Mr Patterson cites are sufficient proof that, as our former foreign minister Rudy Insanally puts it in his recent book, Multilateral Diplomacy for Small States, “by combining their individual strengths and unifying their representation, developing countries can, and indeed have been able to, maximize their gains.”
Whilst there is sufficient evidence of consultation, cooperation and coordination among Caricom diplomatic missions on a variety of issues, it has been evident, for a few years now, that there is an increasing lack of coherence in Caricom foreign policy on some matters of overarching importance.
Consider, for instance, the Community’s inability to adopt a ‘one China’ policy and the absence of unity on diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), with a handful of Eastern Caribbean states and Belize holding on to anomalous ties with Taiwan. It is a division that is doing untold harm to the possibility of engaging as one with the economic and political power of the PRC, in pursuit of a cooperative relationship that would benefit the region as a unified entity instead of possibly being regarded as an incoherent mass of small states susceptible to the lure of cheque book diplomacy.
Then there is the apparent lack of geopolitical awareness, perhaps best illustrated by the troubling inaction on a regional energy strategy, which can be linked to the current dependence by most of Caricom on Venezuela’s PetroCaribe initiative and the gravitation of some to President Hugo Chávez’s Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (Alba); all of which points to a lack of appreciation of the political, economic and security implications of Venezuela’s oil-fuelled influence and enlarged footprint in the Caribbean. Perhaps nothing better exemplifies the confusion sown by Mr Chávez and Alba than Caricom’s disappointing flip-flopping on the issue of the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands in the face of pressure first from Argentina and Alba, then from the UK, just a year ago.
Cofcor’s inability to forge consensus and achieve foreign policy coordination on such basic issues is damaging Caricom’s credibility. The resulting projection of a dysfunctional image to the outside world leaves our long-standing allies and other potential partners scratching their heads. Of course, the more cynical of those countries with interests in the region will simply be content to exploit our disunity to their own advantage. The worst thing though is that we run the risk of not being taken seriously as a region with which to do business.
