(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The former Director-General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Ambassador Henry S. Gill, died on Thursday, 14 February in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. He succumbed, following a long period of illness.
As the CRNM’s Senior Director, the late Ambassador Gill played a pivotal role with respect to the regional strategy pursued by the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) in its negotiations with the European Union (EU) for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
“The Caribbean has lost a key architect of the CARIFORUM-EU EPA,” said the Director-General of the CARIFORUM Directorate in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, Mr Ivan Ogando Lora, upon learning of Ambassador Gill’s passing.
“It is fair to say that the CARIFORUM-EU EPA will loom large with respect to the late Ambassador Gill’s legacy,” Mr Ogando opined.
Mr Ogando oversees the EPA Implementation Unit located in the CARIFORUM Directorate. This Unit was established in order to assist CARIFORUM States in the implementation of the provisions of the EPA, in the wake of negotiations that culminated in the Agreement’s signing by fourteen CARIFORUM States in October 2008 and by the fifteenth CARIFORUM State, Haiti, in December 2009.