Dear Editor,
I opened an e-mail last Saturday from Sally Yearwood, Executive Director of the Caribbean-Central American Action (CCAA) that began as follows,
“Dear Wesley,
Caribbean-Central American Action (CCAA) has always been an organisation driven as much by its programs and advocacy as by the people who have supported it over the years. Regrettably, after four decades, CCAA will soon announce that it will be closing its doors for the last time on October 31.
You will receive the formal announcement tomorrow, but Gwen and I wanted you to know how much we have valued your friendship and collaboration in our work here at CCAA. Our load has always been made lighter by our partners and friends, and so we sincerely thank you for being one of the people who has been with us along the way.”
I was saddened by this news. Indeed, for four decades, CCAA, at one time CLAA (Caribbean Latin American Action), in my view, played a critical role in seeking to protect and promote the economic interest of especially the Caribbean region, not only in the U.S. but often further afield. The organisation was best known over the years for the annual Miami Conference on the Caribbean which, for a very long time, attracted sizeable participation from regional private sector and government leaders, not merely because it was held in December, which provided foreign participants an opportunity to get in their Christmas/Holiday shopping, but because it served as a more than useful forum for discussing burning issues in Caribbean trade and investment relations, often leading to the implementation of needed policies and legislation, as well as foreign investment.
Guyana, if my memory serves me well, first participated in the Miami Conference in the late ‘70’s, represented by its then Agriculture Minister Gavin Kennard, who was widely considered capitalist and pro-American in what was widely considered at that time, a socialist and somewhat anti-American Burnham Administration. Later, Presidents Hoyte, Cheddi Jagan, Samuel Hinds (perhaps as Prime Minister), Janet Jagan and Bharrat Jagdeo served as key speakers at the conference. Guyana’s participation always attracted much attention and analysis as the nation slowly transformed from a state-led and controlled economy. I vividly remember to this day, the remark of a senior U.S. official to a group of participants just prior to Jagdeo’s first address to the conference. He said, “I guess we are all here to listen to what the Russian-trained boy president from Guyana has to say.” My bit of storytelling here may seem trivial but it should not be lost on anyone that fora such as the Miami Conference are used by the U.S. and other developed nations to gauge and analyse their relations with developing countries.
But back to CCAA. I strongly believe that CCAA is needed now more than ever before. Its folding could not have come at a more inopportune time. With the unpredictability of the current U.S. leadership, especially in the executive branch, the Caribbean region needs a strong and vibrant organisation/lobby to protect and promote its interests. Implementation of the new U.S./Caribbean Strategic Engagement Act; meaningful resolution of the correspondent banking problem; access to the U.S. market for a wider range of agricultural produce and products; and increased assistance in the area of disaster resilience planning, are just a few of the many issues for which the region needs a strong and effective lobby.
I served as a press and public relations consultant for CCAA for several years under Peter Johnson and briefly under Tito Colorado, and experienced firsthand, how the issues were shaped and developed leading up to the Miami Conference each year. The strategy included intense press/public communications, often providing to regional and hemispheric media, interviews with representatives of key stakeholders on the burning issues. This helped to keep the issues in the public eye and to highlight the work of CCAA during each year leading up to the Miami Conference. The downgrading of this press/ public communications effort, helped to render the perception that CCAA was becoming more and more irrelevant. I don’t share the view expressed in some quarters that the Caribbean abandoned CCAA. I think CCAA allowed its shelf life to expire before time. I am also not sure that moving the Miami Conference to New Orleans for a few years was a brilliant idea.
For me, however, CCAA’s critical shortcoming was to not more actively engage the Caribbean and Central American diasporas in the U.S. Diaspora votes are key to the success of many U.S. politicians. Also, there are thousands of Caribbean and Central American-owned small and medium sized enterprises that, had there been a category of membership for these, would have helped keep CCAA financially afloat. Just over a decade ago, a Jamaican, Keith Gooden, and I put together a proposal to CCAA for incorporation into its work, a small and medium enterprise programme that would be of mutual benefit to these enterprises and to CCAA. At membership dues of $1000 per year, we projected having at least 5,000 members over five years. This kind of revenue would have served CCAA well. The then executive director, Anton Edmunds, now St Lucia’s ambassador to the U.S., supported the initiative and facilitated us making a presentation to the Board. Apparently the Board did not see the wisdom of our proposal and unfortunately come October 31, CCAA will be no more, folded, as in the words of a popular song, “just when we needed you (it) most.”
In recent times, CCAA had increased its collaboration with the Institute of Caribbean Studies (ICS). This helped to strengthen the Caribbean lobby in Wash-ington especially with the diaspora orientation and involvement in ICS. Claire Nelson, founder of ICS, must be saluted for her steadfast commitment to keeping ICS alive for almost a quarter century. Perhaps ICS must now intensify its work and pick up some of the slack that would be created by the closure of CCAA. Caribbean governments, with the exception of Jamaica, along with the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, have not given ICS the level of support it deserves. Not financially and by not being full participants in the work of ICS, especially in fora such as Legislative Week each June in Washington, D.C. In recent years, as co-chair of Legislative Week planning and chair of the private sector council, I have received the support of some Guyanese private sector entities, notably sponsorship and participation by Roraima Airways and donations of product from DDL for hosting the closing reception. With the closure of CCAA, I urge the Guyanese and other regional private and government sectors to seek to collaborate more closely with ICS as it seeks to “pick up the slack” created by the closure of CCAA.
Yours faithfully,
Wesley Kirton
