In an opinion piece in Stabroek News on February 1, Dr Norman Girvan observed that Dominica’s accession to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, or ALBA, as it is known, was by no means the first time that a Caricom member state had acted at variance with its regional commitments. Caricom, he said, had insisted “on remaining a ‘Community of Sovereign States’ – with the emphasis on the second part of the term.” He went on to draw attention to the special economic vulnerability of Dominica, which around 2002-03 “practically had to be bailed out by the rest of Caricom and the IMF.” Furthermore, he continued, he was curious as to why the island’s membership of ALBA would in principle be inconsistent with its membership of Caricom, more especially since ALBA was not a trade bloc in the ordinary sense, and its most important components constituted “agreements to finance state enterprises in the oil sector and to pay for imports of oil with exports of commodities.”

Dr Girvan concluded by arguing that the EPA recently initialled between CARIFORUM and Europe was by far the greatest “present threat” to the long-term integrity of Caricom. It was, for example, “hugely wider in scope” than ALBA, and set up “supranational governance structures and detailed dispute settlement provisions that envisage the possible use of trade sanctions.” As things stood, therefore, he regarded the EPA as the trade pact with the potential for breaking up Caricom, “since each member state will in effect be competing with every other in implementing its provisions and in attempting to access its benefits.”

Dr Girvan is, of course, perfectly in order when he says that Dominica’s entry into ALBA would not be the first time that a Caricom member’s actions were not in tandem with its commitments to the community, although it must be said that some actions are potentially more damaging than others and not all the examples he cited would have torn the community fabric beyond repair. His statements about Dominica’s desperate economic situation are also well taken. Similarly, it cannot be disputed that ALBA is not a trade bloc in the ordinary sense, and to the best of anyone’s knowledge at this stage the actual agreement which Dominica signed was limited in its economic scope.

Nevertheless, it is the fact that ALBA is not only an economic agreement that is the concern; it is first and foremost an ideological project, and from the beginning it seems, was also intended as a military one. The concept document ‘Constructing ALBA’ in 2004 listed 19 areas which the proposals would encompass: oil and energy; communications and transportation; military; external debt; economy and finance; light and basic industries; natural resources; land, food sovereignty and land reform; education; university; scientific and technical development; mass media; health; gender; migrations – identity; habitation; protagonist and political party democracy; indigenous movement; workers movement. In other words, ALBA represents the instrument by which President Ch