The Twenty-Ninth Meeting of the Caricom Heads of State and Government concluded its business at the end of last week and, as is usual, gave the conclusions of its deliberations in its communique. This meeting was held amid public concern that there are now a number of what look like intractable situations in our region, and therefore an expectation that the heads would show us a direction forward in respect of them. This year also marks the 35th anniversary of the establishment of Caricom, and 43 years since Prime Ministers Burnham, Barrow and Bird got together and agreed, in 1965, on the creation of a Caribbean Free Trade Area.
While it cannot be said that issues like the future of stagnating Caribbean economies and crime and security were major areas of concern in that year, it is true to say that relations among governments were not then of the best, mainly as a spill-over from the demise of the West Indies Federation. In that context, the initiative taken by the three leaders broke a political and diplomatic stalemate, and deserves to be remembered and praised. It suggests that timidity in the face of challenges is not the way to go; and that, from time to time, bold strokes are required to chart directions through a road that is not to clear.
This 35th Caricom year marks a meeting of leaders almost every one of whom must be feeling hard-pressed by domestic problems – food prices, fuel prices, crime and public insecurity, the menace of the almost unbridled movement of narcotics through the region, dissatisfaction about changing interpretations concerning what freedom of movement must mean to the ordinary citizen, and uncertainty about future benefits from the recently negotiated Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). This agreement with the Europeans follows the Lome and Cotonou Agreements which are generally deemed to have been beneficial to the region. And, finally, heads of government are aware that there is a lingering public concern about how effectively Caricom as an institution implements the decisions that they make.
This last concern is signalled at the very beginning, and then at the very end, of the heads’ communique. We are told, in somewhat opaque language, first, of their commitment to “strengthening governance arrangements in the Community while ensuring that variable geometry should be viewed as a positive aspect of the Region’s development”; and secondly, in the ‘Declaration of Dickenson Bay,’ that “our support for a variable geometry of integration would allow for a variation in the pace of accession to the integration arrangements.”
This language of the professional students of political science does not help the ordinary citizen. And since there is obviously an important principle being enunciated here, it would be useful if the Secretary General can explain to us what it really means, and why it is necessary at this time. On the other hand, to those who understand that language, what it can be presumed to mean is, that the heads now wish to signal to us that they have decisively rejected the last set of proposals for governance arrangements made in the Report of the Technical Working Group on Governance which they set up, and are looking for yet another way of dealing with their problem.
The heads have also sought to assure us, once again, that while, as Prime Minister Golding of Jamaica put it, Caricom is, and remains, “a Community of sovereign states,” leaders recognize “that the regional integration process remains the only viable option for a Community of small developing states in the current global economic dispensation.”
Obviously this speaks to concerns among some governments that new forms of management of the community could have the potential for impinging upon the sovereignty of their states. But why is it so difficult for our heads to tell us what these areas are, what are the difficulties of accepting regional implementation of decisions in relation to them, and most of all, whether in their judgement, some of the decisions which they have taken have subsequently been found to be destructive of the sovereignty of one or other of their countries?
There is obviously, here, a reality of disagreement about the way in which the community’s institutions should function, and the public is owed some clarification on the matter from our heads, along with a clear indication of what matters are, for the future, ruled out as legitimate areas for regional integration.
Otherwise, we will continue to have decisions being taken today, only to be told tomorrow that this or that is not acceptable, or not acceptable right now, to one or other government – which, no doubt, is what our heads mean by “variable geometry.”
It is gratifying to see our heads commit once again, to some issues that have been with us for some time, but which the current international economic scene forces onto their agenda again. Among these issues are food security and regional air transportation, especially as this relates to tourism. Those with not too long memories will recall the existence for some years of the Caribbean Food Corporation (CFC) as a Caricom institution. This resulted from an initiative by Dr Eric Williams, then Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago.
It must be hoped that, as the detailed work goes on concerning a contemporary approach to food production, that a thorough review is done on the reasons for which the CFC no longer exists.
The same applies to the arena of regional air transportation. It is well to recall that, in a period in the 1960s and into the mid-1970s, the smaller islands of the region experienced the travails of running a sub-regional air transport system, with the increase in oil prices then virtually destroying LIAT. We should recall too, that the revival of the airline, as LIAT (1975) Ltd, was the result of financial assistance from the then government of Venezuela, negotiated by a delegation led by the late Sir John Compton. And it is well to remember too, that in that era, the initiative taken by Barbados to sustain its own airline, Caribbean Airways, came to nought.
What this should lead us to consider, and clearly it is leading some states to consider, is whether the scale of Caricom is now too limited to face the challenges of the present in strategic areas such as food production and transportation.
In that regard, there is, resulting from the heads’ deliberations on relations with Latin America, another of the communiques’s opaque sentences in which it is recorded that “they reiterated the need and importance for Member States, in the context of the emergence of new development partners and the outreach efforts by Third Countries, to respect and honour the provisions of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.” This is clearly a shot at Dominica in respect of its adherence to the Venezuelan ALBA, and perhaps Antigua and St Vincent, in respect of relationships that they might be contemplating. But should the heads not, instead, have told us their considered opinion – or non-opinion for that matter – on the results of the foreign ministers’ recent consultations on a report on the Bolivarian Alternative prepared for them? There really is no need for secrecy and obfuscation.
Finally, we note the heads’ support for a decision by Barbados, whose Prime Minister has lead responsibility for the CSME , “to hold a wide-ranging consultation on the CSME in the second half of 2008”; and their agreement that there “should be a review of the implementation of the free movement of skilled Community nationals with a view to determining its reaffirmation or modification.”
These two formulations are revelations in themselves. Suffice it to say that those who think that there can be a Single Economy, or even for any length of time a Single Market, without meaningful freedom of movement, should ask themselves whether they think that will fly with the people of the Caribbean Community.
And let us, as we make this observation, remind ourselves of the late Errol Barrow’s remark, in his last address to a Caricom Heads’ meeting, that Caricom “is not simply about taking in each other’s washing.”
