Over the last few months Caricom states have been involved in a number of regional and international meetings, the most recent of which will have been the 24th Intersessional Meeting of Caricom itself, held earlier this week in Haiti. Prior to the meeting it was announced that “Crime and Security will be the major item considered by the Heads of Government,” while paradoxically, the news from Trinidad and Tobago, the most prosperous country in the region, was that there had been eight murders over the weekend preceding the meeting.
Another item scheduled for discussion was the collapse of Clico and the British-American Insurance Company, an event which has left Caricom citizens bewildered, particularly at the length of time which it has taken to provide solutions to the issue, and the various revelations produced at the Commission of Inquiry established in Trinidad.
Preceding the Caricom meeting has been a, perhaps not unexpected, gloomy appraisal by the President of the Caribbean Development Bank, Dr Warren Smith, of the status of the Caricom economies that gave the sense of a certain lack of confidence that some of the affected countries have as yet begun to take the steps which might put them on a path of stabilization, if not recovery.
The statement was made in the midst of the most intense discussions going on in Jamaica in an effort to fulfil the terms which the IMF has set for the release of funds at its disposal, and which can really be taken as a warning to other Caricom states as to what can befall them.
Within the OECS sub-region itself, the CDB President seemed no less pessimistic, pointing out that St Lucia, one of the economies which has, over the years, been able to maintain some degree of economic growth, had displayed little of this in 2012, with the consequence of a 21% unemployment rate. And no doubt, predominantly in his mind, must be the consequent effect on his institution, notably, until this last year, the unprecedented downgrading of the institution which he heads.
Caricom citizens will have been left to wonder, even after they have reviewed the communiqué emanating from the Heads meeting in Haiti, whether there can be much detailed attention being paid to the integration process, when the minds of most leaders attending (bar those of Grenada and Barbados preoccupied with general elections campaigning) must surely have been consumed by the search for economic policy solutions at home.
The question most likely arising in the minds of their citizens must surely be, what is the connection between these frequent regional consultations and the issues which their leaders are emphasizing most at home? To most Caricom citizens it would appear that their governments’ individual consultations with the IMF are their current dominant preoccupation, with their ability to focus on the progressive implementation of the Single Market and Economy floating somewhere as a kind of background noise.
Where the wider international issues are concerned, Caricom leaders will have been aware from what seems to have transpired at the joint meeting of the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caricom Heads of Government, that the arena of Latin America states of interest to those EU countries, in particular the largest, Brazil, is now focusing well beyond our hemisphere. And similarly, in the arena of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, ACP countries like Angola and Mozambique now the objects of external economic arrangements particularly in respect of the oil trade, are similarly focused.
The obvious interest of China in many of these countries, which has given them an alternative to having to accept Western terms of economic arrangements, must be predominant among their main preoccupations. In that regard, the ACP must be beginning to look like something of a diplomatic anachronism. And that forum (the ACP) for the Caricom, as Sir Shridath Ramphal and former Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson have recently emphasised, must surely diminish, in light of the lack of any determined effort of a renewed Caricom collective diplomacy in today’s increasing reorganistion of international economic relations.
Is Caricom ready for creative adjustment to this present environment? Have Caricom leaders sought to begin to think of a division of labour among themselves, that could focus, even with the region’s limited diplomatic resources, on assistance, both monetary and diplomatic, from the countries of the LAC or of the A in the ACP, which can perhaps also be persuaded, over the medium term, to engage with others on our behalf at critical times, or on critical issues? We are presently crying about the EU’s attempt to introduce a new philosophy and practice of so-called differentiation among the ACP, but have we persuaded, by consistent diplomacy, any larger countries in Latin America and elsewhere to systematically support our cause?
The impression given about the recent EU-LAC meeting is that some of our countries were not entirely happy that it was partly characterized by problems among some of the larger LAC states. Have Caricom states, however, as a collective, given them a reason to focus on any of our preoccupations beyond the Venezuelan initiative in subsidizing our required oil imports?
It should be becoming obvious to other Caricom states that, in particular Guyana and Suriname, as a consequence of their geographical location and their diplomacy (Suriname more recently than Guyana), can in some measure be gateways for the wider Caricom towards a stronger Latin American focus on Caricom integration initiatives?
After all, the major LAC country, Brazil, the two Caricom states’ neighbour, has for some years put its focus on what it refers to as infrastructural integration among neighbouring states. Certainly too, Jamaica has, over the years, developed some strong relationships with Latin American states. And in recent times, Trinidad has sought to focus on the implications of Panama’s location for its own development.
But is our present, loudly announced posture of a pause on economic integration, likely to encourage them? Is the trend, in that circumstance, likely to be one more of individualist, than Caricom collective, initiatives?
Can our present leaders speak to us of these things, even as they are well preoccupied with the national economic situations? After all, it cannot all be left to the retired Ramphals and Pattersons who have, surely, already well paid their dues.
