Our Caricom heads of government effectively ended a year of international relations activity with their participation in the global Climate Change conference in Paris, following which they have been able to claim that the concerns of small states, including small island states in the Caribbean, were given substantial consideration. They have asserted that the conference permitted a relatively effective strategy of reasserting, at a global level, the common concerns of small island states, and small mainland states on large continents, which have had to struggle to gain recognition of their particular vulnerabilities vis-à-vis their larger counterparts.
For Caricom, too, the conference marked a virtual strategic alliance on the issue among the major powers including, notably, what appears to have been an effective integration of the Peoples Republic of China into what is now accepted as a global issue. And in that regard climate change has come to be ranked as among the most strategic issues for international collaboration, being a matter which can on no account be dealt with unilaterally.
In that context too, the Caribbean public will be expecting to see a continuation of Caricom cooperation, leading to a systematic collective effort of cooperation between these countries and the states of Latin America in particular, systematizing efforts of collective approaches to the climate change agenda as agreed, and ensuring that a sufficient commitment is made to permit meaningful collective participation permitting effective international attention to Caribbean efforts.
The necessity for effective collaboration with particular sections of the Latin American subcontinent in the sphere of climate change, reminds us that it is really one aspect of an increasing necessity for Caricom attention to that geopolitical sphere. Over the last year, we have seen what might be called an internationalization of the effort which Caricom has always supported, of the full integration of Cuba into hemispheric relations, following the recognition on the part of President Obama, that United States participation in the hemisphere is insufficient without the uninhibited participation of that country.
In the Caricom arena, our governments, taking full cognizance over the years of Cuban exclusion from uninhibited collaboration in hemispheric affairs, have always asserted that this negated the possibilities for full development of the area. And in that regard, it is easy to recall the collective establishment of diplomatic relations with that country by Guyana, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados, during the ongoing period of the Cold War. President Obama’s awareness of this perspective, urged on by the efforts of Pope Francis has, as is now fully acknowledged, advanced the hemispheric normalization of relations, easing, in particular, the efforts of small countries like those of Caricom to uninhibitedly seek to design efforts for viable regional development cooperation.
Of course, to the extent that Pope Francis is a national of a country of Latin America, we can expect, over the coming period, a particular interest on his part in hemispheric developments. A certain number of Caricom countries themselves, not to speak of Cuba and the French and Spanish speaking countries of the Caribbean, with their large Catholic populations, can obviously facilitate the possibilities for enhancing the Pope’s interest in issues pertaining to this Region and, in consequence, permit a diplomacy towards the Vatican that has perhaps not been permissible in the past.
So it is left to be seen whether the Catholic Church in Caricom and neighbouring states is able to develop a diplomacy in that regard that can be of assistance to governments in the region anxious to find yet another arena for internationalizing their efforts of national and regional developments. And the fact that such an orientation might appear to be novel should not inhibit practical initiatives, given the Pope’s particular concern with the plight of developing countries.
Another issue that is likely to be of concern both to Caricom and Pope Francis during the coming period is that of political developments in Venezuela where, as the recent parliamentary elections and their aftermath have indicated, the political confrontation between the government of President Maduro and the opposition is likely to worsen.
But as is known, Caricom’s concern stems not simply, as some current assertions tend to suggest, from the possibility that the substantial external assistance initiated by President Chávez can well be throttled by the deep economic difficulties of Venezuela, as well as by pressures put upon the government within the new Parliament. But rather, there is the more obvious consideration that substantial domestic disorder there, will almost inevitably inhibit the orderly relations between Venezuela and her Caricom neighbours that have been in existence for some time; and in respect of the small Eastern Caribbean states, virtually from the point of their achievement of independence.
Nonetheless, it is a fact that the assistance from Venezuela to Caricom states has been critical in their withstanding the effects of global depression, most stemming from the recession of the latter years of the last decade, irrespective of the political regimes which have been in office. It will, in the present context, where confrontation is threatened from both sides, certainly do the Caricom governments no harm, if they take the time to make their concerns about a possible worsening of political and economic relations in Venezuela known to Pope Francis, even now. And a well initiated diplomacy can find a resonance in the Vatican before all sides begin to beat their diplomatic drums louder than it is possible for us to do.
As part of the hemisphere, Caricom governments will also, no doubt, be looking at the wider hemispheric field, as changes take place in that arena. The change of government in Argentina, installing a government of the right, if that of the recent Kirchner government can be construed as of the left, is also likely to lead to a change of alignments in Latin America, and therefore within the framework of the OAS. New President Mauricio Macri has made it clear that the economic and political radicalism of the previous government is to be decisively discarded, suggesting changes of orientation in diplomatic orientations as well.
On the other hand, most observers of Brazil suggest that, in the face of both severe economic challenges and increasing attacks on the integrity of President Rousseff’s government, it is likely that the President will be preoccupied with domestic affairs, rather than initiating hemispheric initiatives beyond those currently in place.
Developments in that country, negative to the government have already seriously affected its homogeneity and stability, related as they have been by the government’s opponents, to corruption even preceding the assumption of government by President Rousseff. And it would seem to be the case that the current assault on the government is intended to also compromise former President Lula’s ability to assist his successor at this time.
As Caricom seeks to participate in, and influence developments on the South American continent, these present circumstances suggest the need for achieving increasingly common perceptions of ongoing events, and of the Caricom responses and initiatives that are likely to be necessary, if the consequences of events in the hemisphere reach the Organisation of American States.
