CARICOM Heads of Government meeting in Georgetown from today have a packed agenda on their plate but the dominant motif may not even have been pencilled in – Britain’s stunning exit from the European Union (EU) and what the political upheaval in London means for countries in this part of the world. The final communique may address this matter in some way but it is clear that the region needs a considered assessment on the way forward that may require the commissioning of trade and international relations experts to hold forth on the risks as it relates to expected negotiations with Britain on a new relationship and ties with the EU minus the influence and resources of one of its leading members.
Given the drama that has attended Britain’s withdrawal and the sea of uncertainty, CARICOM citizens will seek assurances as the regional body is the main interface with both Britain and the EU. This matter should therefore be given serious consideration at the summit which begins today.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, Sir Hilary Beckles has already sounded a dire warning about the implications of Brexit.
In a press release he said “Every aspect of Caribbean life will be adversely affected by this development; from trade relations to immigration, tourism to financial relations and cultural engagements to foreign policy.
“There will be a significant redefinition and reshaping of CARICOM -UK engagements. The region’s fragile economic recovery is threatened”.
Adverting to today’s meeting of the Heads, Sir Hilary advised as follows: “CARICOM should use this development in order to deepen and strengthen its internal operations and external relations to the wider world. It’s a moment for CARICOM to come closer together rather than drift apart.
“The region should not be seen as mirroring this mentality of cultural and political insularity, but should reaffirm the importance of regionalism within the global context for the future.”
Brexit notwithstanding, Sir Hilary’s admonition has been a longstanding challenge to the CARICOM project and the Heads can ill afford to show any sign of faltering or radiating disunity. It is a matter of great regret that CARICOM continues to exhibit discord in the single manifestation where its authority and influence is elevated – its vote in international forums be it at the OAS, the United Nations or at the Commonwealth. The unseemly contention for a new Secretary General at Marlborough House was only one of the more recent displays of this division and insularity that regionalists have frowned deeply upon for years and there is yet no sign that this malady can be overcome. As a bloc of 15 and issuing decisions as such, CARICOM can far better navigate the turbulent waters that lap at its common shores in confronting such threats as diverse as the correspondent banking de-risking and diminished flows for climate change adaptation.
Nowhere is the challenge to CARICOM greater than sedulously safeguarding the territorial integrity of its member states from Belize to the north, Guyana to the south and everywhere else between. The summit will no doubt evaluate the latest developments as it relates to both Belize and Guyana and issue its customary words of comfort. These are indeed reassuring. However, in Guyana’s case, Venezuela has over the last year and a half, in particular, mounted a hostile campaign to covet its Atlantic waters, engaged in sabre rattling and interfered in legitimate projects that Georgetown has undertaken. The Granger administration has been equal to the task and has mounted a comprehensive diplomatic offensive here, in the Caribbean and further afield which has included a call to the UN for a juridical settlement of this debilitating border controversy. Matters have been complicated for CARICOM by Caracas’s extension of its influence via its petrodollars and its Chavez-era ALBA political grouping. There must be no appearance of CARICOM members resiling from their obligation to stand solidly with fellow members and guarding against any attenuation of sovereignty. It is the expectation that the summit will take a firm position on Guyana’s sovereignty.
It will not escape the attention of citizens of the region that this meeting of Heads is being held at the same time that a commission to review Jamaica’s relations with CARICOM is getting underway in Kingston. That review commission in turn coincides with a period of embittered relations between Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago over the trade balance and treatment of nationals. CARICOM and its Heads must be better attuned to the cries and concerns of the ordinary people. Free movement and robust and equitable intra-regional trade are key pillars of the CARICOM project. When matters between states arrive at a point where the rhetoric drowns out rational talk it means that the mechanisms of the regional body and its secretariat have either not been engaged or are incapable of such.
Governance changes remain imperative within CARICOM and Heads should use the opportunity of the Georgetown meeting to pour oil on the troubled waters between Kingston and Port-of-Spain and to establish effective modalities for limiting such eruptions of discord. Free movement remains limited to certain categories and has not progressed as far as expected. Under the chairmanship of the former Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, the commission in Kingston will consider whether the Treaty of Chaguaramas of 1973 and its revision in 2001 have been responsive to the global changes occurring over the past 43 years. It will also address matters such as the treatment of Jamaicans travelling to other CARICOM countries; contradictions between CARICOM’s strategies and goals and those of individual countries and how these can be reconciled. The commission will also cogitate on trade arrangements hammered out through CARIFORUM and via the African, Caribbean and Pacific group of countries. These are all matters eminently open for discussion and which CARICOM itself should seek to examine in light of the Jamaican decision so that there could be a fuller engagement with Kingston when the time is appropriate.
Also on the agenda and demanding unified and determined action is the ongoing plight of Haitians in the Dominican Republic who have faced denaturalisation. CARICOM must send a firm message to Santo Domingo that the rights of Haitians within the Dominican Republic must be fully respected and until such time, relations with CARICOM will not progress as smoothly as is hoped for by both sides.
The people of the region must continue to be given hope and assurance that no matter the turmoil that surrounds them – and oftentimes not of their doing – that CARICOM will rise to the challenge and that the spirit of 1973 can imbue and inspire the movement to lofty heights. The dream of the regionalist remains the forging of a single economy that advances the prospects of all of the region’s peoples.
