The Final Call

Caribbean leaders seek united front amid economic crisis

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MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (IPS/GIN) - Caribbean Community (Caricom) leaders gathered here in early July for their annual summit still struggling to recover from the two-year global economic and financial crisis that has taken a major toll on their individual economies.

Especially hard hit have been the tourism industry and remittances from abroad. The Guyana-based Caricom Secretariat says that at least half of the 15-member group will record either zero or negative growth this year, while high unemployment and other factors are likely to exacerbate the situation.

“This state of affairs cannot be separated from our continuing major social problems related to crime and security,” Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington told reporters ahead of the July 4-7 event.

His economic adviser, Dr. Maurice Odle, added that a looming debt crisis and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico would also be on the agenda.

Caricom countries have been working towards a Single Market and Economy by the year 2015, but the initiative has suffered several setbacks.

“The goalpost on CSME inauguration keeps shifting as a number of member states continue to falter in honoring their pledges to close the yawning gaps on implementation of treaty-based policies and programs,” said veteran Caribbean journalist Rickey Singh.

Jamaican Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who is also the conference chair for the next six months, reiterated the need for the small countries, “naked, shivering for warmth in the blizzard of the global crisis,” to stay together. “We are faced with the stark reality that the world is realigning itself into huge blocs with defined interests that determine how they relate to the rest of the world,” said Mr. Golding, according to CaribWorldNews.com.

“None of us, especially those as small as we are, can or will make it on our own … Our reality check is that we are on our own and we must decide whether in this journey that we must make what we will work alone or walk together.”

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves, a stalwart of the integration process, said he believes that Caricom could learn from the progress being made by the sub-regional Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), which recently signed a treaty establishing an economic union among themselves that provides for improved governance and deeper cooperation among member states.

The summit coincided with Caricom's 31st anniversary.

The Economic Partnership Agreement that the Caribbean signed with Europe nearly two years ago, negotiations with Canada for a new trade and development accord, and ways to strengthen relations with the United States were also part of weekend discussions.

The outgoing Caricom chair and prime minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, said that in the past “there has not been sufficient political dialogue” with Washington.

“We are receptive to dialogue and President Obama has recognized that and he is taking a different approach to the Caribbean,” Mr. Skerrit said.

The Barack Obama administration pledged 45 million dollars to the region this year under the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative. In April, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made a further commitment of 79 million dollars for the security initiative for next year.

Following a 90-minute meeting with Caribbean leaders in Barbados in June, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also announced that the region was in line to receive a further 170 million dollars in funding for HIV/AIDS and climate change programs.

Caricom has also sought to deepen its relations with its Latin American neighbors through Brazil and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States as well as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas and UNASUR.

The catastrophic January earthquake in Haiti and the pending presidential and legislative elections were dealt with during the Montego Bay summit. President René Préval was assured that Caricom would continue to support efforts to rebuild Haiti—and press the world to make good on promises to help.

“We impress upon the international community the urgency with which actions must follow these commitments, especially in strengthening the institutional capacity of Haiti to undertake the mammoth task at hand,” Mr. Golding said.

But, like the international donor community, Caricom is fearful that the arrival of the hurricane and rainy seasons could seriously hamper efforts to rebuild a country where more than a million people became hopeless following the Jan. 12 earthquake that killed an estimated 300,000 people.

Haitian President Préval recently announced that elections will take place on Nov. 28 and he intends to step down in keeping with the constitutional deadline of Feb. 7 even though the parliament recently approved an extension of that date to May.

Climate change issues, particularly as the region gears up to attend a major meeting in Cancun, Mexico in November, were also a major talking point here, given the outcome of the Copenhagen conference last December. “Every step must be taken by the region to prepare for that meeting to ensure that the results, in particular the maximum rise in global temperature, do not exceed 1.5 degrees,” said Caricom Secretary-General Edwin Carrington.

“The region's mantra of ‘1.5 to stay alive' is not a mere slogan for our islands and low-lying coastal states. Its achievement is vital for our very survival.”

The four-day summit was the first opportunity for Kamla Persad Bissessar, the first ever woman prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago, to interact with her regional colleagues since her May 24 general election victory.

And while Caricom has been often criticized as ineffective, its value is not underestimated. “The process of regional integration has stalled in most respects, notably the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) and is in reverse on many other areas such as freedom of movement of Caricom citizens. The inability to accomplish freedom of movement is a classic illustration of the failure of the grouping,” said the Jamaican Observer in a July 6 editorial.

“Ironically, during the colonial period people were free to move from one colony to another. But immediately after the attainment of political independence, governments began instituting a system of work permits.

“While welcoming tourists with only a driver's licence, immigration officials subject passport holders from other Caricom states to hostile interrogation. In the Bahamas and Barbados, citizens of Jamaica, Guyana and Haiti are treated as personas non grata.

“The state of Caricom is the equivalent of a bankrupt company that has been losing money for well over a decade. But since there are still obvious benefits to be realized from regional integration and cooperation, abandoning Caricom is the option of the faint-hearted. The only viable course of action is fixing it,” it said.

Part of the solution, the Jamaican Observer argued, is the resignation of the current secretary-general. The resignation “would dramatize the need for a fresh start, without which Caricom will drift aimlessly on to certain death,” said the editorial.

(Final Call staff contributed to this report.)