Whither CARICOM?
published: Wednesday | February 12, 2003
WHILE WE support in principle the ideal of some form of Caribbean integration, the forthcoming 14th Inter-sessional Meeting of Heads of Government in Trinidad to be attended by Prime Minister Patterson, may be an appropriate time to reassess if the policies and bureaucracy of CARICOM really embody this ideal. Since its inception 30 years ago, it is difficult to pinpoint what major contribution CARICOM, per se, has made to the quality of life of the people of the region. Indeed, some of the agenda items of the Trinidad summit, set out in vague, sometimes even coy language, fail to frame any real achievements, consisting mostly of progress reports on previous progress reports.
To date, there has been ample rhetoric about being able to influence world opinion by speaking with one voice but when it comes to the CARICOM Single Market, surely the most pressing priority to be examined, the regional voice stutters into whisper, innuendo and catch-phrases. Despite grandiloquent communiqués after previous meetings, there seems not to be any substantial agreement on such crucial factors as a common currency, an integrated stock exchange and, perhaps the most contentious issue of all, free movement of labour and expertise among the member-states.
Perhaps, just below the veneer of unity, there may exist in CARICOM the same unresolved tensions and vested self-interests which led to the break-up of the Federation, seismic cracks growing wider as the economies of some states like Trinidad and Tobago flourish while the economies of other states like Jamaica flounder. Trinidadian and Barbadian companies are on a rampage to take over failing Jamaican companies and we are running an adverse balance of trade with the CARICOM of US$162 million for the first half of last year. How long can this continue?
Jamaican citizens, obliged to focus on self-preservation as the country's debt increases and the value of the dollar decreases, show little emotional engagement with the abstract geo-political concerns of CARICOM. They may even begin to send a message to the Prime Minister that they would prefer him to stay at home, guiding the Jamaican ship of State, rather than pumping his remaining energies into regional ideologies like the proposed Caribbean Court of Justice. Is CARICOM an idea whose time has passed, destined to be absorbed into wider groupings like the Association of American States, dominated by Spanish-speaking nations like the Dominican Republic and perhaps even a post-Castro Cuba?
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
