The Editor, Sir:

The Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) announced plans for economic union earlier this year and Paul Ashley did not utter a sound. Now that Trinidad has announced its intention to join the OECS he is screaming against it like a lunatic.

If we are to assume that Mr Ashley is not opposed to the OECS economic union, then why is he so mad about Trinidad joining the OECS?

Spurious arguments

He and others in Jamaica who are opposed to political union in the Caribbean mask their inherent dislike for regional integration by spurious arguments. This is made evident by their failure to concede or acknowledge that the European Union (EU) is a political union with its flag, president, and elected constituent assembly representatives from all the countries in the EU, and yet these countries have maintained national sovereignty. Some like Britain maintained their own national currency.

Even within CARICOM there are federation of states like St Kitts and Nevis.

The southern Caribbean states because of their proximity, shared ancestry, and greater cultural homogeneity should have integrated decades ago without Jamaica.

Why does Patrick Manning have to pay a visit to Jamaica and Haiti of all places, to explain something that essentially is not their concern?

We will wait and see what will emanate from the rest of the OECS that will formally support this proposition. And we will wait and see what will emanate from the critics when Barbados eventually joins years later.

I am, etc.,

THE REGIONALIST

msavarin@hotmail.com

Roseau, Dominica