Regional integration at risk after Barbados debacle
Published:Thursday | March 31, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Daraine Luton, Senior Staff Reporter
PRIME MINISTER Bruce Golding has warned that the movement towards the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) risks being retarded by actions of member countries of CARICOM.
Golding, who was speaking in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, said the region must confront issues dealing with the movement of Caribbean nationals, if the CSME is going to succeed.
"If this unfortunate incident that is reported to have happened in Barbados, if any good comes from it, it perhaps would be jerking all of CARICOM to recognise that this is an issue that we can no longer ignore - that we can no longer skirt around it. We are going to have to confront the issue," Golding said.
Shanique Myrie last week claimed that she was subjected to two demeaning cavity searches by a female immigration officer in Barbados, and was detained for hours.
She also said the immigration officer made several derogatory remarks about Jamaicans.
Opposition Spokesman on foreign affairs and foreign trade, Anthony Hylton, whose law firm is representing Myrie, said the response of the Barbados government, which called the story a fabrication, was "unfortunate" and "very intemperate".
The prime minister also said "we must be very careful not to allow an incident, no matter how deplorable or despicable it is reported to be, to undermine the regional integration movement."
His comments followed similar sentiments which were expressed by foreign minister, Dr Ken Baugh, who told the House that his ministry has dismissed preliminary findings of the Barbados government, which have concluded that a Jamaican national lied about being subjected to degrading treatment by an immigration officer in Barbados.
Baugh told the House of Representatives that, after a detailed interview with Myrie, officials of his ministry had no reason to disbelieve her story.
Investigation
He said a Jamaican delegation, inclusive of three police officers from the Organised Crime Unit, the head of the passport and immigration office and Jamaica's High Commissioner in Trinidad and Tobago, Sharon Saunders, are heading to Barbados to investigate the matter.
"I can only guarantee that intensive investigations will be done," Baugh said.
Meanwhile, Golding has said the allegations that Barbados was being unfriendly to another CARICOM national is "not a matter that is new".
He noted that at a CARICOM meeting in Grenada last month, the prime minister of St Vincent made complaints about the treatment of his nationals when they arrive in Barbados. He also said at a meeting before that a similar complaint was made by the president of Guyana.
"There is, regrettably, an unwillingness to restate and reaffirm the commitment of the revised (Treaty of) Chaguaramas."
Statistics presented to the House by Baugh show that, of the 51,079 attempted entries of Jamaicans into Barbados between 2008 and 2010, 851 of them have been denied access.
Conversely, of the 12,071 attempted entries of Barbadians into Jamaica since 2008, five have been denied entry.