Editorial | Philip Pierre’s challenge

Philip Pierre, St Lucia’s prime minister, is correct about the potential of Caribbean integration and what regional citizens should expect from their countries’ membership of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).

“(They) must be able to see themselves reflected in the regional agenda and feel that CARICOM is working to improve their lives, expand their opportunities, and strengthen their future,” Mr Pierre said in a statement last week as he assumed a six-month chairmanship of the 15-member community.

This realisation should set Mr Pierre’s priority today when he takes the gavel as CARICOM heads of government begin their 51st regular summit in the St Lucian town of Gros Islet. That must be settling the more than four-month impasse between Trinidad and Tobago and other regional partners over the continued tenure of Carla Barnett as CARICOM’s secretary general.

It isn’t that there aren’t, or ought to be, several other critical matters on the leaders’ agenda, especially in a turbulent global environment. But that is precisely the point: these other issues need effective cooperation if CARICOM is to deliver the value from conglomeration, which Mr Pierre correctly argued is the gift of the regional project. This, however, can’t happen effectively if a critical member of a relatively small group rejects the legitimacy of the institution’s chief technocrat.

Preferably, the Dr Barnett matter should be settled politically, via frank dialogue between the region’s leaders, which is what The Gleaner’s Editorial Board hopes Mr Pierre can achieve during this summit.

If that is not possible, which is to say:

– Trinidad and Tobago continues to assist that regional leaders at a retreat in February didn’t follow due process in appointing Dr Barnett for the second term;

– other states continue to support and hold fast to the process; and

– Dr Barnett doesn’t leave, either voluntarily or is otherwise persuaded to do so; then the matter should be sent to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) for resolution. The CCJ, acting in its original jurisdiction, is the interpreter of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaras and community law.

SHOULDN’T BE KICKED FURTHER

The issue shouldn’t be kicked further down the road, given the global complexities CARICOM has to confront and what Jamaica’s prime minister, Andrew Holness, last week told the secretariat’s staff was expected of them.

“Your job as regional administrators and technocrats is to help us, the political leaders, understand the dynamics and the changes that are happening globally and regionally,” Dr Holness said during a visit to Guyana. “We rely on you to make sense of the changing and complex global situation, and our regional situation as well.”

Dr Barnett, whose current five-year tenure expires in mid-August, has not been the activist, lead-from-the-front secretary general which many Caribbean citizens believe CARICOM needs in the current global environment. Instead, she has been a steady bureaucrat, which, apparently, is the preferred style of several, and perhaps the majority, of heads of government.

However, decision-making by CARICOM’s conferences is by unanimity, except in cases of abstentions and absences, the interpretation on which the Carla Barnett dispute rests.

At CARICOM’s February summit in St Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago’s prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, returned home early. She left her foreign minister, Sean Sobers, as acting head of delegation.

With the leaders heading for a retreat on Nevis, during which the decision was taken to appoint Dr Barnett for a second term, Mr Sobers initially indicated that he might be absent for fear of becoming seasick on the boat crossing from St Kitts. Trinidad and Tobago subsequently argued Mr Sobers was “disinvited” from the session by being told that it was for heads of government only. In any event it was not known the secretary general’s re-appointment would be discussed.

REAPPOINTED

With Trinidad and Tobago, and at least two other countries, absent from the room, CARICOM later announced that Dr Barnett was re-appointed by the “required majority”. This apparently referred to Article 28 of the Revised Treaty and its application in that situation.

Notwithstanding the unanimity rule, the article says, in cases of abstentions, decisions are not impaired “provided that the member states constituting three-quarters of the membership of the community, vote in favour of such decisions”. It says, too, that “omission by a member state to participate in a vote shall be deemed an abstention”.

However, beyond the question of numbers, Port of Spain insists that the whole process of Dr Barnett’s re-election was irregular and has pledged not to recognise her incumbency when her current term expires. The situation wasn’t helped by Ms Persad-Bissessar’s belief that while she was in opposition she was ignored and disrespected by Dr Barnett on a domestic matter she wanted addressed by the secretariat.

Settling this dispute without anyone losing face will require tact and diplomatic skill. A reopened vote and “no” by Trinidad and Tobago would derail Dr Barnett’s candidacy. If others appear to backdown, Ms Persad-Bissessar would appear to have prevailed in a contentious battle of wills.

However, this issue is drawing focus away from the accelerating efforts to transform the community into the long-promised single market and economy, thus effectively widening and deepening the regional economic space.