Phillips: External forces seeking to divide and rule Caribbean

WESTERN BUREAU:

Opposition Leader Dr Peter Phillips says external political forces are seeking to divide and rule Caribbean states through globalisation, leading to worsening social and economic inequalities in the region.

Phillips, who was speaking at the opening ceremony of Socialist International Community for Latin America and the Caribbean meeting in Montego Bay, said that Jamaica and other regional countries are being impacted negatively by the growing inequality because of intensified globalisation within the last 30 years.

“We are definitive, anticolonial. We support the rule of international law, we opposed hegemonic potentials and influences, and we are resolutely committed to the pursuit of a more equitable and socially just world order,” said Phillips, in outlining the region’s posture on globalisation.

Phillips, the fifth president of the socialist-aligned People’s National Party (PNP), pointed to the spread of anti-immigrant policies in North America and Europe, coupled with the trade embargo against Cuba, as efforts designed to push the divide-and-rule philosophy.

“In Jamaica and elsewhere in the Caribbean, small countries are being directly caught up and affected negatively by these intensified Great Power conflicts.

“The return of Haitian immigrants in the United States to Haiti, externally driven efforts to split the Caribbean community, all of this taken together reflects a new phase in the political, social and economic situation of this region,” Phillips said.

Phillips said that these developments were evident in the growing geopolitical conflicts, particularly between the United States and China as reflected in trade wars.

“These conflicts are spilling over into the politics within the region,” added Phillips.