CARICOM – A disabled formation

by Oscar Allen Tue, Jul 27, 2010

The Caribbean Community is not a community, and we are not on the road to becoming a regional community anytime soon. Consider how Japanese and Germans are much more welcomed than Haitians in all of our countries!{{more}}

Only overseas in the ‘Diaspora’ do we come together for a common carnival. Only in cricket do we seem to have a “West Indies” team. Otherwise our ‘Caribbean’, a regional association for Tourism, other business interests, professions like law, medicine and engineering do not accumulate and enrich our forces to give us an articulated across the borders material and spirited community network.

In fact the vision and purpose of CARICOM is hardly to establish and facilitate a broad Caribbean Community of people and interests, it’s mode of operation is rather to increase and expand the colonial states’ agencies and instruments of co-operation – a community bureaucracy of regional departments or units of administration. No wonder that it is difficult to manage and govern. We have 15 governments over one secretariat and perhaps two dozen departments in a generally resource poor Caribbean. We need to dismantle this CARICOM and come again if we can.

I say “if we can”, because as I see it, ‘we’ have not owned this CARICOM as ours, but left it to become “theirs”. When the CARICOM “Summit” convenes, what role do we play? Does it not seem that CARICOM is a government association, or association of states-without citizens? How do we exercise our rights to shape and redesign the regional movement? That is a serious question. The Single Market and Economy (SME), even as it is coming to be, has not sought to take measures to avoid making poverty become deeper in some areas, while growth and wealth develop in others. The SME process must be revisited at least.

CARICOM’S HAITI

Dominica’s Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit was the leader/Chairman of CARICOM when Southern Haiti around Port au Prince was struck by that 12th January, 2010 earthquake. This was a Caribbean catastrophe needing some definite CARICOM guidance, but it was individual states which took initiatives. It was obvious that the Preval Presidency should have brought in other groups to establish a broad unity oriented administration of the crisis. It was CARICOM’s call to urge this on Preval, and so bring greater “National” order to deal with the international disorder which the US heavy hand generated. CARICOM just watched the disarray.

A welcome initiative from Jamaica’s PJ Patterson is now on the table for CARICOM to provide Technical Assistance in administration to the Haitian state. That is an imperative move which must be financed out of the aid budget for reconstruction. Why it took 6 months for this project to be proposed is just another CARICOM way of operating. Four months ago, our Peoples Movement for Change (PMC) made the suggestion to Chairman Skerrit and Secretary General Edwin Carrington for such a Caribbean Volunteer Service to be organised in collaboration with the Haitian state. There was not even acknowledgement of the correspondence!

CARICOM is a disabled formation which needs careful and consistent transformation. The problem of “governance” and implementation of decisions is one symptom of CARICOM’s defect in its political, economic and neo-colonial modeling. A caucus of Prime Ministers with the best will in the world cannot fix CARICOM. For the Caribbean Community that we desire and dream about, we, citizens and sectors must talk with each other about our CARICOM, intervene more forcefully in analyzing information, policy and practice at all levels of official CARICOM, and challenge the heads to set up a transparent review. Yes we can do it.