Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter
Karl James, head of Jamaica Cane Product Sales Ltd., protesting outside the British High Commission in St. Andrew yesterday against the pending cuts in the price of sugar on the European market. - NORMAN GRINDLEY /DEPUTY CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER
ABOUT 200 members of the sugar industry and affiliated trade unions gathered in a show of unity yesterday outside the British High Commission to protest the European Union's (EU) decision to cut sugar prices for African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.
Jamaican sugar, the industry claims, will not survive the 39 per cent cut to be made in two years from June 30, 2006, which are to be announced on June 22.
Speaking at the protest, Livingston Morrison, president of the Sugar Company of Jamaica (SCJ), said the industry needed six to eight years to adapt.
DEVASTATING CONSEQUENCES
"There is a long-standing agreement that needs to be honoured and we support the protest in recognition of the devastating consequences that would follow the price cuts."
Inside the High Commission, industry and union representatives were allowed to meet with the heads of EU-member diplomatic missions, who were then holding their monthly meeting. They were handed a letter outlining 'Jamaica's position on the issue, co-signed by Professor Trevor Munroe, president of the University and Allied Workers Union, Vincent Morrison, vice president and island supervisor of the National Workers Union and Wycliffe Matthews, deputy island supervisor of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union.
The letter stated that Jamaica needs "transitional assistance in the region of Euro250 million in soft loans and grants", to modernise the industry, stressing that otherwise the industry "cannot withstand" the cuts.
Inside the meeting, Professor Munroe admitted that unlike his audience he was not a diplomat and would put his words bluntly. "You are breaking an agreement and betraying a trust," he said, pointing to the 1975 Sugar Protocol guaranteeing price and conditions for ACP producers exporting to the EU.
He charged that the change was being "proposed without any sort of dialogue whatsoever."
And speaking of the 60 per cent grants being tabled by the EU for European sugar beet farmers he said the EU's decision was "smacking of racism." "You treat them in an entirely different way to the way you are treating ACP people," he said.
The move he charged was hypocritical when judged alongside EU commitments to development. The letter accused the EU of being sporadic in its consultation with ACP countries. British High Commissioner Peter Mathers however noted that: "There is still discussion ... as to what our own position is which is why the consultation has been delayed."
NEW SITUATIONS
And reiterating the EU's position that it was complying with last year's World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruling he countered: "We are not getting rid of these agreements, we are moving into a new situation."
He continued: "We fully understand ... In a country like Jamaica if this industry is simply destroyed it plays ... entirely against the British government's position to co-operate with the Jamaican government on development issues."
