Delano Franklyn, ContributorTHE MOST Honourable Edward Seaga in an article entitled 'Cricket: Run wid it again' which appeared in The Sunday Gleaner, April 23, 2006, described the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) as a 'lame association'.
I disagree with Mr. Seaga's characterisation of CARICOM but I was not surprised at the comments.
Mr. Seaga, when he was the Leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and now dutifully followed by Bruce Golding, has always demonstrated an ambivalence, if not downright disregard for anything regional. Be it CARICOM Single Market and Economy; the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and now Cricket World Cup .
It is very ironic that Mr. Seaga now writes as a Distinguished Fellow of the University of the West Indies, a regional institution which has benefited significantly from the guidance and support of CARICOM. But, that is the nature of any reputable and well-respected University - it must allow all views and voices to contend, even if the contention is a little loose at times.
While it can be argued that CARICOM has not fully maximised its true potential, its achievements to date puts it above being described as a 'lame association'. Even its very survival is exceptional. At 33 years, CARICOM is the longest surviving integration movement among developing countries and, as was recently noted by its Secretary General, Edwin Carrington:
"Though other similar arrangements may have started earlier than CARICOM, these other arrangements have floundered even though in some cases they have been reborn. CARICOM has fortunately had a continuous life."
One may ask, why has it survived for so long while other regional institutions have either stopped and started or have died? No one has put forward a better response to this question than a former colleague of Mr. Seaga.
I speak of the former Prime Minister of Dominica, Dame Eugenia Charles, who in her address to the Third Meeting of the Conference of Heads of Government of CARICOM here in Jamaica in 1992, emphasised the fact that the "leaders and the peoples of the region must see CARICOM as an article of faith - an ideal, not sterile, but vibrant and meaningful."
The majority of the leaders of CARICOM have always seen CARICOM in this light.
Dame Eugenia was echoing the sentiments of a group of Caribbean practitioners and experts who, in trying to understand the survival of CARICOM, argued in 1981 that, "Caribbean regionalism is the outgrowth of more than 300 years of West Indian kinship - the vagaries of the socio-economic political history of a transplanted people from which is evolving a Caribbean identity."
CARICOM has not only survived, it has also achieved. It must be understood that to cope with the challenges of globalization and liberalisation, it is important not only to form strategic alliances, but also to fully realise that CARICOM is a strategic alliance in itself.
Regional negotiating machinery
In 1997, in order to enhance its external trade negotiating capacity, CARICOM established, a Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (RNM) first headed by that giant of regionalism Sir Shridath Ramphal and now headed by Ambassador Richard Bernal, who has been at pains to underscore the importance of CARICOM maintaining a collective voice in the multiplicity of trade fora in which, by necessity, the countries of the region must participate.
The role of the RNM is to design strategies for the major external trade negotiations being undertaken by the Community. No other regional body, except the European Union, has been able to achieve this feat. We are praised by people all over the world for this achievement, yet Mr. Seaga refers to CARICOM as a 'lame association'.
In the area of foreign policy co-ordination, efforts have been intensified to deepen co-ordination by adopting common positions in an increasing number of international and multilateral fora.
This co-ordination of foreign policy manifested itself recently when the Community took a principled position regarding the forced removal of former President Aristide from Haiti. This deepened co-ordination of our foreign policy was instrumental in the decision of the Jamaican Government and the former Prime Minister to allow Aristide to stay in Jamaica while he searched for a permanent home. This principled position of CARICOM has won the respect of millions of people throughout the world. CARICOM could not have done what it did, if it were a 'lame association'.
CARICOM single market and economy
The move to create a Single Market and Economy (SME) is also another major achievement of CARICOM. Mr. Seaga has dismissed Jamaica's participation in the CSME by arguing in his budget presentation of April 2004 that:
"In this non-competitive scenario, participation in a CARICOM Single Market and Economy is of little or no value to the future prospects of development of the Jamaican economy'.
Mr. Golding has also rejected the CSME when in speaking in the Senate in May 2003, he said that the "CSME is really a misnomer." Both Seaga and Golding are again reflecting their scepticism of things regional.
The intention of the leaders of the Community is to integrate the economies of the Member States into a single market in which people, services and capital can move without hindrance and to establish a single economy and space characterised by co-ordinated and harmonised economic policies. While a number of Caribbean scholars such as Havelock Brewster, Norman Girvan, Dennis Benn, Jessica Byron, Alvin Wint and others, have raised pertinent questions and issues regarding the CSME, they have not rejected the idea or the quest to create the CSME. I suspect that they have not rejected the idea of a CSME because they realise that going it alone is not an option for small states such as ours, particularly within the context of the harsh realities of today's global environment.
Persons such as Mr. Seaga who fail to see the true merit of the CSME focus too much on the trade expansion possibilities of CARICOM and, in the process, neglect the more fundamental issues of the production aspect of the integration process. The mere existence of the CSME will in itself not automatically generate economic prosperity. The key to future economic prosperity, in my view, lies in the systematic pattern of production integration. This is one of the major challenges facing the leadership of the region.
The creation of the CSME is a bold and commendable move and does not reflect the traits of a 'lame association'.
Another area in which CARICOM has made tremendous progress has been the strengthening and reshaping of its institutional framework.
As was pointed out by Carrington, 'several specialised institutions and institutional arrangements designed to contribute to the achievement of the Community's overall objective have been established'. The Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC), the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), the Caribbean Disaster and Emergency Response Agency (CEDERA); the Community Climate Change Centre (CCCC); and the Caribbean Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) are some examples.
The CXC is a significant achievement. Many of us can recall those who opposed the introduction of the CXC on the grounds that the 'external exams had world recognition' or that 'the markers would leak the exam results' or that the 'money to be spent on the CXC exams could be better spent on fixing schools and roads'.
These were some of the same arguments used by those who opposed the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). I am happy that CARICOM did not listen to the doubting Thomases and went ahead with the CXC. A 'lame association' could not have been so bold and farsighted.
There is no doubt that CARICOM can do much more. The failure to make advance in any particular area is a failure of the Governments of the region and the regional institutions. CARICOM will go forward if the Governments and people of the region continue to push it forward and it will go backward if the Government and people of CARICOM push it backward. In today's world we have a duty to push it forward and, in fact, it has been going forward, not as fast as many of us would like, but based on some of its achievements, it is a 'lame argument' to say that CARICOM is a 'lame association'.
Delano Franklyn is Minister of State in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade.
