Chronicles of a Chronic Caribbean Chronicler
By Earl Bousquet
The reappointment of Dr Carla Barnett as Secretary General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) has been morphed into a relative tropical disturbance, thanks mainly to typical regional press coverage of and public debate on the process employed at the historic 50th Heads of Government Meeting hosted February 24-27 in St. Kitts and Nevis.
Two months later, the matter is still being discussed in the context of ‘unity’ and ‘division’ within CARICOM’s leadership.
The usual suspects (as per usual) prefer fanning flames and fuming doubts that tend to widen and deepen public confusion, highlighting problematic issues, but offering no solutions.
Responses by the few CARICOM leaders and Caribbean diplomats who’ve addressed the matter haven’t been helpful either.
Most have been deafeningly silent — except for a call by Jamaica’s Prime Minister for a special regional summit to address the issue; and another call by the region’s longest-serving diplomat in The Americas for Dr Barnett to resign, on principle.
But, irrespective of the strings of supportive arguments offered for such calls, they run the risk of only blowing a small ants nest into a mountain of even-more uncertainties, by trying to solve what’s obviously a long-term problem, in short time.
The Secretariat is functioning normally and this issue can surely wait for the 51st CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting in Saint Lucia that’s just about two months away.
Similarly, asking Dr Barnett to resign her post three or four months before her contract expires (in August) would, at the least, be diplomatically indelicate.
Fact is, none of this would have happened if the Trinidad & Tobago Prime Minister and her Foreign and CARICOM Affairs Minister had only decided to do like most and fully attend the two-day Heads of Government Meeting, including the Caucus, where delicate issues are discussed away from other delegates.
And that’s why incoming CARICOM Chair, Saint Lucia’s PM Philip J. Pierre, on Monday expressed the hope that all CARICOM Heads of Government will attend the 51st Summit throughout, where the issue of the appointment of the Secretary General can be ‘maturely’ discussed.
This isn’t a side issue, but it must not be allowed to blur or overshadow other equally-important issues to be addressed — like how the world’s experiences since the 51st Summit have affected the region – and will continue to for some time.
Outstanding issues exist and CARICOM need to get the region’s house in order on matters like Freedom of Movement, regional citizenship, rights to work and refusal of some larger CARICOM member-states to recognize OECS (Organization of Eastern Caribbean States) travel documents.
Caribbean citizens are also still worried about issues like: effects of unilateral US and European Union (EU) actions against CIPs (Citizenship by Investment Programs) in the OECS by shifting goalposts in visa application and entry requirements; implications of the forced departure of Cuban medical teams from some member-states; and the impending arrival of deportee immigrants from the US, whose asylum requests were rejected by its Department of Homeland Security.
The leaders will also have to prepare for CARICOM’s positions at two other upcoming summits: the CARICOM-African Union (AU) Summit in September and the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Antigua and Barbuda in November.
CARICOM’s 12-year-old quest for Reparations from Europe for Slavery and Native Genocide, especially against the background of the UN’s recent overwhelming General Assembly vote declaring Trans-Atlantic Trafficking in Enslaved Africans as The ‘Gravest’ Crime Against Humanity.
Here too, CARICOM has to agree on how or whether member-states will take a regional or local approach – or both – to the issue of Financing Reparations, starting with determination of an agreed model to calculate sums owed from those who built empires on the backs of victims of The Gravest Crime Against Humanity.
CARICOM is also expected support the AU’s coming call on the UN General Assembly to vote on replacing the historically misrepresentative proportionate portrayal of Africa that’s adorned world maps to date, by one that reflects the continent’s true size.
The current and continuing global energy crisis is already taking its toll on the region, as is the acceleration of Climate Change hazards, while the region prepares for the upcoming UN Convention on Climate Change (UNCCC) Conference of Parties (COP 30) later this year.
Climate Financing continues to elude CARICOM’s small island nations, focing Saint Lucia to establish its Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Last Sunday’s quiet but stormy disruptions involving a full day of rain and resulting landslides — will be the need for sober deliberations on Climate Change, Sustainable Development, Environment, Water and related issues.
When he addressed the press at the closing session of the 51st CARICOM Heads meeting in St. Kitts, incoming Chair Philip J. Pierre reminded his colleagues – and the region – that, given the acceleration of Climate Change effects across the region, all done to develop and better Caribbean lives can disappear in one day.
But little did he and his colleagues know that by the time they meet again in Saint Lucia, the region and the world would have been facing the growing existential threats posed by the global energy crisis now confronting the region.
Implications of higher fuel and energy prices (oil and gas) will continue to affect even the region’s new and old oil-producing states, including Guyana, Surinam and Trinidad & Tobago.
Crude oil prices continue to rise quickly towards the dreaded US $200 per barrel, which – at just over US $111 per barrel at time of writing — will certainly have dreadful implications for CARICOM economies.
So, while the leaders already have their cups half-full in some instances and half-empty in others, their plates will certainly be overloaded at the discussion tables between July 5 and 8.
Therefore, all hope is that all the leaders decide to avoid the consequences of staying away, as requested by the incoming Chair and host of the 51st Heads Meeting, the Saint Lucia Prime Minister.