Freddie Kissoon column – Is this a Burnham thing?

Jul 13, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The European Union gave Caricom up to December 2007 to approve in essence (not generally) the Economic Partnership Agreement. Caricom met the deadline. Since the beginning of 2008, the third great debate in Caribbean economic direction began. The first one was centered on the West Indian Federation.

Post-Independence leaders in the West Indies felt that the West Indian Federation was a great idea for the survival of mini-states so they salvaged the remnants of the Federation in the form of Carifta then Caricom.

The second upheaval in the economic blueprint for development for the Caribbean took place in the seventies with the rise of the Non-Aligned Movement. The UN looked favourably on Third World demands for more equitable trading arrangements. The Middle East felt its oil should not be sold cheaply anymore after its successful 1973 boycott of Western buyers.

The Soviet Union was penetrating the Third World because of American support for apartheid and Israel. The Black Power movement in the US was radicalizing post-colonial leaders. And all over the world, the Economics Department of the universities were propounding the Dependency Theory which, without the Marxist philosophical underpinnings, argued that Third World countries, if there were to achieve what WW. Rustow called the take off period, had to break away from the world capitalist economy.

We come to the third major polemic in post-colonial Caribbean development thrust – the nature of the Economic Partnership Agreement with the EU which replaced the Cotonou Agreement. From the very first day it was concluded by the Regional Negotiating Machinery of Caricom, three positions immediately surfaced among the Caribbean political and academic communities. 

Some West Indian economists exclaimed it was an economic disaster that will profoundly undermine the future of the Caribbean. They rejected the framework in totality. These thinkers included the 70s university radicals.

There is the opposing pole which perhaps was best articulated by the Jamaican Gleaner some months back that used derogatory language to describe those regional economists that denounced the pact. The paper said the attack has come from aging university professors whose time has passed and who want to remain in the limelight.

There is a half-way position that comes from people like Norman Girvan and David Jessop. They see some positives and some negatives. When this intellectual storm broke out in January 2008, there was nothing in the regional media by the Guyanese President. One statement was made two months back by Mr. Jagdeo in which he felt that the blueprint was not in the interest of the Caribbean.

It was at the recent meeting of Caricom Heads last week that Mr. Jagdeo tore into the EPA and outlined his refusal to commit Guyana to the signing of the arrangement. Whether the document will hurt or help the Caribbean is not the point of this essay. As an analyst my concern is the timing of Mr. Jagdeo’s rejection. If he had given his critique days or weeks or a month or two months after the conclusion of the negotiations, then maybe his observations could have had an effect in the Caricom corridor of power. But why wait until the signing time has come to announce your rejection?

My feeling is that Mr. Jagdeo is doing a Burnham thing on Guyana. Sensing that there is nothing going good for the Government of Guyana with talk of security forces involvement in the Lindo Creek massacre, the Roger Khan trial revealing some discomforting details, the complete alienation of the opposition parties, the upcoming PPP Congress that may catapult someone in the 2011 presidential slot other than the choice of Mr. Jagdeo, Mr. Jagdeo’s timing for political bravado and jingoism could not have been better.

With Carifesta delegates tuning him to the President’s denouncing of the EPA, the hope is that Mr. Jagdeo will emerge as a Caribbean giant.

History is overflowing with this kind of political machination. Create an external conflict to obfuscate domestic worries. The leader then becomes the centre of attraction and his standing expands prodigiously.

If the conflict is finessed astutely, the leader becomes a hero. Guyanese know this game only too well. Forbes Burnham played it ad infinitum. At home, Burnham didn’t allow for democracy but he was quite active on the international stage fighting against the so-called wrong things the big powers were doing to small states.

We are witnessing a Burnham thing from Mr. Jagdeo. I doubt it will work for Mr. Jagdeo Mr. Burnham was a master strategist and thinker who knew how to play realpolitik.

As I wrote in a previous column last week, I don’t think Mr. Jagdeo will successfully carry the torch of Caribbean hero. He doesn’t have the support in Caricom and among Guyanese stakeholders. Unless of course, he becomes a president willing to reach out to those stakeholders. Will he? 

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