37th CARICOM Heads of Government Conference… Security and Economics high on agenda

Jul 03, 2016 News

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The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Heads of Government will meet for their 37th Regular Meeting over three days from tomorrow, in Georgetown, Guyana, at the Guyana Pegasus Hotel.
The Heads will seek opportunities and regional solutions to several challenges facing the community.
The meeting is also expected to advance matters pertaining to regional security – economic and otherwise; and the social well-being of the approximately 16 million people who make up the Caribbean Community.
Correspondent Banking is among the top agenda issues before the highest decision making forum of the regional grouping of 15 Members and five Associate States.
CARICOM, and indeed the Caribbean as a whole, is concerned about this issue. If all correspondent banking relations are withdrawn, the region will be isolated from the rest of the world and will be unable to carry out some of the most basic of bank transactions.
Critical services including remittance transfers, international trade, and the facilitation of credit card settlements for local clients, among other services, will be affected.
The genesis of this issue lies in the signal by several international banks, mainly in the US and Europe, to client banks in the Region of an unwillingness to continue carrying their business, as part of a so-titled “de-risking” strategy.
The Caribbean has been labeled as a tax haven and accused of lax tax regimes and avenues for money laundering and terrorism financing, despite no evidence to prove this – a release from CARICOM stated.
At their Inter-sessional meeting in Belize, Heads “emphasized that Member States have complied with all global regulatory standards, including those established by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the Global Forum, and have been scrutinized in every detail by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) other multilateral institutions”. They deemed the action by the correspondent banks, “as an economic assault” tantamount to an economic blockade against Member States.
But CARICOM is fighting back. Using the power of the collective, they have appointed a high level advocacy group, led by the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Hon. Gastown Browne, to represent the interests of the Region in addressing the issue, including approaches to the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and the United States Government.

The Meeting will take stock of actions to date, and seek to advance the search for solutions to this matter.
The meeting is also scheduled to look at Border Issues including the Guyana and Venezuela border controversy.
Guyana’s border controversy with its western neighbour Venezuela, relates to the more than a century-old contention, which arose as a result of Venezuela’s claim that the Arbitral Award of 1899 is null and void. (The 1899 Award had conclusively settled the boundary between the two countries).
Guyana’s pursuit over the years for a peaceful settlement has yielded mixed results. A founding member of the 43-year old integration movement, many of its diplomatic interventions have rested on the pillar of foreign policy coordination, one of five pillars which underpins CARICOM integration.
In its more recent act of aggression, Venezuela on July 6, 2015, announced a Presidential Decree which lays claim to all the Atlantic waters off the Essequibo Coast. This effectively reversed the 1899 agreement that settled the border issue.
In response, CARICOM reiterated its position of “total support for the integrity of Guyana’s territory and maritime space, as well as that of all CARICOM States”, even as it emphasised the need to maintain peace and stability as the basis for enhancing regional cooperation and development for both these countries.
Speaking at the 36th Regular Meeting of the Conference, in Barbados, in July 2015, then Chair of the Community, Freundel Stewart, Prime Minister of Barbados stated, “We [CARICOM] are committed to assisting Venezuela and Guyana in this dispute, preferring at all times a peaceful solution… But as of now, having regard to the fact that there was an arbitral award in 1899 and having regard to the fact that the Geneva Agreement of 1966 has not yielded the kind of results that either Venezuela or Guyana expected, CARICOM’s formal position has to be a commitment to the territorial integrity of Guyana,” he said.
This 37th Meeting Heads of Government, on CARICOM’s 43rd anniversary, will be officially opened at 5 p.m. on 4 July 2016, at the National Cultural Centre.
Current Chair of the Conference, Roosevelt Skerrit, is one of seven Heads that will address the gathering which includes Community Ambassadors, the Diplomatic Corps in Guyana, regional and international media, school children and the general public, setting the tone for the next two days of business.
Guyana’s President, David Arthur Granger and CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque, are Hosts of the 37th Meeting, given Dominica’s inability to hold the meeting as a result of its recent natural disaster.
They too will address the audience.
CARICOM is one of the longest surviving integration movements among developing countries. The original Treaty of Chaguaramas was signed on July 4, 1973, in honour of the birthday of Norman Washington Manley, a leading advocate of the West Indies Federation and one of Jamaica’s national heroes.
The Treaty and its Annex (setting out the details of the Common Market Arrangements) came into effect on August 1, 1973. Since 2001, the Community has been functioning within the framework of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas including the Establishment of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
CARICOM has made great strides, particularly through functional cooperation in, education, in health, in culture, in security. And despite some challenges, its Single Market functions and it is a respected voice in international affairs.

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