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LEAD, CARICOM, LEAD!
Dear Editor,
ARTICLE 6 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas commits the 15 Member States of our Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to “enhanced coordination of Member States’ foreign and foreign economic policies” and to “the achievement of a greater measure of…effectiveness in dealing with third States, groups of States and entities of any description.”
Well, if our Caribbean Community (CARICOM) ever needed a unified and collective foreign policy, the time is now!
Recently – on the 10th of January 2019 – we had an embarrassing spectacle at the Organization of American States (OAS), when, on having to deal with a Resolution that purported to delegitimize the inauguration of Nicolas Maduro as President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, our CARICOM member states found themselves divided on the issue, with some of them voting for the Resolution, others voting against, and some abstaining.
And now, an additional Venezuela-related foreign policy challenge has come our way, in the form of one Juan Guaido – the recently appointed President of Venezuela’s National Assembly – unilaterally (and in the absence of his participation in any relevant electoral process) declaring himself President of Venezuela and having the Donald Trump administration of the United States of America purporting to recognize him as Venezuela’s interim President.
In light of the foregoing, it behoves us to spend some time reflecting on the genesis of CARICOM’s aspiration to a collective foreign policy, and on the ideals and principles that would have guided the four major architects of that aspiration – the late Prime Ministers Errol Barrow, Eric Williams, Forbes Burnham, and Michael Manley.
In January 1962, at the 8th Consultative Meeting of Organization of American States (OAS) Foreign Ministers in Uruguay, the OAS suspended Cuba’s membership, thereby effectively expelling Cuba from the OAS!
This was then followed by the US compiling a so-called “black list” of all countries still trading with Cuba and threatening to cut off US economic and military assistance to them.
But even this was seemingly not enough for the anti-Cuba forces, and during the 9th Consultative Meeting of Foreign Ministers held in Washington DC in July 1964, a resolution was passed urging all governments of the Western Hemisphere to break diplomatic relations with Cuba.
And—sad to say—in the following years, every single Western Hemisphere nation except Mexico and Canada fell in line with the OAS stipulation and either broke diplomatic relations with Cuba or refused to recognize the revolutionary Republic of Cuba!
The magnificent response of the visionary Prime Ministers of the four newly independent Commonwealth Caribbean nations — Errol Barrow, Michael Manley, Eric Williams and Forbes Burnham—was to issue the following historic Declaration in October 1972 :-
“The Prime Ministers of Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, meeting together during the Heads of Government Conference at Chaguaramas, have considered the state of their relations with the Government of Cuba and the obligations, which the OAS has sought to impose upon its members in regard to relations with that Government; and make the following statement:
(1) The independent English-speaking Caribbean states, exercising their sovereign right to enter into relations with any other sovereign state and pursuing their determination to seek regional solidarity and to achieve meaningful and comprehensive economic cooperation amongst all Caribbean countries will seek the early establishment of relations with Cuba, whether economic, diplomatic or both.
(2) To this end, the independent English-speaking Caribbean states will act together on the basis of agreed principles.”
Here then were the four smallest and youngest states of the entire Western hemisphere standing on principle; courageously speaking “truth to power”; and setting a noble and principled example for all the other nations of the hemisphere to follow!
AND so, the lesson taught to us by these architects of our Caribbean integration movement– Errol Barrow, Eric Williams, Forbes Burnham and Michael Manley – is absolutely clear: namely, that our Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is a much more effective, powerful, principled, and respected organization when it operates on the basis of a unified, collective Foreign Policy.
Surely, this is a lesson that we all need to take to heart in these troubled and vexed times.
David Comissiong,
Ambassador to Caricom,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade,
Bridgetown, Barbados
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