Why CARICOM?

Sep 23, 2025 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – The situation in Gaza has long passed the stage of polite diplomatic protest. It has long passed the stage of hollow resolutions, of carefully worded statements drafted in the perfumed chambers of international diplomacy.

Gaza is under siege. Every day, dozens are being killed. Israel, with cold efficiency, continues its campaign of slaughter, and the world, with its vast machinery of conscience, turns its head. And here in Guyana, a gathering is planned—outside the CARICOM Secretariat, of all places. For Thursday 25th September 2025. A day of prayers, fasting, and hand-wringing to demand that CARICOM nations sever relations with Israel.

The piety will be on full display: a tent, the flag of Palestine, perhaps chants, perhaps placards, perhaps a candle or two. It will be an event calibrated for spectacle but not for consequence. The organisers have chosen their target carefully. Too carefully. They will stand outside a Secretariat that is, for all its symbolism, a house of bureaucracy. CARICOM is an abstraction, a chorus of the weak singing into the void of global indifference. To demand that CARICOM act is to demand that no one act. It is a safe demand, a demand that will bear little consequence.

Why not, instead, assemble outside the Office of the President? Why not have your banners and your chants at the gates of Irfaan Ali’s compound? Why not demand that Guyana, this resource-rich nation that boasts of its place in the world, sever its ties—diplomatic, trade, and investment—with Israel? Why not insist that Guyana, so eager to court moral authority in international forums, demonstrate that morality begins at home?

But no. The organisers shrink from that. They avoid the seat of real power, preferring the impotence of regional symbolism. They prefer the abstraction of CARICOM to the immediacy of Guyana’s government. It is easier to shout at a faceless institution than to demand that your Guyana’s leaders take a stand. It is easier to wrap oneself in the cloth of regional indignation than to strip bare the cowardice of our local politicians.

Charity begins at home. If one truly believes that Israel is on a murderous spree, then the first responsibility is to cut the ties of one’s own state. To stop Guyana’s government from clasping Israel’s bloodied hand. To pressure President Ali into acting. But this is Guyana, a land where moral gestures are cheap. It is safer to point fingers outward, to pretend that power resides elsewhere. The organisers want to bask in the glow of righteous indignation without paying the cost of confronting the government of the country where the protest is being held.

They will fast. They will pray. They will gather outside CARICOM’s offices because CARICOM cannot embarrass them, cannot expose their timidity. Guyana’s government is no bystander to Gaza. By maintaining its ties with Israel, it allows Israel to act without consequence. Yet the so-called solidarity movement dares not say this aloud. It prefers the soft target.

And so, the protest will come and go. There will be lofty rhetoric, perhaps a headline or two. The organisers will congratulate themselves on their courage. And yet, nothing will change. CARICOM will not act. It cannot. It has no army, no treasury, no will. It is a talk shop. And Israel, that ruthless state, will not lose a moment’s sleep over Caribbean platitudes.

But imagine, just imagine, if Guyana were to sever its ties. Imagine if President Ali, under pressure from his own people, announced that Guyana will no longer deal with Israel. That would be news. That would echo. That would ripple through chancelleries and embassies. That would be a small state taking a real stand. It would be an act of courage.

And that is precisely why it is not being demanded. Because to demand it would mean confronting power, not playacting at the margins. It would mean risking embarrassment, risking rejection. Better, then, to stay outside the CARICOM Secretariat, to sing the safe songs of outrage. This is the truth that the organisers must face: that their protest is hollow, that it is directed at the wrong target, that it lacks the courage to matter. The dead in Gaza deserve better than this ritual. They deserve a protest that demands that Guyana lead by example, not hide behind CARICOM’s skirt. Until then, let us call this what it is: a performance. A spectacle of conscience without cost. And let us remind the organisers of a simple truth that should sting them to their core: charity begins at home.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• CARICOM, Gaza, Israel, Palestine, Peeping Tom

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