AMIDST reports of continued United States pressure on Jamaica and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) over the disagreement on Haiti, the March 25 to 26 Inter-sessional Meeting of Caribbean heads of government in St Kitts-Nevis may not have been able to focus sufficiently on plans to implement the Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME).

Sure, the CSME was discussed, but most of the press reports from St Kitts-Nevis up to Friday suggested that political issues surrounding Haiti remained at the top of the agenda.
In the end, though, there is a close nexus between politics and economics and, the final act of the Haitian drama - whenever that is played - will have lasting economic consequences.

On the one hand, Caricom leaders appeared to be sticking to their position that the 'interim' Haitian administration, headed by Gerard Latortue, would not be allowed to fully assume the Haitian seat in the regional body. This position apparently toughened after Latortue's appearance earlier in the week on a platform with rebels, whom he hailed as liberators.

On the other hand, the US administration, which helped in the creation of the new authority in Haiti after torpedoing a Caricom power-sharing plan, has been pressing the regional governments to back down, and according to at least one source, Washington has made unspecified threats against Jamaica.

Randall Robinson, who accompanied former president Jean-Bertrand Artistide from the Central African Republic to Jamaica, says the threat came from US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
"I have learned from a White House source that Condoleezza Rice has pointedly threatened the Jamaican government, telling it to expel President Aristide, or face the consequences", the human rights activist and founder of Trans-Africa is quoted in a radio interview posted on the website www.democracynow.org.

Interestingly, when KD Knight, minister of foreign affairs and foreign trade was asked by RJR's Kathy Barrett to comment on Robinson's disclosure, he pointedly and repeatedly said that US Secretary of State Colin Powell has conveyed no such threat to him - and they had spoken as recently as Tuesday. There was no flat out denial from Knight.
While there is room for dispute about the accuracy of specific threats from specific individuals demanding specific actions, the public statements from Washington leave no doubt about their upset.

And if past actions are anything to go by, there can be no doubt that small countries have, indeed, been punished for disobeying the will of the big and the powerful.
It was not so long ago that some European countries, which did not vigorously back the war against Iraq, were excluded from the bidding for post-war reconstruction contracts.

That reality may explain the thinking behind an editorial in the Trinidad Express of March 24, which outlined a course for expelling Haiti, as was done with Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth and then asked: "Will such a course be pursued, or will the leaders genuflect to hidden pressures and abandon the decision for a UN-sanctioned probe into how Aristide departed from office, and announce a double-speak position on their deliberations on "the situation in Haiti"?

Threats, hidden or real, may also explain the doubts expressed by many to Prime Minister Patterson's continued public displeasure over the unexpected decision by the US, France and Canada to jettison the Caricom power-sharing plan for Haiti.

The debate will obviously continue long after St Kitts-Nevis. It is not in our long-term interest for a sustained public row with the United States. But a 'one-order' world, where the voice of the weak has no place, cannot be in the regional interest either. And both the US and Caricom have an interest in a Haiti that has a real chance at stability and development.
In this sense, the editorial in the Observer Tuesday was correct to insist on early creation of the CSME as an opportunity for strengthening regional economies and diplomatic space.

"The CSME offers this region its best opportunity for strengthening its economic foundation in support of its political competence. The broader, seamless economic space will provide a wider plane across which regional enterprises can roam, allowing for economies of scale and a thicker insulation against the buffeting from a hostile world."
"Caricom leaders", the editorial continued, "should move with urgency to ensure that all the mechanisms for the launch of the CSME, particularly the establishment of an empowered implementing body, are in place."

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is due to be formally inaugurated in Trinidad and Tobago in April 2004. The CSME is scheduled to become operational in Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago by December 2004, and the rest of the region, except Bahamas, a year later.
In addition to agreeing on the implementing body, there's also need for a major and urgent public information and communication programme to inform the people of the region about what's in the CSME for them, how much it will cost and how they will benefit from it.

On the issue of cost, Dr Rollin Bertrand, group chief executive officer of Trinidad Cement and a Trustee of the CCJ Trust Fund, told a recent symposium at the Mona School of Business that it will require approximately US $45 million a year to finance the mechanisms that the CSME will need.
In his view, this should be borne by a Caricom tax as we cannot claim to be sovereign nations creating a regional institution for our own benefit and then go out to ask others to pay for it.

Meanwhile, the public information programme as been endorsed by a wide range of political and business leaders throughout the region, including Mr Oliver Clarke, chairman of the Gleaner Company, who told an audience in Guyana: "It is difficult to see how the CSME can be implemented without a large and expensive public education programme." He estimated that such a programme in 15 countries would cost at least US $6 million over four years.
My own estimates suggest that that would be a minimum cost for a campaign across all mass media. The costs would be much higher if other communication tools like face-to-face meetings, public forums, Internet and interactive media and public opinion surveys are added, as they should be.

Any doubt about the need for such a programme would have been removed by the findings of a recent study on "Jamaican Perceptions of Regional Integration" by the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, UWI, Mona. According to the study, an impressive 61.9 per cent of respondents "strongly agree or agree to support a political union of Caricom member states".

But when the survey asked about specific regional institutions, it found that in terms of : "Knowledge and awareness of Caricom and the CSME "respondents were alarmingly deficient. The CCJ was more well-known, but the level of understanding was superficial". Among respondents 35.0 per cent said they have heard of the CSME while 65.0 per cent said they had not!

The report continued: "A major finding was a failure of communication, advocacy and public education on regional institutions and matters, and the ways in which they have been contributing to the general well-being throughout the Caribbean."

Data and other evidence suggest that the Jamaican perspective is not unique and that people throughout the region also share a sense of Caribbean-ness or West Indian-ness, but are woefully uninformed about specific integration institutions and mechanisms to make them work effectively.
Caricom governments, the regional media and businesses must come up with the strategies and
resources to correct this information deficit.

Claude Robinson is Senior Fellow in the Research and Policy Group, Mona School of Business at UWI. kcr@cwjamaica.com

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