As heads of government of the Caribbean Community prepare for their first inter-sessional meeting this year, scheduled for next month in Kingstown, St Vincent, two significant assessments came last week with sharply contrasting views on the future of our 33-year-old regional economic integration movement.

Rickey Singh

Citizens of the 15-member Community, from the poorest (Haiti) to the richest (Trinidad and Tobago), were celebrating the dawn of 2007, anxious to forget the horrors of 2006, as those assessments were being made by Caricom secretary general Edwin Carrington and former Jamaica prime minister Edward Seaga.

In an analysis in the Jamaica Gleaner, Seaga, currently a Distinguished Fellow of the University of the West Indies, had a bleak assessment of Caricom, which he sees as being "on a slide, not a climb, in the future..."

On the other hand, for Carrington, the longest serving regional public servant of Caricom and now completing his third term, 2007 "holds great promise"; and he is "confident that the Caribbean Community has erected a solid foundation towards achieving its goals..."
There are truths in both assessments; and neither the negatives in Seaga's analysis nor the positives, offered with important caveats, by Carrington, came with the intention to discourage or delude.

As a regional journalist whose professional career revolves very much in doing the 'Caricom beat', I have often pointed to the frustrating negatives as well as encouraging positive features in the efforts to make a success of the very bold experiment in economic integration and functional cooperation in a relatively small sub region of the global community.

The rhetoric of "unity" and "oneness" easily flows from the region's political directorate. The evident lack of political will to give substance to such laudable intentions is quite another.
Hence, Seaga whose own politickings, in and out of government, had contributed to some of the hurdles in hastening the process towards major objectives of Caricom is, nevertheless, correct in observing, as he did, that 33 years after its creation, there remains "intractable problems" in Caricom which "is still languishing as a functioning organisation..."

Seaga must also admit that blame for this situation does not lie solely at the feet of Caricom's political directorate. The region's private sector, specifically those more influential and big business executives who exercise behind-the-scenes pressures on governments to secure decisions that suit their own narrow agendas in regional trade, economic investment and fiscal matters, cannot escape blame for the hurdles they keep throwing up.

CARRINGTON. The success of the integration movement will be accurately measured by the extent to which the citizens can genuinely refer to it as our Caribbean Community

For all their own public rhetoric and apparent enthusiasm, they are numbered, in my book, among the recalcitrants that include unimaginative and weak political leaders whose own opportunism hold back progress on fundamental issues pertaining to, for instance:
- Completion of the framework for a single economic space; acceptance of the Caribbean Court of Justice as the region's final appellate court; and establishment of a long-advocated empowered mechanism to enable effective and efficient governance of Caricom's business.

Debates continue to be stifled on critical views as expressed by distinguished regional economists, such as Havelock Brewster and Clive Thomas that it is simply deceptive on the part of our Caricom leaders to keep talking of creating a single economy without any known attempt on their part to have political integration, in whatever form, being placed on their work agenda.

The region's political leaders have not even come to terms with the need, as the passage of time has underscored, for the creation of that elusive high-level Caricom Commission, armed with executive authority, to conduct the Community's affairs in cooperation with the heads of government.

Seaga, who was there when problems had to be resolved, long before he could now speak from the vantage point of a deserving Distinguished Fellow of the UWI has lamented the "lack of fire in the bellies" of Community leaders to meaningfully advance the goals of Caricom.

In noting the retirement of former prime minister PJ Patterson, the recent electoral defeat of St Lucia's Kenny Anthony, and continuing speculations about the longevity in governance politics of Barbados' prime minister Owen Arthur, Seaga credited Vincentian prime minister Ralph Gonsalves as the remaining "fanatical believer and fiery advocate of regionalism to work with the present group of leaders who are supporters but have far less fire in their bellies to carry on a campaign with passion..."

This provocative observation would not be flattering to some Caricom leaders but what Seaga seems to be emphasising is the need for greater commitment to hasten the pace towards more meaningful economic integration and functional cooperation.
To demonstrate his understanding of some of the problems involved in managing Caricom's business, Seaga has encouragingly, and quite surprisingly, given support to the idea first located in the far-reaching recommendations in the 1992 report of The West Indian Commission, that of a Caricom Commission that could provide what is currently lacking, namely focused executive authority in prescribed matters.

The leadership and commitment that Jamaica's Patterson gave to Caricom in his long years in government are well known to Seaga as it should be to his possible successor JLP leader, Bruce Golding, who is anxiously waiting in the wings to replace Portia Simpson-Miller as prime minister.

The JLP's quest for state power must also cope with what's good for Caricom. This should include clarity on sensitive pressing issues like the role of the CCJ and modalities of functioning of an empowered Caricom Commission in the operations of the CSME, framework arrangements for which are expected to be completed not later than 2008.

In contrast to Seaga's expressed apprehension about Caricom's future, secretary general Carrington came forward, in his New Year message with his own understandable optimism and correctly reminded us that, ultimately: "The success of the integration movement will be accurately measured by the extent to which the citizens can genuinely refer to it as OUR (my emphasis) Caribbean Community..."

In encouraging hope for the future, Carrington, the faithful public servant, whose own future relationship with the community could be involved in proposed changing arrangements, said that Caricom "has erected a solid foundation towards achieving its goals..."

Having as a people taken the giant step last year when the Caricom Single Market (CSM) legally came into force, there must now be greater resolve, as he sees it, to make a reality of the single economy component that further emphasises the need for "a definitive decision to be taken on the long, outstanding issue of enhanced governance of the Community..."

The Caricom leaders would know quite well what Carrington has in mind. Question is whether they are all singing from the same hymn sheet on the way forward for Caricom in this year when at least four governments are heading into new elections - Barbados, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and The Bahamas?
We should know after Cricket World Cup and long before Christmas 2007.

The Audacity of Art

Marjorie Whylie to receive Stella Gregory Award

Traditional Thanksgiving offerings at EVITAS