PRIME MINISTER Bruce Golding was in New York recently to address the current new session of the United Nations General Assembly and chose another forum, the Jamaica-American Association to launch an unprecedented scathing attack on unnamed Caricom leaders he caricatured as "panhandlers on the street begging the world for assistance".

RICKY SINGH

It is the first time in the 35-year history of the 15-member Caribbean Community that a Caribbean leader has chosen to engage in such an unprovoked emotional public outburst aimed at his counterparts over a perceived mendicant attitude in going around capitals of the world like beggars appealing for development aid.

Given his usually informed and conciliatory positions at Caricom meetings, it is not at all clear what may have prompted such a verbal onslaught in public against his counterparts, and with no examples given.

It is known that disparities in levels of social and economic development among partner states have long led to categories of so-called 'More Developed Countries' (MDCs) and 'Less Developed Countries' (LDCs), definitions that have had to undergo changes with the passage of time, and influencing different relationships with international financial institutions and the Caribbean Development Bank.

Some countries from the so-called LDCs, for instance, are also known to have displayed deep interest in the creation of Caricom's Regional Development Fund while seemingly quite reluctant to contribute resources to the fund, as all member states are required to do.

There is also the prevailing incongruous, some say politically inappropriate, situation of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) having to depend for financial sustainability on governments in Europe and North America while conducting trade/economic negotiations with them on behalf of this region.

But these are old issues and could hardly have affected so deeply the feeling of Mr Golding to result in his sweeping accusation against Caricom leaders, without offering any specific example, even if discretion restricted him from name-calling.

No, Mr Golding, you are credited as being too experienced a regional politician not to realise this cannot be the way to influence your colleagues in the Caribbean Community by demonising them as "begging bowl" leaders.

It was also quite a contradictory assessment when related to your own sober, mature address to the UN General Assembly on the socio-economic development assistance that Caricom states require of the international community.

THE CONTRADICTION

In addressing the General Assembly, Golding made a spirited call for re-designation of the Caricom bloc of states to be recognised as "small, vulnerable and highly indebted middle-income countries", instead of a prevailing international ranking as "middle-income developing countries".

His appeal, he said, was on behalf of Jamaica and her Caricom partners who were proposing the new definition as a consequence of difficulties created by their "peculiar needs as well as their exposure to natural disasters..."

No previous announcement by the Community Secretariat is recalled in favour of this new defined category of Caricom states, although it could be located within earlier concepts/definitions of small and vulnerable economies to economic shocks and natural disasters.

Golding, who chairs the Community's Prime Ministerial Sub-committee on External Economic Negotiations, may have been on good ground in his articulation of the need for the new designation in the context of Caricom's ongoing efforts to grapple with challenging issues of poverty alleviation, debt reduction and sustainable development.

Let me, therefore, mark one in favour of the Jamaican prime minister who used the forum of the UN General Assembly to urge the international community to "devise strategic programmes to address the peculiar needs of middle-income countries with deep pockets of poverty."

Although not mentioned by name, Caricom countries like Haiti, Jamaica, Guyana and Belize are easily recognised among those with "peculiar needs" that require special arrangements for development assistance.

The concessionary aid made available to Caricom states, Jamaica among them, under the Venezuela-created Petrocaribe project, stands as an example of the kind of "special assistance" required.

PETROCARIBE DEAL

Yet no one will sensibly confuse Caricom beneficiary countries of Petrocaribe aid with the unflattering image painted by Golding of our Community's leaders as "panhandlers on the street" begging for development assistance.

The Jamaican leader would also have known that definitions, concepts and vulnerability indices have been available over the years for access in policy formulation and strategising. For example, from the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank as well as the Commonwealth Secretariat and our own premier regional financial institution, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB).

Where Mr Golding seems to have gone quite wrong was in deviating from his reasonably informed address to the UN General Assembly in favour of an emotional assessment of unnamed Caricom leaders as mendicants when he addressed the Jamaica-American Federation's (JAF) luncheon meeting as reported in the region's media.

I have no idea of the luncheon menu or any precise factor that may have irritated him. But Golding's bitter outburst against Caricom colleagues was as contradictory to his appeal for the international community for practical responses to the "peculiar needs" of this region's "vulnerable and highly indebted middle-income countries", as it was an unjustified characterisation of fellow heads of government.

Take this sample of arrogant 'Goldingism' on perceived mendicancy by Caricom leaders: "They go around, hat in hand, to every capital of the world like panhandlers on the street, telling people how we are like the wretched of the earth; we are poor and that we need all sorts of charity; I am tired of that...."

"Not only am I tired of it," he added, "but I believe that we have allowed it (this attitude) to cause us to put off indefinitely the need to confront some of our own weaknesses and deficiencies and to deal with them..."

I could hear Golding's critics of this characterisation of Caricom leaders crying out for names and examples. No one, of course, need hold his or her breath for such a response. It will not be forthcoming. I doubt that even those of his colleagues known to have philosophical and other differences with him, may bother to seek at least a "clarification" when they meet together again.

Whatever valid reason may have led the Jamaican prime minister into such a dangerous course, he is experienced enough to know that the bizarre image he has painted of his colleagues could be exploited to "mash up" Caricom.

No matter how "fed up" he feels to have made the "begging bowl" accusation, presented without an iota of supporting evidence, Golding knows that two, and more, can play this ugly blame-game. But where will that leave Caricom as a "Community of sovereign states"?

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