PRIME Minister P J Patterson, speaking publicly for the first time on last month’s failed World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in Cancun, Mexico, voiced support for Caribbean delegates who walked out of the negotiations.

“We are not prepared to sell our birthright — globalisation or no globalisation,” Patterson said Friday, as he delivered the keynote address that opened this weekend’s 30th anniversary conference on regional governance and integration.

“The Caribbean position was unified,” Patterson told the 250 members of the audience at the two-day conference which brought together a number of trade experts and scholars at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Mona campus in St Andrew.

The trade talks collapsed when delegates from the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia walked out. They blamed wealthy nations for failing to offer sufficient trade compromises seen as vital to the economic health of developing nations.

Patterson, echoing the position of Jamaica’s trade officials, said rich nations couldn’t be allowed to set the world’s trade agenda without giving fair consideration to the concerns of developing nations.

At Cancun, Jamaica and other developing nations were especially adamant that rich nations must reduce or eliminate billions of dollars of agricultural subsidies they pay their farmers.

Patterson, moreover, said no agreement was possible that did not offer a “level playing field” to developing nations. Nor would the Caribbean “abandon the principled position of negotiating for special and differential treatment”.

“We are small developing countries and require time to adjust our economies,” the Jamaican leader insisted.

In the face of globalisation’s harsh demands, Patterson added, the Caribbean must continue to streamline and integrate its institutions, legal mechanisms, and deepen co-operation, both in the public and private spheres.

Citizens in individual countries also must view themselves as a single people as the region developed into a single market, he said.

“We have to get to the point where Caricom becomes an integral part of our national psyche; where the observance of ‘Caricom Day’ and regular parliamentary debates on community issues will be a normal part of everyday life.”

Patterson also urged the region’s leaders to include the Caribbean Diaspora into future development efforts, “so that they, too, can meaningfully participate in the exciting journey ahead”.

Patterson said the conference came at an important time. And contrary to the opinions of “cynics and critics”, he said, it would not amount to “more shop talk” that would merely “add to the voluminous mountains of documents and studies” already done on the issues being discussed.

The conference ended yesterday.