Dear Editor,

I refer to James Moss-Solomon’s column, “Starting your engines – the reality”, in the Sunday Observer of November 21. Here are my answers.

We Jamaicans were never consulted when we were taken into Caricom – you know that bit of “goverment by the people, for the people”.

Instead, it has been goverment for my party goverment by my party, etc.

The question we should be asking is, are there any constitutional options to get us out of Caricom?

We were never asked if we wanted to join this group or given a say in the deliberations that went into setting it up.

And it is time for civil society to tell the politicians this is not working and we want out Now, Sir, I contend that Caricom has been a failure as far as Jamaica is concerned and we the people should be exploring every single avenue to get out of this poppyshow.

In every single instance that the people of the region have been given a chance, they have rejected the concept of further integration. For example, the referendum in Jamaica and the referedum in St Vincent on the Caribbean Court of Justice.

As they say, Vox Dei et Vox Populi (the voice of the people is the voice of God).

The people know what is good for them and what is not good, but politicians keep forcing down our throats what they think is good for us without asking us anything.

We do not even have a regional Parliament, as in Europe where the UK has five members working to get the UK out of the European Union, that’s no representation by the people of the people .

And no one in Gordon House is going to stand up and buck the party line against Caricom.

Now when we look at the Caribean we can plainly see that there are two economies.

As one looks at the outside world and one looks at the internal world, that is, the Caribbean region,

we see that the countries which have focused on the external world and turned their backs on Caricom are all doing much better. For example, The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Barbados, and to a lesser extent Antigua.

Their economies are outward looking and they are prosperous.

When we look at the countries which embrace an inward-looking economy they are all poor and getting poorer – with one exception.

Can you not see that it is in Jamaica’s interest to forget about Caricom and to pursue its own interest?

Now in our case we have the three pillars of the economy, that is, bauxite, tourism and remittances.

We use the money from these to pay our bills in Caricom and at a trade imbalance of 10 to 1, it is just not working.

It is time for Jamaica to cut its losses and start to negotiate to get out of Caricom and to go its own way.

We must realise that the people who have been talking about regionalism all these years are visionaries who had no concept of the world in the 21st century, and that in a globalised world Caricom has outlived

its usefulness and it is high time for us to get out of it.

Do you think that Singapore would be as successful as it is, if it were still in a federation?

Even our recent history shows us that in the 60s when Jamaica was not in Caricom we were so much better off. Perhaps this was the wicket that we played best on. Therefore we must go it alone in a globalised economy. This would seem to be the only chance that we have.

Mr Prime Minister, here is your chance to give us a referendum on whether we should stay in Caricom or not. You will have the next elections in the bag. All the fuss about Manatt, etc, will disappear and you will emerge as a stronger leader than Bustamante.

Think about these things.

Neil Persadsingh

Kingston 5

neilsin13@gmail.com