FORMER Jamaica Prime Minister and respected Caribbean statesman PJ Patterson last Wednesday reminded the region’s leaders of the value of maintaining strategic alliances and unity of purpose, cautioning that the gap between the enforcement of domestic law and respect for international law continues to widen.

“It is time to revisit the relationships between our Caribbean archipelago and Latin America,” Patterson advised in his Norman Manley Distinguished Lecture at The University of West Indies, Mona campus.

“We must make CELAC [Community of Latin American and Caribbean States] a meaningful force to withstand any attack in our sovereign domain. I strongly urge that we take an active role, starting immediately with Mexico and Brazil, to strengthen economic relations and foster meaningful technical collaboration,” said Patterson, known for his unwavering advocacy of regional unity and deeper Caribbean/Africa relations.

He said his current effort to “make global Africa a reality” impels him to regard the economic, social, and cultural relationship with Africa as pivotal because the interests of both regions completely converge “on the issues of climate justice, debt restructuring, and multilateral reform”.

Pointing out that the Caribbean Community (Caricom) has proven its capacity, Patterson said the regional bloc “must be prepared to lead with diplomatic sagacity, buttressed by technical expertise [and] not simply to follow every demand in our quest for survival”.

He maintained that a united front — through the African Union, Caricom, the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States, and the Group of 77 and China — can exert meaningful pressure in the global architecture, adding, “The Global South can no longer be content to react to agendas set by others. We must set our own priorities. Our unity amplifies our moral authority. It is about reshaping an archaic global order to make it inclusive, fair, and sustainable for all our people.”

To emphasise that point, Patterson — who served as Jamaica’s sixth chief executive from 1992 to 2006 — highlighted the 1975 Lomé trade and aid agreement between the European Economic Community and African, Caribbean and Pacific nations, and the 1997 Shiprider Agreement between the United States and the Caribbean.

“We do best when together we exercise the tremendous power and intellectual mastery of the entire community to confront the common obstacles and challenges which we face in the post-colonial world,” Patterson told his audience.

“Nowhere was that more convincingly proven than when we built a single engine to negotiate Lomé. That success makes Europe our biggest donor partner today. It was the precursor for conducting all our external economic negotiations, chaired by Jamaica and operated through the regional negotiating machinery,” he stated.

“Let me cite another example of what we can achieve by acting together as a community of sovereign states. No other geographic area has greater interest than our nations in eliminating narco-trafficking and gun smuggling. When the United States presented the Shiprider Agreement, we didn’t reject it out of hand nor bow in abject surrender, but we refused to sign on the dotted line. Instead, we met in Barbados, where Jamaica was chosen to prepare a model agreement, consistent with our sovereignty for negotiations with the USA. In the end everyone won — the USA and the Caribbean,” Patterson said.

In 2004, Kingston and Washington signed a protocol amending the Shiprider pact, formally named the Jamaica Maritime Counter Narcotics Cooperation Agreement, allowing further cooperation in deterring the movement of illicit drugs through Jamaican territorial waters from South America to the United States.

It also allows for cooperation in ship boarding, ship riding and over flight. In addition, US Coast Guard operating from specific foreign government ships are able to board suspected ships in Jamaican waters. Also, the agreement is designed to increase the provision of technical assistance, including drug detection technology between both countries.

Additionally, it ensures greater protection for civil aircraft, including an agreement that neither the US nor Jamaica will use force against civil aircraft in flight.

On Wednesday, Patterson also pointed to the provisions of Article 18 in the Treaty of Chaguaramas which, he noted, created a council of foreign ministers charged with the specific responsibility of enhanced co-ordination of the foreign policies of Caricom member States.

He acknowledged that there have been a number of differences between members, including the recognition of China versus Taiwan and the issue of whaling in Japan. However, Caricom, he said, has demonstrated that “Our greatest value as 14 nations is when we find the voice to speak and be heard in external fora and then vote as one solid block, not in our divergence.”

“We do best when together we exercise the tremendous power and intellectual mastery of the entire community to confront the common obstacles and challenges which we face in the post-colonial world,” he argued, adding, “There can only be one verdict: A culture of regionalism is always superior to insular diplomacy.”

He said within the 56-member Commonwealth, the Caribbean has the numbers to persuade Canada, Australia, India, and the United Kingdom that the unification of the international system should not be confined to beneficial relations among themselves alone and ought to be extended for their fellow members in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.

“The Caribbean has the intellectual power, as was proven at Lomé 1, to play a leading role in the unfolding of the response to the seeds of narcissistic hegemonism which endanger the rest of us,” Patterson insisted.

“We cannot afford recklessness or confrontation. We must provide the leadership as we did for the ACP, in steering a course which enhances our full sovereign interests. We are no longer pawns of European conflicts nor tenants at will in anyone’s backyard,” he said.