Tough time for some Caricom heads

ANALYSIS

RICKEY SINGH




search for a new secretary general and an improved governance system for the Caribbean Community (Caricom) have come at a very challenging time for some Heads of Government of the 37-year-old regional economic integration movement.

Here in Jamaica, Prime Minister Bruce Golding, current chairman of the Community until February 2011, felt compelled to go on the offensive against a new wave of sharp criticisms of his Government's earlier involvement with a United States law firm to help ease pressures in Washington for the extradition of the infamous don of Tivoli Gardens, Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.


Faced with an ongoing battle in defence of his credibility as prime minister, Golding has chosen to ignore the call by the Opposition People's National Party (PNP) for an independent commission of enquiry into the Government's involvement in Coke's extradition case and to engage, instead, in country-wide meetings with various communities and stakeholders to correct the misrepresentations.

It is doubtful that having acknowledged mis-steps by the Government in handling the extradition controversy in the first place, Prime Minister Golding can succeed in evading an independent probe into the whole affair. Especially in the wake of recently published e-mail correspondence between Jamaican attorneys and the law firm of Manatt, Phelps and Phillips.

Dominica: Across in the Eastern Caribbean, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit and his Education Minister Peter Saint Jean were informed by High Court Judge Errol Thomas that they would each have to face trial on charges claiming why their parliamentary seats won at last December's general election should be declared null and void.

Skerrit is faced with the charge of having contested the December 18 poll in the Vieille Case while holding dual citizenship (with France), which is forbidden by Dominica's constitution.

His education minister, on the other hand, has been advised that the claims made against the results of his election for the La Plaine constituency by the Opposition United Workers Party leader, Ron Greene, "deserve to be heard" in court.

Antiguan scenario

Antigua: As the Dominican prime minister and his Cabinet colleague await a date for their respective court trials, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer, and two of his Cabinet ministers remain quite anxious about their own future in government.

In the case of the Antiguan trio, their political fate hangs on a judgement to be delivered by a panel of judges from the Eastern Caribbean Appeal Court.

The judgement will be in response to a ruling on March 12 this year by Justice Louise Blenman to declare vacant the seats of Spencer; his education minister Jacqui Quinn-Leandro, and that of the tourism minister John Maginley.

Judge Blenman's ruling resulted from a series of petitions filed by the Opposition Antigua Labour Party (ALP) challenging controversial results of the March 2009 general elections at which Spencer's United Progressive Party (UPP) won nine of the 17 parliamentary seats.

Should Justice Blenman's ruling be upheld by the Eastern Caribbean Appeal Court, there would have to be either three by-elections or, more likely, a new general election.

Barbados: In this community state there continues to be deep national concern over the health of Prime Minister David Thompson. He felt compelled to announce on July 1 a two-month leave from official duties to undergo major surgery in the United States.

Apart from the domestic situation, Thompson's illness is also impacting on progress of Caricom's flagship project -- the Single Market and Economy (CSME) -- for which he shoulders lead responsibility among Heads of Government.

Suriname: Then there is the challenge of dealing with the appointment of a new Caricom secretary general, to succeed the retiring Edwin Carrington.

At the same time, the community is preparing to work in the councils of the community with Suriname's newly inaugurated President Desi Bouterse, a long controversial public figure in the politics and governance of that former Dutch colony.

An immediate concern is whether Suriname's scheduled turn to assume the chairmanship of Caricom in July next year should not be deferred instead to February 2012 to facilitate some perceived needed adjustments for both the incoming new secretary general as well as President Bouterse for the rotating six-month chairmanship.

This issue may be finally determined at the first Caricom Inter-Sessional Meeting for 2012 scheduled for Grenada next February and hosted by Prime Minister Tilman Thomas, who will serve as chairman until the regular annual summit in July 2012.

That, under normal circumstances, would have been Suriname's turn to host and assume chairmanship. It is a matter to be resolved.

Finding new SG

Currently, there remain concerns about the approaches by the community's Heads of Government to find the most suitable successor to replace the 72-year-old Carrington, who has been serving as secretary general for 18 years.

The recent decision to recommend the creation of a nine-member "search committee" to help identify potential candidates, when it is not clear that they have even satisfied themselves about what they are looking for in a new secretary general, is not being viewed as a serious approach.

Questions currently being raised include whether the recent special committee meeting in Grenada on "governance issues" had even a draft outline on a 'job description' for the new secretary general.

Further, there is the more crucial issue of a new administrative structure for effective governance which the Heads continue to avoid like the plague, while they fiddle with band-aid responses.

For instance, the hilarious idea of creating a Council of Community Ambassadors to help improve the governance system in areas such as implementation of decisions.

Since they are part of the 'governance' problems, it is being suggested that the Heads should perhaps consider how best to utilise the vast experience acquired by Carrington, both as secretary general of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states and Caricom, in any serious attempt to significantly change the governance system to respond to the challenges of our time.

August 29, 2010

jamaicaobserver

Bahamas Blog International

ACP Countries: Sidelined by Europe again?

The European Union (EU) has not included in the Lisbon Treaty a crucial article that was a feature of treaties between the EU and African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states.  The Lisbon Treaty is the new "constitution" of the EU and it will replace the previous treaties that guided the policies of the EU and the work of the European Commission (EC).

Representatives of EC have offered reasons for this omission which might have had a ring of credibility had the Caribbean not been put through the threats and demands that characterized the negotiations leading to individual Caribbean countries signing up to an unequal Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU.

It is difficult for skeptics to take the EC at its word.  Indeed, since the EC unilaterally denounced the Sugar Protocol leaving Caribbean sugar producers without a market that the Protocol had guaranteed, and since the EC further unilaterally amended the preferential terms under which Caribbean-produced bananas entered the EU market leaving banana farmers in dire circumstances, there is every reason to be ultra-cautious of actions by the EU and its Commission.

What is not clear is why the ACP countries have not protested at the omission of the article which they were entitled to do, and which they were urged to do by at least one activist lawyer in Brussels where both the EC and ACP secretariats are located.

It has to be assumed that the ACP representatives had good reason for not howling publicly in protest and that, at some point, they will let their publics know why they did not.  On the other hand, it may very well be that they did protest but were rebuffed by the EC, and, again, they chose not to let their publics know that, once again, raw power trumped moral obligation.  Then, it could be that the ACP representatives chose to do nothing at all on the basis that since the EC has unilaterally denounced what the ACP thought were other legally binding agreements, there was no point in even raising the issue, since the EU, at some point in the future, might abrogate an article in their own treaty if it did not suit them.  And, the ACP would be able to do nothing about it just as they did not make a legal challenge to the denunciation of the Sugar Protocol.

To be fair to the EU and the EC, my previous paragraph is pure speculation.  It may very well be that no representation was made by the ACP to the EU/EC by representatives of the ACP and therefore, the EU/EC had no reason for regarding any omission of the ACP relationship as an issue.

As background to all this, it should be pointed out that an activist lawyer in Brussells, Joyce van Genderen-Naar, wrote in March 2004 pointing out that the Article which "makes reference to the ACP countries in the previous EC/EU Treaties had been omitted from the text of the proposed Lisbon Treaty that replaces them". 

She said, paragraph 3 of Article 179 of the provisions for Development Cooperation in the current EC Treaty states that: "The provisions of this Article shall not affect cooperation with the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries in the framework of the ACP-EC Convention".

Van Genderen-Naar went on to argue that "Article179, paragraph 3, refers to the special relationship between the EC/EU and the ACP-countries, which is the oldest and largest form of cooperation between Europe and countries from the South".  She contended that historical bonds "between Europe and the ACP-countries give Europe a special responsibility for these countries, which should not be forgotten and should be a part of the next Constitution for Europe. This responsibility is even more urgent, because after 37 years of cooperation 40 of the 79 ACP-countries still belong to the poorest countries in the world. Out of the 48 poorest countries in the world 40 are ACP-countries".  (The full text of her presentation can be read at: http://www.normangirvan.info/naar-acp-disappearance-from-lisbon/).

Very few in the ACP countries would seriously argue with van Genderen-Naar's contention.
She advised the ACP "to make an official request to the European Commission and Members of the Convention (representatives of the European Parliament and Member States) to insert a provision concerning the ACP-EC-Cooperation in the new Constitution in view of the special relationship between the EU and the ACP, historical bonds, responsibilities and mutual interest, as agreed by EC and ACP in Article 55 of the Cotonou Agreement" which says: "The objectives of development finance cooperation shall be, through the provision of adequate financial resources and appropriate technical assistance, to support and promote the efforts of the ACP States to achieve the objectives set out in this Agreement on the basis of mutual interest and in a spirit of interdependence".

The EU is redefining itself.  They are describing the Lisbon Treaty as more than a Charter; they say it is the EU Constitution.  Further, they have appointed a President of the EU and a common Foreign Minister.  Beyond this deepening of their relationship, it is clear that the majority of the 27 nations in the EU feel no responsibility for the former colonies of a handful; many of them believe that the EU's obligations are to the development and prosperity of its own member states. 

If there is no reference in the Lisbon Treaty to the ACP countries, the shift in Europe's attitude to them - evident in the unilateral denunciation of contracts and in the tactics of threat used in the EPA negotiations - will be confirmed.  So, too, will be the timidity of the ACP in exercising power that can come from joint action.

The ACP must find the strength to speak with one voice again; to resist divide and rule tactics; to eschew empty promises of aid; and to fund its own institutions particularly those which interact with the EU.  If the ACP countries remain mere supplicants without demonstrating a readiness to stand up together for themselves, then they will be omitted to their detriment from more than the EU's new arrangements.

27 Nov 2009 12:49:05

caribbean360

Bahamas Caribbean Blog International