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Showing posts with label OECS countries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label OECS countries. Show all posts

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Is The West Indies West Indian? (Part 3)

By Sir Shridath Ramphal


There is another major respect in which the West Indies, in not being West Indian in the Marryshow manner, is not being true to itself. We are failing to fulfill the promise we once held out of being a light in the darkness of the developing world. Small as we are, our regionalism, our West Indian synonymy, inspired many in the South who also aspired to strength through unity. Solidarity has been lost not only amongst ourselves, but also collectively with the developing world.

Sir Shridath ‘Sonny’ Ramphal QC served as Commonwealth Secretary-General for 15 years, from 1975 to 1990. He previously served as the attorney general and foreign minister of GuyanaAnd, perhaps, therein lies the ‘rub’. Were we making a reality of our own regional unity we would not be false to ourselves and we would have inspired others who, in the past, had looked to us as a beacon of a worthy future. Instead, we are losing our way both at home and abroad.

Have we forgotten the days when as West Indians we were the first to daringly bring the ‘Non-Aligned Movement’ to the Western Hemisphere, when we pioneered rejection of the ‘two China’ policy at the United Nations and recognized the People’s Republic; when, together, we broke the Western diplomatic embargo of Cuba; when we forced withdrawal of the Kissinger plan for a ‘Community of the Western Hemisphere’; when we were in the front rank (both intellectual and diplomatic) of the effort for a New International Economic Order; when from this region, bending iron wills, we gave leadership in the struggle against ‘apartheid’ in Southern Africa; when we inspired the creation of the ACP and kept the fallacy of ‘reciprocity’ in trade at bay for 25 years; when we forced grudging acceptance in the United Nations and in the Commonwealth that ‘small states’ required special and differential treatment? In all this, and more, for all our size we stood tall; we commanded respect, if not always endearment. We were West Indians being West Indian.

For what do we stand today, united and respected as one West Indies? We break ranks among ourselves (Grenada, I acknowledge, no longer) so that some can bask in Japanese favour for helping to exterminate endangered species of the world’s whales. We eviscerate any common foreign policy in CARICOM when some of us cohabit with Taiwan. Deserting our African and Pacific partners, we yield to Europe -- and take pride in being first to roll over.

What do these inglorious lapses do for our honor and standing in the world? How do they square with our earlier record of small states standing for principles that commanded respect and buttressed self-esteem? The answers are all negative. And, inevitably, what they do in due measure is require us to disown each other and display our discordance to the world. This is where ‘local control’ has led us in the 21st Century. We call it now ‘sovereignty’. In reality, it is sovereignty we deploy principally against each other; because against most others that sovereignty is a hollow vessel.

It is easy, perhaps natural, for us as West Indian people to shift blame to our governments; and governments, of course, are not blameless. But, in our democracies, governments do what we allow them to do: they themselves say: ‘we are doing what our people want us to do’. It is not always true; but who can deny it, when we accept their excesses with equanimity, certainly in silence.

No! There is fault within us also. We have each been touched with the glow of ‘local control’; each moved by the siren song of ‘sovereignty’; have each allowed the stigma of otherness, even foreignness, to degrade our West Indian kinship. The fault lies not only in our political stars but also in ourselves that we are what and where we are; and what and where we will be in a global society that demands of us the very best we can be. When the West Indies is not West Indian, it is we, at least in part, who let it be so. And what irony: Marryshow and his peers demanded that we be West Indian to be free together. We were; but in our freedom we are ceasing to be West Indian and in the process are foregoing the strengths that togetherness brings.

When are we at our best? Surely, when the West Indies is West Indian; when we are as one; with one identity; acting with the strength and courage that oneness gives us. Does anyone doubt that whatever we undertake, we do it better when we do it together?

Thirty-five years ago, in 1975, on the shores of Montego Bay, as I took leave of Caribbean leaders before assuming new roles at the Commonwealth, my parting message was a plea TO CARE FOR CARICOM. Among the things I said then was this:

Each generation of West Indians has an obligation to advance the process of regional development and the evolution of an ethos of unity. Ours is endeavoring to do so; but we shall fail utterly if we ignore these fundamental attributes of our West Indian condition and, assuming without warrant the inevitability of our oneness, become casual, neglectful, indifferent or undisciplined in sustaining that process and that evolution.

The burden of my message is that we have become ‘casual, neglectful, indifferent and undisciplined’ in sustaining and advancing Caribbean integration: that we have failed to ensure that the West indies is West Indian, and are falling into a state of disunity, which by now we should have made unnatural. The process will occasion a slow and gradual descent – from which a passing wind may offer occasional respite; but, ineluctably, it will produce an ending.

In Derek Walcott’s recently published collection of poems, White Egrets-- for which he has just won the prestigious T.S. Elliot Prize -- there are some lines which conjure up that image of slow passing:

With the leisure of a leaf falling in the forest,
Pale yellow spinning against green – my ending
.

This must not be a regional epitaph. But, if CARICOM is not to end like a leaf falling in the forest, prevailing apathy and unconcern must cease; reversal from unity must end. The old cult of ‘local control’ must not extinguish hope of regional rescue through collective effort; must not allow a narcissist insularity to deny us larger vision and ennobling roles. We must escape the mental prison of narrow domestic walls and build a West Indies that is West Indian. We must cherish our local identities; but they must enrich the mosaic of regionalism, not withhold from it their separate splendours.

In some ways, it must be allowed; our integration slippage is less evident among the smallest of us. The OECS islands have set out a course for more ambitious and deeper economic integration among themselves, which would be worthy of all, if it could subsist for all. The Treaty establishing the OECS Economic Union is now in force. But, it is early days; it remains to be seen at the level of action, at the level of implementation, whether, even for them, the earlier ‘agony’ (of which Sir Arthur Lewis wrote so ruefully in 1962) lingers still. Meanwhile, however, congratulations are in order, and I extend them heartily.

In moving closer to ‘freedom of movement’ among the OECS countries they have set a vital example to the rest of CARICOM. The OECS West Indies is being West Indian. May it translate into an ethos among them, and in time infuse the wider Community with an end to ‘foreignness’ among all West Indians. The OECS islands have taken the first steps in a long journey whose ultimate goal must be a larger union.

Collectively, we must recover our resolve to survive as one West Indies -- as one people, one region, one whole region. Imbued by such resolve there is a future that can be better than the best we have ever had. Neither complacency nor resignation nor empty words will suffice. What we need is rescue – by ourselves, from ourselves and for ourselves. We cannot be careless with our oneness, which is our lifeline. As it was in St Georges in 1915, so it is now: The West Indies must be Westindian!

The foregoing is an extract from the Eleventh Sir Archibald Nedd Memorial Lecture delivered by Sir Shridath Ramphal in Grenada on 28 January 2011.

February 10, 2011

Is The West Indies West Indian? (Part 1)

Is The West Indies West Indian? (Part 2)

caribbeannewsnow

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Mixed fortunes for Caribbean economies in 2009, says new report

GEORGETOWN, Guyana -- The Caribbean Economic Performance Report 2009, compiled by the Caribbean Centre for Money and Finance, recently projected the member states to end this year with mixed fortunes, as some will see growth while others will be in deficit.

The report says many Caribbean economies remain in recession, awaiting the recovery of the United States and other Industrial economies, which supply the region’s tourists, remittance and foreign direct investment, and which absorb Caribbean exports.

It adds that advance tourism bookings are reported to be dismal, and natural gas prices remain low, even though oil prices have recovered substantially.

Foreign exchange inflows continue to decline compared to 2008, economies remain depressed and unemployment is on the increase, in spite of efforts by governments and private firms to minimize the loss of jobs.” the report noted.

However, it added that balance of payments pressures have abated in Jamaica, the country most severely affected by outflows, and the exchange rate there has stabilized.

“Foreign exchange levels remain acceptable throughout the region, aided by a small increase in the global allocation of Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF)," the report outlined.

Five member countries of the OECS have accessed modest amounts of IMF financing, and the Jamaican authorities remain in discussion with the Fund for financing under a Standby Arrangement.

“Aruba, Belize, Guyana, Haiti and the Netherlands Antilles all recorded higher levels of foreign exchange reserves, comparing the latest month with a year earlier, with increases ranging from 10 to 30 percent,” the report states.

The 27 page document also noted that the average growth rate for the region is expected to be 1.6 percent this year, with Belize, Dominica, Guyana, Haiti and Suriname expected to record positive but slow growth in 2009.

It noted too that Guyana, despite a decline in growth of real output during the first quarter of 2009, which was due primarily to losses in the sugar sector, rebounded due to mixed output in the manufacturing and services sectors and the rice industry.

In the first quarter of 2009, the report says, Guyana’s inflation rate dropped sharply to 1.95 per cent compared to the 7.45 per cent it recorded for the same period in 2008. This was due to the fall in international oil and commodity prices as well as falling domestic prices of food items.

Caribbean economies cannot expect to emerge from recession before the US does. Advance tourism bookings are reported to be dismal, and natural gas prices remain low, even though oil prices have recovered substantially. Most tourism economies and the energy and mineral industries depend mainly on the US market.

The prospects for agriculture and those tourism economies that are less dependent on the US are not much better, because the economies of Canada, the UK and the rest of Europe all depend heavily on exports to the US to help fuel the recovery of economic output.

The policy responses of Caribbean governments are beginning to take effect as they marketing and promotional activity, and measures for some degree of amelioration of the adverse social impact of the economic contraction. So far the impact on government budgets and debt service has been mild, but much of the additional expenditure is yet to come on stream.

The economic recession has depressed fiscal revenues everywhere, and the impact has been especially severe because of the region’s increasing dependence on the Value Added Tax (VAT), which is especially sensitive to a fall in spending.

Even though governments’ efforts to contain the adverse impact of the crisis have resulted in only modest increases in spending, it says, the extent of revenue loss meant that the overall fiscal position deteriorated badly everywhere.

The unfinanced fiscal gap was the main motivation for OECS countries to seek financing from the IMF and other international financing agencies.

December 30, 2009

caribbeannetnews

Thursday, October 15, 2009

No referendum needed for St Kitts-Nevis to join the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), says Prime Minister Denzil Douglas

BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CUOPM) -- St Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Denzil Douglas said on Tuesday the twin-island Federation does not have to hold a referendum to join the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

The Caribbean Court of Justice in TrinidadResponding to a question during his weekly radio call in programme “Ask the Prime Minister,” Douglas said St Kitts and Nevis would proceed to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), as part of the collective body that presently utilizes the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC) system.

“I have been advised of this sometime ago. We do not necessarily have to hold a referendum if we want to advance to the CCJ as our final appellate court rather than utilizing the (London-based) British Appellate Court,” said Douglas, who said he was willing to check with legal advisers to see if the position remains the same.

“We support the CCJ. We are not against it for we support it, but we will advance with the other OECS countries as the entirety of the OECS Supreme court system,” said Douglas.

Of all the CARICOM member countries only Barbados and Guyana have the CCJ as their final appellate court.

The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) is the regional judicial tribunal established by the “Agreement establishing the Caribbean Court of Justice.” It had a long gestation period commencing in 1970 when the Jamaican delegation at the Sixth Heads of Government Conference, which convened in Jamaica, proposed the establishment of a Caribbean Court of Appeal in substitution for the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.

The Caribbean Court of Justice has been designed to be more than a court of last resort for Member States of the Caribbean Community. For, in addition to replacing the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the CCJ will be vested with an original jurisdiction in respect of the interpretation and application of the Treaty Establishing the Caribbean Community. In effect, the CCJ would exercise both an appellate and an original jurisdiction.

In the exercise of its appellate jurisdiction, the CCJ will consider and determine appeals in both civil and criminal matters from common law courts within the jurisdictions of Member states of the Community and which are parties to the Agreement Establishing the CCJ. In the discharge of its appellate jurisdiction, the CCJ will be the highest municipal court in the Region.

In the exercise of its original jurisdiction, the CCJ will be discharging the functions of an international tribunal applying rules of international law in respect of the interpretation and application of the Treaty.

By interpreting and applying the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas which establishes the CSME, the CCJ will determine in a critical way how the CSME functions.

Member States signing on to the agreement establishing the CCJ agree to enforce its decisions in their respective jurisdictions like decisions of their own superior courts.

October 15, 2009

caribbeannetnews