GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Guyanese in particular, we suspect, will be strongly appreciative of the decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) concerning the Shanique Myrie case on freedom of movement in the Caricom area, pursuant to Article 207 of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas. For long before that date, and in consequence of the deep economic recession that had been afflicting the country, there had been much talk of what many Guyanese considered unsavoury behaviour towards them by officials at various Caricom ports, as they sought work in the wider Caricom area.
Now, eventually, it has taken a Jamaican to challenge behaviour considered reprehensible at the points of entry to a specific country, and to ensure a clarification of the meaning of the decision that the heads of government took in 2007, no doubt in their inclination then to show the Caricom public that they were committed to persistent advance in various spheres of the integration movement that related to the generality of citizens of the region.
The heads of government have been concerned for quite a while of a popular feeling that the integration initiative is mainly about trade and, more than that, trade and investment as it pertains to the activities of the big men and their big firms, the big banks and their big monies, and the big investors and their investments in the millions of dollars which anxious and appreciative governments could boast about.
