GEORGETOWN, Guyana – A précis of PJ Patterson’s “cri de coeur for CARICOM,” his speech to the Rotary Club of Georgetown on Monday, would actually make an excellent editorial, without any need for additional comment. The speech is already resonating beyond the audience of Rotarians who were privileged to hear it and will no doubt be scrutinised and subject to further discussion by those who care about the region. But we would like to focus on a few critical points. The former Jamaican Foreign Minister and Prime Minister was simply restating – albeit with the level of gravitas and insight of an elder statesman of the Caribbean perhaps otherwise displayed only by Sir Shridath Ramphal, his good friend and fellow labourer in the vineyard of regional integration – what numerous other regional commentators and editorials have been pointing out and what close observers of the regional project, including your average citizen, have known for some time now: there is a crisis of governance and leadership in CARICOM and, as Mr Patterson bluntly put it, “CARICOM is in danger.” From his discussion of the origins of CARICOM, through the creation of the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group and the changing relationship with the European metropoles, to the establishment of the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME), to the current challenges of globalisation and the region’s continued vulnerability to external economic shocks, Mr Patterson’s leitmotif is “the advantages of joint and coordinated action” and the value of negotiating “as a single bloc” – coherence, collective strength and unity in other words.
