Distinguished Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago
Other Colleague Heads of Government
Secretary General
Ladies and Gentlemen:
In 1986, the Rt. Excellent Errol Barrow closed what was to be his final address to this Conference of Heads by citing the words of John Bunyan in Pilgrim’s Progress:
“Though with much difficulty I have come hither, yet do I not repent me of the trouble I have taken”.
He was obviously also speaking on my behalf.
I thank you nonetheless for the very high honour of being able to address the highest decision making body in our region five years after I was supposed to do so – but better late than never.
Today the Conference of Heads of Government returns to the land where just over a quarter of a century ago the framework for contemporary Caribbean integration was devised. We do so on the cusp of a new century, a new millennium. It must be for us therefore a time of reflection about the journey from Chaguaramas to Port of Spain; but more especially so a time for us to look ahead.
By symbolic coincidence, this Conference today pays tribute, in which Barbados joins, to the last stalwart of that pioneering era, Sir Vere Cornwall Bird. His passing, if anything, signifies that we now have the urgent duty to celebrate the legacy of the pioneers of our integration movement by carrying it forward through a bold new vision of our own that is relevant to today’s purposes and tomorrow’s needs. Nothing less will suffice.
For our Caribbean of today is, and our world of tomorrow will be remarkably different from those envisoned by the founding fathers of Caricom just 25 years ago. The MDC’s of their day are not necessarily the MDC’s of today. They conceived of CARICOM in an era of inward-looking, import substitution development paradigms; in a world where access to aid, trade preferences and concessional financing still provided an economic safety net when all else failed.
They enjoyed the latitude of looking forward to a relationship with Europe and the Americas in which a model of cooperation and developmental assistance would be invoked based on Aristolean principles that “between equals, equality; between unequals, proportionality”.
They embraced a limited version of a Caribbean Common Market that did not provide for the free movement of labour, capital nor services, nor enshrined the rights of Caribbean citizens to establish businesses wherever they wished in this region.
In the immediate aftermath of the gaining of political independence, there was hardly an environment that enabled them to surrender even an inch of national sovereignty and decision making to the system of regional governance.
They were even in a position to look forward to the prospects of a victory of the West Indies Cricket Team in the first World Cup of cricket, and to enjoy the happy anticipation of even better days to come.
Times have changed. Our world has turned over many times since then.
Where they were inward looking, it now falls to this generation of Caribbean leadership to reorient our focus outward, and to strive to establish an appropriate niche for our region, individually and collectively, in a drastically changed international environment.
On the eve of a new century, the former comforting props of aid, trade preferences and concessional financing are being swept away.
Indeed it must by now be clear that we can and must no longer cling to any misguided notions that our economic fortune will be any longer buttressed by the dubious largesse of former colonial powers. Whatever the special case we advance in our international negotiations, the most we can expect to achieve is a temporary respite from the inevitable.
For our immediate purposes, however, where our founding fathers found it impossible to look beyond a limited concept of a Common Market, we dare now to conceive of the Caribbean constituted as a single market and a single economy.
It is to that I wish briefly to speak today.
It has become fashionable for some to rest their reputations for superior wisdom on the debunking of the purposes, and pace of the creation of a common economic space in the Caribbean. I say that a Caribbean single market and economy is a historic necessity.
Even if we were not functioning in a world of globalised economic activity, the creation of a single market and a single economy would still represent the most viable option open to all Caribbean societies.
No one Caribbean society, relying only upon the strengths of its domestic market and resources will be ever able to sustain the development which affords its citizens the prospects of an improving standard of living.
What is indeed sobering is that even if we are successful in our endeavour to reconstitute the Caribbean as a single market and a single economy, that economic entity, will still go into the twenty first century, as the smallest, most vulnerable and most volatile economic region in the world.
I offer no illusion therefore that the creation of a single market and a single economy will magically solve all of the problems of this region.
However, not to create it will only make a tough situation even more difficult for us. Should there be any doubt on this matter, we need only to reflect on the fact that across the world, societies which have the resource endowment to make it on their own are coming together in their collective self-interest to form larger trade blocs and to reconstitute themselves as single markets and economies.
In such circumstances, how much more compelling must it be for us to do likewise.
The Caribbean has already shown itself capable of achieving major accomplishments in the sphere of functional cooperation. It now falls to us to bring about similar significant achievement in the economic sphere.
However, in this endeavour we would do well to understand that an economy cannot stand alone. To function it must be enveloped in a network of power relations and social relations which facilitate economic relationships, and induce the environment within which economic decisions can have their most beneficial impact.
In this regard, it must be inferred that the decision at Grand Anse in 1989 to build a single Caribbean Market and Economy carries with it the obligation to build a single Caribbean society. To make the single market and economy a reality we need a new model of regional governance. And we do not have a moment to lose in devising it.
I do not propose here any sinister mechanism designed to deny any of us our national authority or sovereignty. Rather, national and regional consensus building and popular consultation and participation must lie at the heart of what I will call the new community. But we do need a new regional governance to move the integration process forward in line with contemporary realities.
To begin with, in 25 years, we have not seen it fit to equip the Caribbean Secretariat with the minimum institutional capacity required to execute the elaborate mandates and the sometimes idealistic timetables which we set.
The Caricom Secretariat that can truly serve our interests in the 21st century must function in a modern, accessible and technologically advanced environment. It must have human and financial resources commensurate with the heavy load of responsibilities we continue to entrust to it. It must have an in house capacity for strategic analysis to support decision making in a dynamic environment.
These things are not in place. The dithering about their creation must stop.
Faced with a ticking clock on three crucial negotiating processes, we responded by establishing the Regional Negotiating Machinery. The fact that we have superimposed a new structure on an old system addressed only the urgent present need. It does not absolve us of the responsibility to revitalise the Secretariat of the Community, nor to guard against the need for such ad hoc solutions in the future.
We need to break entirely out of the cracking mould into which we have nestled so snugly since independence. Each in our own tiny compartment satisfies our misplaced perception that we can selectively pursue collective decisions to gain individual advantage. No right thinking individual outside of this body would consider such an approach worthy. I submit that we should not delude ourselves either.
Too often, we also take decisions in Caricom as though they have only abstract significance. But we are here not to deal with the surreal. The men, the women, the children of this Community are affected by our every action; and certainly by our inaction.
Mr. Chairman, it is to our credit, that we have recognised the urgent need to modernize and update the principal Legal Instruments on which our economic integration efforts are based. Much work has been completed on the nine Protocols to amend the Treaty of Chaguaramas.
I can report that against all odds we are entering the final phase of our preparations for the establishment of a Single Market and Economy. Some bemoan the pace of the process. However the Protocols on which we are so carefully building consensus and commitment between all our governments will have life-altering implications for our people. Governments, in full cognisance of that reality, are proceeding with deliberate speed.
But how many of us have created the necessary domestic legislation to implement fully the provisions of the revised treaty? Are our own politicians, who do not regularly attend CARICOM meetings, familiar with the Protocols? What about our private sectors? Our unions? Our people?
I recently met with the Social Partners in Barbados in a briefing session to discuss the Protocols and related issues in preparation for this meeting. We took the opportunity to establish collaborative mechanisms for meeting our regional commitments. I am now preparing to interact directly on the changes in CARICOM with Barbadians as a whole. I see these things as my national responsibility. The people must know and care about what we are doing.
It is for me, therefore, a source of concern that as a region we have not organised any public information activities to help our people understand and manage the change which we have determined is best for them. It is imperative that we support the building of a single Caribbean economy by instituting a system which permits popular participation in that building exercise.
Mr. Chairman, I think that as we change the nature of our relationship we have to create an enabling environment in which our aspirations and decisions can be translated into actions. In the form of regional governance that I envisage there will be a greater need for decentralisation and devolution of authority. It serves little purpose for us to reshape the structures of our community and then circumscribe too closely the parameters within which those outside this Conference can act. However, if as a body we devolve decision-making authority to an organ of the community we must then require that it takes decisions. I say that especially for the benefit of our Ministers of Finance who are failing the integration process by adopting a steadfast and studied indifference to their obligations as set by this Conference.
Mr. Chairman, one common constraint on all of us in this community is our financial capacity. The region is our home. It is also coincidentally our only hope. The work to sustain our region over the next five years when external timetables will be thrust upon us is of such fundamental importance that we cannot leave it to fate.
We cannot run from the debate on financing the community’s activities as we seek to strengthen operational and institutional efficiency. It would be both irresponsible and suicidal. Whatever economic hardships may from time to time beset our individual countries, our people have charged us with the duty of seeing them through.
I submit that our needs and expectations cannot be met by the skeleton financing that we now provide to the Secretariat. I know the Secretary-General to be a devout man but we certainly cannot expect miracles from him. We ourselves, must find a creative solution and do so quickly. This meeting must find that solution.
I say that, above all else, we must not be intimidated about devolving power to entities to act in our collective best interest.
Merely for the sake of illustration, as the Prime Minister responsible for the creation of a Caribbean Single Economy, I am conscious of my responsibility but am even more acutely aware that even if I felt that I knew what has to be done, I do not have the power to do it.
The building of a Single Caribbean Economy is integrally part of a greater requirement to create a Single Caribbean Society, and on the eve of a new century we mut resolve to strain our every sinew to make it succeed.
In 1972, Sir Arthur Lewis spoke in these terms to the Caribbean Community in his capacity as President of the Caribbean Development Bank:
- “Nothing here is politically easy; but to say that solutions are politically impossible is either to doubt the West Indian genius for self-government, or more likely to assert that some other interest must have a higher priority.
- Sound discipline is not genetically determined. It derives from history; but history changes every day, being altered by learning and adaptation. What is true is that we cannot adopt bold policies until they are widely understood; and they cannot be widely understood unless they are frequently discussed in public”
Barbados commits itself to the realisation of the bold new policies to create a new Caribbean Society.
I thank the Government of Trinidad and Tobago for having provided us with the opportunity to say so in such an atmosphere of ambience.
We however do not have a moment to lose. And it is my hope that twenty-five years hence, another generation of Caribbean leadership will not be able to proclaim that we lost the moment here in Port-of-Spain.
