(CARICOM Secretariat, Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown, Guyana) The former Director-General of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM), Ambassador Henry S. Gill, died on Thursday, 14 February in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. He succumbed, following a long period of illness.
As the CRNM’s Senior Director, the late Ambassador Gill played a pivotal role with respect to the regional strategy pursued by the Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (CARIFORUM) in its negotiations with the European Union (EU) for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
“The Caribbean has lost a key architect of the CARIFORUM-EU EPA,” said the Director-General of the CARIFORUM Directorate in the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat, Mr Ivan Ogando Lora, upon learning of Ambassador Gill’s passing.
“It is fair to say that the CARIFORUM-EU EPA will loom large with respect to the late Ambassador Gill’s legacy,” Mr Ogando opined.
Mr Ogando oversees the EPA Implementation Unit located in the CARIFORUM Directorate. This Unit was established in order to assist CARIFORUM States in the implementation of the provisions of the EPA, in the wake of negotiations that culminated in the Agreement’s signing by fourteen CARIFORUM States in October 2008 and by the fifteenth CARIFORUM State, Haiti, in December 2009.
He added, “the late Ambassador Gill was instrumental and adept in leading our EPA negotiations, arguably amongst the most technically complex of the trade negotiations that the Region has engaged in. He worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bring the EPA to fruition on schedule, bringing to bear not just his technical acumen but unmatched leadership and diplomacy skills honed over many years, and which the next generation of trade policy practitioners who worked with him benefitted from immensely.”
There has been an outpouring of grief from friends and colleagues from within the Region and farther afield, following Ambassador Gill’s passing.
Ambassador Gill came to the then CRNM (now referred to as the Office of Trade Negotiations of the CARICOM Secretariat) in 1999, following a long and distinguished career initially in academia and then as an international relations/trade expert. The Trinidadian national resigned from the top job at the CRNM with effect from 30 June 2009. Prior to assuming the post of Director-General on 4 July 2008, Ambassador Gill served with distinction as CRNM’s Senior Director for seven years with overarching responsibility for the technical work of the organization and leadership of the team of technical experts and trade specialists operating from Brussels, Geneva, Kingston, Bridgetown, and other Caribbean locations.
The fifteen signatory Caribbean Forum of African, Caribbean and Pacific (CARIFORUM) States to the EPA are the independent CARICOM Member States and the Dominican Republic.
